Mr. Jefferson, for example, remarked that the hunting tribes of Indians, with which he had a good
deal to do in his early days, had a highly organized and admirable social order, but were “without
government.” Commenting on this, he wrote Madison that “it is a problem not clear in my mind
that [this] condition is not the best,” but he suspected that it was “inconsistent with any great
degree of population.” Schoolcraft observes that the Chippewas, though living in a highly-
organized social order, had no “regular” government. Herbert Spencer, speaking of the Bechuanas,
Araucanians and Koranna Hottentots, says they have no “definite” government; while Parkman, in
his introduction to The Conspiracy of Pontiac, reports the same phenomenon, and is frankly puzzled
by its apparent anomalies.
Paine’s theory of government agrees exactly with the theory set forth by Mr. Jefferson in the
Declaration of Independence. The doctrine of natural rights, which is explicit in the Declaration, is
implicit in Common Sense;2 and Paine’s view of the “design and end of government” is precisely
the Declaration’s view, that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men”; and
further, Paine’s view of the origin of government is that it “derives its just powers from the consent
of the governed.” Now, if we apply Paine’s formulas or the Declaration’s formulas, it is abundantly
clear that the Virginian Indians had government; Mr. Jefferson’s own observations show that they
had it. Their political organization, simple as it was, answered its purpose. Their code-apparatus
sufficed for assuring freedom and security to the individual, and for dealing with such trespasses as
in that state of society the individual might encounter – fraud, theft, assault, adultery, murder. The
same is clearly true of the various peoples cited by Parkman, Schoolcraft and Spencer. Assuredly, if
the language of the Declaration amounts to anything, all these peoples had government; and all
these reporters make it appear as a government quite competent to its purpose.
Therefore when Mr. Jefferson says his Indians were “without government,” he must be taken to
mean that they did not have a type of government like the one he knew; and when Schoolcraft and
Spencer speak of “regular” and “definite” government, their qualifying words must be taken in the
same way. This type of government, nevertheless, has always existed and still exists, answering
perfectly to Paine’s formulas and the Declaration’s formulas; though it is a type which we also,
most of us, have seldom had the chance to observe. It may not be put down as the mark of an
inferior race, for institutional simplicity is in itself by no means a mark of backwardness or
inferiority; and it has been sufficiently shown that in certain essential respects the peoples who
have this type of government are, by comparison, in a position to say a good deal for themselves
on the score of a civilized character. Mr. Jefferson’s own testimony on this point is worth notice, and
so is Parkman’s. This type, however, even though documented by the Declaration, is fundamentally
so different from the type that has always prevailed in history, and is still prevailing in the world at
the moment, that for the sake of clearness the two types should be set apart by name, as they are
by nature. They are so different in theory that drawing a sharp distinction between them is now
probably the most important duty that civilization owes to its own safety. Hence it is by no means
either an arbitrary or academic proceeding to give the one type the name of government, and to
call the second type simply the State.