There is another enunciation, by which the Declaration is equally memorable, although this feature has been less noticed. Certainly it has not been noticed by Mr. Thayer, or he would never venture to derive his pretension from a Declaration which positively excludes all such idea. Other governments, even those of the American Colonies, have been founded on _force_, and the sovereignty which they claimed was unlimited, so as to sanction Slavery. That I may not seem to make this statement hastily, pardon me, if I adduce two illustrative authorities. I refer first to Sir William Blackstone, the commentator on the Laws of England, who says: “There is and must be in all forms of government, however they began, or by what right soever they subsist, a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the _rights of sovereignty_ reside;”[24] and this power, which in England is attributed to Parliament, he calls in one place “that _absolute despotic power_ which must in all governments reside _somewhere_.”[25] I refer also to the famous Dr. Johnson, who, in his tract entitled “Taxation no Tyranny,” openly says that “all government is ultimately and essentially absolute”; that “in sovereignty there are no gradations”; that “there must in every society be some power or other from which there is no appeal,” which “extends or contracts privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by physical necessity.”[26] In the face of these contemporary authorities, one an eminent jurist, and the other an eminent moralist, both well known to our fathers, and in the face of all traditions of government, the Declaration of Independence disclaimed all despotic, absolute, or unlimited power, and voluntarily brought the new sovereignty within the circumscription of _Right_. Not content with declaring that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable, and therefore beyond the control of any sovereignty, the Declaration went further, and, by abnegation worthy of perpetual honor, solemnly restrained the new sovereignty,--simply claiming for it the “power to do all acts and things which independent states may OF RIGHT do.” Even had this express limitation been omitted, no such incident of sovereignty as that asserted by Mr. Thayer could be derived from an instrument containing those words with which the Declaration begins; but with these latter words of special limitation, the pretension becomes absurd. Such, fellow-citizens, is the Popular Sovereignty of the Declaration of Independence, drawing its life, first, from the inalienable Rights of Man, and then, by positive words, restrained to what is Right. And this is the Popular Sovereignty which, lifting the down-trodden and trampling on tyrants,--now gentle as Charity, and then terrible as an army with banners,--is destined to make the tour of the world, rendering Slavery everywhere impossible.