Definition
Consent of the governed is the idea that people may be ruled only with their own agreement. John Locke argued it in 1689, and colonists applied it to taxes: the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 declared that no taxes could be imposed on them without their own consent, given personally or through their representatives. The Declaration of Independence made consent the test of a legitimate government by stating that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. In practice, the new states limited voting mostly to white men who owned property, so enslaved people, Native Americans, and most women had no say.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Consent of the governed links the colonial protests over taxes to the case for independence: colonists first said Parliament could not tax them without their consent, and the Declaration then argued that a government without consent could be replaced. Americans then tried to build their new governments on consent, as when Massachusetts had a specially elected convention write its 1780 constitution and town meetings approve it, and when the states ratified the Constitution in elected conventions. Prompts ask students to identify the idea in a passage from the Stamp Act Congress or the Declaration and to weigh the gap between the principle and the many people who could not vote. Later reformers, from abolitionists to advocates of woman suffrage, used that gap in their own arguments.
In the sources
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
Connections
- Social contract: the theory of government by agreement that the principle comes from
- John Locke: the philosopher who argued that no one may be ruled without his own consent
- No taxation without representation: colonists applied consent to taxation in the 1760s
- Declaration of Independence: it states that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed
Study it in context
Topic 3.4: Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution Watch this part