They found in the principles of natural law how government, civil society, or “sovereignty,” as those writers were apt to call it, was to be built up and regulated. Civil government did not destroy natural rights and the pursuit of happiness. On the contrary, it was intended to give those rights greater security and a fresh force and efficiency. That was the purpose men had in coming together to form a civil society for the benefit of all; that was the reason, as Burlamaqui put it, that “the sovereign became the depositary, as it were, of the will and strength of each individual.” This seemed very satisfactory to some of the colonists. You choose your sovereign, your government, for yourself, and make it your mere depositary or agent. Then as to the nature of the government, the right to govern, they were very much pleased to find that the only right there was of this sort was the right of each community to govern itself. Government by outside power was absolutely indefensible, because the notion that there was a divine right in one set of people to rule over others was exploded nonsense, and the assertion that mere might or superior power necessarily gave such right was equally indefensible. There remained only one plausible reason, and that was that superior excellence, wisdom, or ability might possibly give such right. As to this “superior excellence” theory, if you admitted it you denied man’s inherent right to liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness; you denied his moral accountability and responsibility; you crippled his independent development, his self-development, his individual action; in a word, you destroyed the whole natural system. Because a man is inferior to another is no reason why he should surrender his liberty, his accountability, his chance for self-development, to the superior. We do not surrender our property to the next man who is richer or an abler business manager. Our inferiority does not give him a right over us. On the contrary, the inferiority of the inferior man is an additional reason why he should cling to all those rights of nature which have been given to him, that he may have wherewithal to raise himself, and be alone accountable for himself. Or, as Burlamaqui briefly summarized it: “The knowledge I have of the excellency of a superior does not alone afford me a motive sufficient to subject myself to him, and to induce me to abandon my own will in order to take his for my rule; ... and without any reproach of conscience I may sincerely judge that the intelligent principle within me is sufficient to direct my conduct.”