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 public sentiment, as the basis of government, is a basis which makes government a mighty instrument for spirituality and growth; mere public sentiment, regardless of its justness or unjustness, as the basis of government, is a basis which makes government a mighty instrument for brutality and deterioration. Human equality, unalienable rights, just public sentiment, and free statehood, are inevitably and forever linked together, as reciprocal cause and effect.

All the American public men were agreed that the American Colonies, so called, were and always had been free states, and that the State of Great Britain, acting through or symbolized by its Chief Executive or its Chief Legislature, or both of them was a governmental agency, and a connecting medium, of all the free states which were connected with it, and which with it formed what they called "The British Empire." Some based this right of free statehood and political connection on the Colonial Charters; some on the doctrine of the extension to the Colonies of the Constitution of the State of Great Britain in a partial and metaphorical manner; some thought that the Colonies had always been not only free states, but also free and independent states, and that the political connection between them and the State of Great Britain was, and always had been, by consent, that is, by implied treaty. Upon careful examination, all these theories were found to be untenable. The Colonial Charters clearly did not intend to recognize the Colonies as free states, much less as free and independent states; the doctrine of the extension to them of the British Constitution was inconsistent with their statehood in any sense; and there was not a vestige of anything which could be regarded as a treaty between the Colonies and Great Britain. Finally, therefore, all were apparently brought to see that there was nothing on which to base the American claim that the Colonies were and always had been states, free or free and independent, except "the law of nature and of nations," and not even the law of nature and of nations as it was understood by the Governments of Europe, but a law of nature and of nations which was based on the broadest principles of the Reformation. Free statehood for the American Colonies was apparently asserted as a universal right of all communities, states and nations, because free statehood was considered by the framers of the Declaration to be the universal and only means of forming and expressing a just public sentiment, and therefore to be the universal and only means of securing the universal and unalienable rights of individuals. The ultimate meaning of the expression "that to secure these rights Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," seems therefore to be that by the law of nature and of nations there is a universal right of free statehood of all communities on the face of the earth within territorial limits of suitable size for the development and operation of a just public sentiment.

The Declaration denies even to all the people of a free state the right to change their government when and how they will, and according to mere public sentiment, regardless of its justness. Their right "to alter or abolish" a "form of government" is declared to exist, according to the law of nature and of nations, only when that form of government "becomes destructive of these ends," that is, when a government, instead of securing the unalienable rights of the individuals governed, attempts to destroy these rights. Moreover, it is declared that when the people alter or abolish one form of government, their right of establishing a new government is not absolute, but is limited, according to the law of nature and of nations, so that in establishing a new form of government they are obliged to "lay its foundation on such principles and organize its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,"—that is, to secure the unalienable rights of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This limitation upon the powers of even the whole people of a state necessarily results from the fact that the law of nature and of nations is universal and governs so completely every human act and relationship that no act can be done and no relationship formed which violates the unalienable rights of any individual. How the law of nature and of nations is to be enforced, the Declaration does not say. Apparently the obligation to enforce it rests upon every individual, every community, every body corporate, every state and every nation, and the ultimate force which compels its application is the just public sentiment of the world, or, as Rivier called it, "the common juridical conscience."

The declaration of the universal right of free statehood is not only made in the statement that "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." It is asserted with much more clearness in the concluding part of the Declaration, which reads: