ies to the
contract, which creates the government, and authorizes it to pass rules
and statutes to carry out its objects.[1]

But natural law tries the contract of government, and declares it lawful
or unlawful, obligatory or invalid, by the same rules by which it tries
all other contracts between man and man. A contract for the
establishment of government, being nothing but a voluntary contract
between individuals for their mutual benefit, differs, in nothing that
is essential to its validity, from any other contract between man and
man, or between nation and nation. If two individuals enter into a
contract to commit trespass, theft, robbery or murder upon a third, the
contract is unlawful and void, simply because it is a contract to
violate natural justice, or men's natural rights. If two nations enter
into a treaty, that they will unite in plundering, enslaving or
destroying a third, the treaty is unlawful, void, and of no obligation,
simply because it is contrary to justice and men's natural rights. On
the same principle, if the majority, however large, of the people of a
country, enter into a contract of government, called a constitution, by
which they agree to aid, abet or accomplish any kind of injustice, or to
destroy or invade the natural rights of any person or persons
whatsoever, whether such persons be parties to the compact or not, this
contract of government is unlawful and void--and for the same reason
that a treaty between two nations for a similar purpose, or a contract
of the same nature between two individuals, is unlawful and void. Such a
contract of government has no moral sanction. It confers no rightful
authority upon those appointed to administer it. It confers no legal or
moral rights, and imposes no legal or moral obligation upon the people
who are parties to it. The only duties, which any one can owe to it, or
to the government established under color of its authority, are
disobedience, resistance, destruction.

Judicial tribunals, sitting under the authority of this unlawful
contract or constitution, are bound, equally with other men, to declare
it, and all unjust enactments passed by the government in pursuance of
it, unlawful and void. These judicial tribunals cannot, by accepting
office under a government, rid themselves of that paramount obligation,
that all men are under, to declare, if they declare any thing, that
justice is law; that government can have no lawful powers, except those