As we have seen, the problem of executive power is that it seems to require violations of the law and thus undermines consent. This is a theoretical problem that calls for a practical solution. As lawgiver and executive, Jefferson struggled with the law's inability to meet the demands of political life. As a writer of constitutions, he formulated and reformulated the vesting clauses for the Virginia governor in order to empower the executive but resisted general grants of authority. As wartime governor, he found that he had to work outside the law in order to defend his state against the British as well as to enforce the laws passed by the Virginia legislature, but he also asked the executive council or the legislative branch for retroactive approval of his extraconstitutional actions. Instead of expanding the law in order to accommodate executive prerogative, Jefferson's understanding of executive power requires that executives defend their actions on the grounds that they acted outside the law to achieve the public good. The means by which executives would throw themselves on the people is by a declaration of principle.

Jefferson believed that declarations of principle would provide the criteria by which the people could judge executives and thus lessen the likelihood that executives would use necessity to act against the public good. Because declarations would show the principles by which executives would be guided, they could be used to demarcate the limits of executive power while at the same time bringing public opinion to a single point.