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A fundamental question debated by the representatives of the United States Constitutional Convention in 1787 was that of authority. Who shall govern? In a republic law is king; therefore the Constitution became the sovereign by the votes of 39 men who received their authorization to form such a document from a small percentage of the populace compromising the states they represented. Sixteen delegates refused to sign, while 15 others were not present. But, by what authority if any were the framers able to impel future generations to salute, obey, and confine 310 million present day Americans to the laws in the Constitution? Their disputation was both legal and philosophical as are modern day vociferations. A more philosophically radical question must be asked in regard to individuals wearied by United States constitutional coercion namely; does the constitution have any authority at all? At first glance one might resist such an inquisition as preposterous, however upon further review one finds two proponents of such thinking from the distant past, Thomas Jefferson and Lysander Spooner; one a former president of the United States and the other a lawyer and ardent abolitionist. In this article I will use Jefferson and Spooner's arguments to reexamine the question if the Constitution has any authority to oblige succeeding generations to its laws both philosophically and legally, as seen through eighteenth and nineteenth centuries understanding of natural law.

The Liberation From Textual Sovereignty: Thomas Jefferson and Lysander Spooner’s Dismissal of United States Constitutional Authority