&gt; I think that you are assuming a framework of natural rights to make this statement, which is a circular argument.<p>Not true! For thousands of years, in hundreds of nations, the right to rule was divinely conferred and hereditary. The concept of natural rights was the legal invention that conferred similar rights upon everyday regular folks, so that they could self-organize to form their own sovereign government.<p>Sure people had done that before, but the concept of &quot;natural rights&quot; formalized an existing cultural convention--which is what all law does.<p>&gt; independent of any notion of right, the people have an inherent power to govern<p>I mean, how can you have power without rights? Slaves in the American south are examples of people who did not have rights. Not coincidentally, they also had no power.