Question #7: What are “legitimate foundation” and “legitimate authority” in political philosophy?

June 24, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment

“The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. –Alexander Hamilton

Simply put, legitimate foundation means the will of the People at large, while legitimate authority is the express permission granted by the People to the government to perform some function.

Put together, they form the philosophical foundation of the powerful idea that man does not exist for the state, but that the state exists for man.

Legitimate Foundation

The idea that the government should exist according to the will of the People and solely to benefit the People at large was revolutionary in the 18th Century. Previously, governments primarily benefited those governing, or special interests.

The American Founders taught that the will of the People, as expressed through constitutional means, is the only solid, sustainable, and legitimate foundation of republican government.

This does not mean, however, that they were referring simply to the concept of majority rule alone, as we learn from Federalist Paper #51; the idea is to guide the nation by the will of the majority, while protecting minority rights (i.e. preventing the majority from taking private property).

Legitimate Authority

Thomas Jefferson spoke of legitimate authority in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote, “…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”

The United States Constitution was the first (and to my knowledge the only) constitution to be instigated by, or to have originated in, the People, then ratified by the People. In other words, the People, through their colonial representatives, called for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Representatives at the Convention represented the People within their respective territories–not the government itself.

They were authorized by the People to do the will of the People. Our Constitution was initiated and created from the bottom up, rather than dictated from the top down. Then, after its creation by the representatives of the People, the Constitution was taken back to the People–once again through their colonial representatives–to be ratified, or accepted.

Previously, the historical norm was for the government–whether through a monarchy, aristocracy, or other form of ruler’s law–to dictate from the top down the laws and constitutional forms that the People must obey. As David Hume wrote in 1752, “Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally either on usurpation or conquest or both, without any pretense of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people.”