This reading guide can be used to support reading Gordon S. Wood's essay, The Consent of the Governed, from the America at 250 Civic Toolkit.
In this essay, historian Gordon S. Wood examines how one of the Declaration of Independence’s famous ideas, government by consent, took shape in the revolutionary era. He traces the shift from Britain’s idea of “virtual representation” to America’s insistence on actual representation through voting, and shows how debates over state constitutions, fears of “excess democracy,” and the U.S. Constitution transformed ideas about sovereignty, public opinion, and the people’s role in government.