Instructions to the Delegates from Mecklenburg, North Carolina, to the Provincial Congress at Halifax, 1 Nov. 1776, I.2.8

This North Carolina congress (the fifth and final of the five which were held from 1774 to 1776) approved the first constitution of the state, including its "Declaration of Rights" (such as the right to peaceable assembly and the right to bear arms.) The instructions bid the delegates to accept the Declaration of Independence, to press for a simple democracy for the state, and to oppose the concentration of power in the hands of the wealthy. The delegates were to press for a bill of inviolable rights of the people and individuals, which would maintain that the people are the source of power, that politicians are their servants and have inferior power, so that the people are the ultimate authority and so that no other power should be able to alter the determinations of the people.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, 26 Aug. 1776, I.2.7

Jefferson would like the senate to be wise and independent. Its members should be elected by representatives of the people since this will greatly increase the likelihood of their being wise (the people being less likely, and their selections more, to elect wise men.) The senators should also be limited to one term (of nine years) since this will let them be free from worry about re-election and therefore independent.

James Burgh, Political Disquisitions, I.2.6

Burgh (1714-1775), a British Whig and schoolmaster, was involved in reform movements in the mid-18th Century in England. His point in this passage is simply that members of the British House of Commons no longer take seriously their duty to represent their respective groups of constituents. The power of the representative derives from his having been selected by his constituents and in former times members took this seriously by reflecting their constituents' views and consulting with them before making decisions. But by Burgh's time, they think themselves entitled to be members for life, their elections are infrequent and corrupted by bribery and power-broking, they take themselves to be dictators, and they feel themselves national leaders, rather than representatives of small areas. Burgh laments that the danger of power without responsibility is a perennial lesson which must be learned over and over again by the people. In this deplorably corrupted state of affairs, Burgh sarcastically remarks, "And yet we are a free people."