¹ Cf. Lansing, Robert, Notes on Sovereignty (Washington, 1921), Ch. 2.Google Scholar

² Cf. Cohen, Hymen Ezra, Recent Theories of Sovereignty (Chicago, 1937), pp. 82 ff.Google Scholar

³ Willoughby, W. W., The Fundamental Concepts of Public Law (New York, 1924)Google Scholar.

⁴ Foulke, Roland R., A Treatise on International Law (Philadelphia, 1920)Google Scholar. “The word sovereignty is ambiguous. … We propose to waste no time in chasing shadows, and will therefore discard the word entirely. The word ‘independence’ sufficiently indicates every idea embraced in the use of sovereignty necessary to be known in the study of international law” (p. 69).

⁵ Jellinek, Georg, Recht des modernen Staates; Allgemeine Staatslehre (Berlin, 1900), p. 394 Google Scholar.

⁶ Cf. Preuss, Hugo, Gemeinde, Staat, und Reich als Gebeitskörperschaften (Berlin, 1889)Google Scholar; Merriam, Charles E., History of the Theory of Sovereignty Since Rousseau (New York, 1900)Google Scholar.

⁷ Cf. Duguit, Léon, Law in the Modern State (New York, 1919)Google Scholar. I am in agreement with Duguit as regards the necessity of discarding both the concept of the unaccountability of the State and the concept of State Sovereignty, but not for the reasons upon which his conclusions are founded.

⁸ From another philosophic outlook, this is also the position of Harold J. Laski. Cf. his Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty (New Haven, 1917)Google ScholarPubMed, and A Grammar of Politics (New Haven, 1925)Google ScholarPubMed.

⁹ Cf. Aristotle, Politics, Bk. III, c. 15, 1286 b 31; Bk. IV, c. 4, 1290 a 32, etc.; where Aristotle said κύριος, the Oxford translation, under the editorship of W. D. Ross, uses sovereign.— Aquinas, St. Thomas, Sum. theolog., I–II, 90, 3, obj. 3Google Scholar; 96, 5, corp., obj. 3, and ad 3, etc. Where St. Thomas said princeps the translation edited by the English Domini-cans uses sovereign.

¹⁰ Cf. Bodin, Jean, De la République (Paris, chez Jacques du Puys, 1583)Google Scholar, Bk. I, Ch. 8.

¹¹ Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. 8.

^11a Shepard, Max Adam in “Sovereignty at the Crossroads. A Study of Bodin,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 45, pp. 580–603 (1930)CrossRefGoogle Scholar has insisted that Bodin was at the cross-roads between the medieval notion of the Prince—subject to the law (the human law), not as to its vis coactiva, but as to its vis directiva (cf. Sum. Theolog. I–II, 96, 5 ad 3)—and the modern (“monist”) notion of the Prince, completely free from any law on earth. It is true that, inevitably, Bodin remained to some extent tributary to the Middle Ages, and did not go the full distance of the road later traversed by Hobbes and Austin. But if he made the Sovereign bound to respect the jus gentium and the constitutional law of monarchy (leges imperii), this was because (when it came to such things as the inviolability of private property, or the precepts of jus gentium, or the “laws of the realm” such as the Salic law, expressing the basic agreement in which the power of the Prince originates) human laws and tribunals were only enforcing Natural Law itself, so that, as a result, their pronouncements were valid even with regard to the Sovereign. This peculiar view of Bodin's (based, moreover, on a wrong idea of Natural Law) was to be discarded by the further theorists of Sovereignty, and in this sense he stopped half-way. Yet the fact remains that Bodin's sovereign was subject only to Natural Law, and to no human law whatsoever, as distinct from Natural Law, and that is the core of political absolutism.

¹² De la République, Bk. I, Ch. 8, p. 122. “For so here it behoveth first to define what majestie or Soveraigntie is, which neither lawyer nor politicall philosopher hath yet defined.” (The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, written by J. Bodin, a famous Lawyer, and a man of great Experience in Matters of State; out of the French and Latine Copies, done into English, by Eichard Knolles. London, Impensis G. Bishop, 1606, p. 84.)

¹³ Ibid., p. 122. “Majestie or Soveraigntie is the most high, absolute, and perpétuall power over the citisens and subjects in a Commonweale” (English translation, p. 84).

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 122. “This power ought to be perpetuall” (p. 84).

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 126. “For the tearme of the life of him that hath the power” (p. 87).

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 122. “Seeing that they are but men put in trust, and keepers of this soveraigne power, untill it shall please the people or the prince that gave it them to recall it” (p. 84).

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 127. “If the people shall give all their power unto any one so long as he liveth, by the name of a magistrat, lieutenant, or governour, or onely to discharge them-selves of the exercise of their power: in this case he is not to be accounted any soveraigne, but a plaine officer, or lieutenant, regent, governour, or guerdon and keeper of another mans power” (p. 88).

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 127. “If such absolute power bee given him purely and simply without the name of a magistrat, governour, or lieutenant, or other forme of deputation, it is certaine that such an one is, and may call himselfe a Soveraigne Monarch: for so the people hath voluntarily disseised and dispoyled it selfe of the soveraigne power, to sease and invest another therein; having on him, and uppon him transported all the power, authoritie, prerogatives, and soveraigneties thereof” (p. 88).

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 128. “For the people or the lords of a Commonweale, may purely and simply give the soveraigne and perpetuall power to any one, to dispose of the goods and lives, and of all the state at his pleasure: and so afterward to leave it to whom he list: like as the proprietarie or owner may purely and simply give his owne goods, without any other cause to be expressed, than of his owne meere bountie; which is indeed the true donation, which no more receiveth condition, being once accomplished and perfected” (pp. 88–89).

²⁰ Ibid., p. 143. “The monarch is divided from the people” (p. 99).

²¹ Ibid., p. 142. “So wee see the principall point of soveraigne majestie, and absolute power, to consist principally in giving laws unto the subjects in generall, without their consent” (p. 98).

²² Ibid., p. 125. “Whereas the prince or people themselves, in whome the Soveraigntie resteth, are to give account unto none, but to the immortall God alone” (p. 86).

²³ Ibid., p. 143. “A sovereign prince next under God, is not by oath bound unto any” (p. 99).

²⁴ Ibid., p. 124. “So that Soveraigntie is not limited either in power, charge, or time certaine” (p. 85).

²⁵ Ibid., pp. 156, 161. “The prince is the image of God.”

²⁶ Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. 10, p. 215. “For as the great soveraigne God cannot make another God equall unto himself, considering that he is of infinit power and greatnes, and that there cannot bee two infinit things, as is by naturall demonstrations manifest: so also may wee say, that the prince whom we have set down as the image of God, cannot make a subject equall unto himselfe, but that his owne soveraigntie must thereby be abased” (p. 155).

²⁷ “Car souverain (c'est à dire, celuy qui est par dessus tous les subjects) ne pourra convenir a celuy qui a faict de son subject son compagon." Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. 10, p. 215.

²⁸ That is, absolute power directly conferred on the king by God, not indirectly through the people transferring the “absolute power of the Commonwealth” to him.

²⁹ I mean, in the vocabulary of political theory. The word “sovereign” (from Low Latin superanus, “Ex optimaturn ordine, princeps") was employed long ago in the common language, meaning any official endowed with superior authority, for instance “superior judge.” Du Cange (see Summits) quotes an edict of the French King Charles V, made in 1367, which reads: “Voulons et ordonons que se … le Bailli ou autre leur Souverain.…”

³⁰ Waller, R. A. (ed.), Leviathan (Cambridge, 1904), Part II, Ch. 17.Google Scholar

³¹ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract (Tozer, Henry J. trans., London, 1920)Google Scholar, Bk. II, Chs. 3 and 4. “It follows from what precedes that the general will is always right …” (p. 123). “Why is the general will always right, and why do all invariably desire the prosperity of each … “ (p. 126).

³² Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 4, p. 125. “… the social pact gives the body politic an absolute power over all its members; and it is this same power which, when directed by the general will, bears, as I said, the name of sovereignty.”

³³ Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 1, p. 119. “I say, then, that sovereignty, being nothing but the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated, and that the sovereign power, which is only a collective being, can be represented by itself alone.”

³⁴ Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. 16, p. 190. “… the supreme authority can no more be modified than alienated; to limit it is to destroy it.

³⁵ Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. 7, p. 113. “… the sovereign power needs no guarantee toward its subjects.… The sovereign, for the simple reason that it is so, is always everything that it ought to be.”

³⁶ Ibid., Bk. Ill, Ch. 4, p. 160. “If there were a nation of gods, it would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is unsuited to men.”

³⁷ Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 12.

³⁸ Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 7.

³⁹ Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 7.

⁴⁰ Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 5.

⁴¹ Ibid., Bk. IV, Ch. 8.

⁴² Ibid., Bk. II, Ch. 3.

⁴³ Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. 15, p. 187. “Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason that it cannot be alienated; … The deputies of the people, then, are not and cannot be its representatives; they are only its commissioners and can conclude nothing definitely. Every law which the people in person have not ratified is invalid; it is not a law. The English nation thinks that it is free, but is greatly mistaken, for it is only during the election of members of Parliament; as soon as they are elected, it is enslaved and counts for nothing. The use which it makes of the brief moment of freedom renders the loss of liberty well-deserved.”

⁴⁴ Wright, Quincy, Mandates Under the League of Nations (Chicago, 1930), pp. 281–282 Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Cf. Aquinas, St. Thomas, Sum. theolog., I–II, 96, 5Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ St. Paul, , I. Cor., 2, 15 Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Lansing, op. cit., p. 3.