Jefferson moves on in the next sentence to demolish the notion of the divine origin of government. Governments are made by men, he states, and receive their powers from “the consent of the governed.” Although he does not mention it, that idea originated with the Scottish philosopher George Buchanan almost two hundred years earlier, starting a train of thought that was carried by Scottish tutors to their American pupils. It means that all power comes from the people—a notion that would be reinforced eleven years later by the opening phrase of the Constitution, “We the people.”
