Although we have yet to review the evidence which shows that Franklin at one stage in his political career was an arch-imperialist, we need to digress to observe an intellectual factor which, if only fragmentarily expressed in his political thought during his activities in behalf of Pennsylvania liberties, was to become a momentous sanction when during the war he became a diplomat of revolution. From the Stoics, from Cicero, Grotius, Puffendorf, Burlamaqui, and as Rev. Jonathan Mayhew[i-269] observes, from Plato and Demosthenes, from Sidney, Milton, Hoadley, and Locke; in addition, from Gordon and Trenchard (see _Cato's Letters_ and _The Independent Whig_), Blackstone, Coke--from these and many others, the colonists derived a pattern of thought known as natural rights, dependent on natural law.[i-270] There is no better summary of natural rights than the Declaration of Independence; and of it John Adams remarked: "There is not an idea in it but what has been hackneyed in Congress for two years before."[i-271] Carl Becker pointedly observes: "Where Jefferson got his ideas is hardly so much a question as where he could have got away from them."[i-272] A characteristic summary of natural law may be found in Blackstone's _Commentaries_:[i-273] This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.[i-274] Discoverable only by reason, natural laws are immutable and universal, apprehensible by all men. As Hamilton wrote, The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact between the rulers and the ruled, and must be liable to such limitations as are necessary for the security of the _absolute rights_ of the latter; for what original title can any man, or set of men, have to govern others, except their own consent? To usurp dominion over a people in their own despite, or to grasp at a more extensive power than they are willing to intrust, is to violate that law of nature which gives every man a right to his personal liberty, and can therefore confer no obligation to obedience.[i-275]