Sidney argues that a People’s liberty is a gift of nature and exists prior to any government (1683)

In these passages Algernon Sidney goes to the heart of the matter of the social contract justification of the state. In his view, each individual has a “right of liberty” which comes directly from God or Nature. The “right of dominion” say (of a king over a people), if it exists at all, is a derivative of the first which comes about by means of “forfeiture” or “willing resignation”. By “forfeiture” he means the unanimous agreement of people in a state of nature to hand over or surrender their rights to a sovereign power, which he rejects as “hardly comprehensible” among people with equal rights. By “willing resignation” he means the creation of an express contract or charter between the individual and his “governor” for expressly designed and limited purposes. In the absence of such a charter he mocks those who claim a broad “right of dominion” over others (like 17th century monarchs) because God has not clearly revealed his intention for some to rule over others by “set[ting] some distinguishing marks of dominion and subjection upon men [by] caus[ing] some to be born with crowns upon their heads, and all others with saddles upon their backs.” Thomas Jefferson was to make this same point in a letter he wrote to Roger Weightman in June 1826 shortly before he died.