A further meaning apparently is that the first object of all government is to do justice, and the second object to do the will of the governed. A government which recognizes itself as deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, is bound to do justice in such manner as will conform to the just public sentiment of the governed. It is in no case bound to execute the will of the governed, much less the will of the majority, unless that will conforms to justice in the particular case. Nor can it do an unjust act and plead in justification the consent of the governed, for the consent of the governed to an unjust act is void by the law of nature and of nations. This principle was often appealed to by the Americans, notably in the final manifesto of 1778, as an answer to the British claim that the Americans were bound by the restrictive Acts of Parliament on account of their acquiescence in them. They said that an attempted consent to an unjust act of government was a nugatory act, an unjust act of government being itself nugatory, and deserving obedience only from motives of policy. This doctrine that government is the doing of justice according to public sentiment is, of course, utterly opposed to the doctrine that government is the will of the majority. If government is the doing of justice according to public sentiment, government is the expression and application of a spiritually and intellectually educated public sentiment, since the knowledge of what is just comes only after a course of spiritual and intellectual education, and the forms and methods of government should be such as are adapted to such spiritual and intellectual education. Education takes place by direct personal contact, and can best be accomplished only through the establishment of permanent groups of individuals who are all under the same conditions. The formation and expression of a just public sentiment, therefore, requires the establishment of permanent groups of persons, more or less free from any external control which interferes with their rightful action, under a leadership which makes for their spiritual and intellectual education in justice. Such permanent groups within territorial limits of suitable size for developing and expressing a just public sentiment, are free states. Territorial divisions of persons set apart for the purpose of convenience in determining the local public sentiment, regardless of its justness or unjustness, are not states, but are mere voting districts. Just public sentiment, for its expression and application, requires the existence of many small free states, disconnected to the extent necessary to enable each to be free from all improper external control in educating itself in the ways of justice; mere public sentiment, for its expression and application, requires only the existence of a few great states, unitary in their form and divided into voting districts. Just