 The first of those values forgotten in the government today is the consent of the governed. Jefferson argued and Congress agreed that no government is licit or moral or consistent with the natural law unless it enjoys the consent of all those it governs. Historians today believe that all at the time he wrote this, about one-third of the adult white landowning males in the colonies supported revolution. About one-third opposed it and about one-third were neutrals or undecided.