Note 7 — Freedom and Slavery in Appalachian America

[return]7. Buchanan, the most literary of these reformers, insisted that society originates in the effort of men to escape from the primordial state of nature, that in a society thus formed the essential to well-being is justice, that justice is maintained by laws rather than by kings, that the maker of the laws is the people, and that the interpreter of the laws is not the king, but the body of judges chosen by the people. He reduced the power of the ruler to the minimum, the only power assigned to him being to maintain the morals of the state by making his life a model of virtuous living. The reformer claimed, too, that when the ruler exceeds his power he becomes a tyrant, and that people are justified in rejecting the doctrine of passive obedience and slaying him. See Buchanan, "De Jure Apud Scotos" (Aberdeen, 1762); Dunning, "History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu"; and P. Hume Brown, "Biography of John Knox."