Can a Person Refuse to Contract With Government?

If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, as the Declaration of Independence says, can a person withhold that consent? Modern theories often frame the relationship with government as a series of contracts — licenses, numbers, benefits — that one can decline.

The genuine freedom not to contract

Ordinary contracts with government can be refused. No one is obliged to bid on a government contract, accept a grant, take out a federally backed loan, or enroll in most voluntary programs. The freedom not to contract is real in this sense.

There are also specific statutory protections. Section 7 of the Privacy Act of 1974 restricts federal, state and local agencies from denying a right or benefit because a person declines to disclose a Social Security number, subject to exceptions. Yet in Bowen v. Roy (1986) the Supreme Court held that government may use a number it already assigned, even over religious objection.

Obligations that are not contracts

Most of what government demands does not rest on contract at all. Taxes, criminal law and traffic rules are imposed by law; they bind whether or not a person agreed. This is the point at which the contract framing loses traction: refusing a contract does nothing to an obligation that never arose from one.

Spooner's challenge

The most serious version of the argument is philosophical. In No Treason No. VI (1870), Lysander Spooner argued that the Constitution bound no one who had not signed it, and that its signers were long dead. If political obligation rests on consent, he asked, where is the consent? Political philosophers continue to debate tacit consent, fair play and natural duty as alternatives. Courts do not treat the question as justiciable.

The doctrine that does limit government's terms

Where government offers a benefit, the law places limits on the conditions it can attach. Under the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, government may not deny a benefit because a person exercises a constitutional right (Perry v. Sindermann, 1972), nor demand property as a permit condition without a sufficient connection to the permit's impact (Koontz, 2013). This is the real legal terrain the "refuse the contract" instinct points toward.

What the record establishes

A person can decline government contracts and many benefits. A person cannot opt out of obligations imposed by law by refusing to sign. The deeper question Spooner raised — what makes those obligations legitimate without individual consent — is not answered by any court, and remains one of the most important in political thought.