According to natural law, the authority of the external governance must extrapolate an order of individualistic natural rights according to human nature that it is authorized to defend. Because natural rights are vested in the person and not the government, the authority of the external governance comes from a society of moral individuals. Using reason, this can only be done by a community through the application of rational thought and techniques to observe the universe. Because all created things bear a partial image of their creator, we can discern that there are things we humans have in common with our own. One of these commonalities is reason and it is shared with no other creature.
Because we can discern aspects of creation, we see around us a reasoned universe that obeys certain laws. Our Creator vested interest and skill into us as His creation and provides specific natural laws for us to abide by. Just as the laws of physics apply equally over time and space, natural law, by definition of being a law, applies to all people equally. Thus, an edict is handed down by our Creator that obligates those under natural law to protect the unalienable rights of all by "[organizing the government's] powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness." (Declaration of Independence)
No governing structure has the authority to bind and loose one law-abiding individual over another. It is necessary then for the government's power to be universally enforced over the law-breaker. When relativistic social laws are allowed to discriminate between people, class and race warfare erupt and justice is lost. Natural laws and the rights given therein must transcend class and race. The Declaration of Independence states that among these rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
We are not given the gift of life so that it can be arbitrarily taken away by another recipient of the same gift. Having been given life, we have a cosmic expectation and the liberty to enjoy it as we see fit insofar as it does not infringe upon the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of others. We exercise the liberty of enjoying our life through the pursuit of happiness (or property as the Founders would also have said). Thus, without the protection of our pursuit of happiness, or fruits of our labor such as land and wages, we are stripped of the liberty to pursue happiness in our lives. Without the right to pursue happiness in our lives, the right to the gift of life has little meaning.
Reasonably, any use of a sovereign's self-government that infringes upon the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of another is cause for the coercive authority, or government, to engage itself in order to protect the victim, bind the law-breaker, reestablish order and force restitution. In a two realm system of governance in which natural rights are extended to individuals and the protection of those rights given by the people to the government, this is consistent. Quite simply, the protection offered by the government provides for equality of all people as a gift from God, equality before the law, and equal protection of rights.
Government operates by the consent of a moral, law-abiding citizenry in order for it to punish behaviors that infringe upon the natural rights of others. Government being instituted by the people, it is a fundamental responsibility of said people to dispel any government that fails them in such a duty. As our Declaration states, "...Whenever any form of government becomes destructive [of securing our rights], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Is our government operating under the consent of the governed and protecting us?
I couldn't have said it better myself.
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