Popular sovereignty is the

principle A principle may relate to a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of beliefs or behavior or a chain of reasoning. They provide a guide for behavior or evaluation. A principle can make values explicit, so t ...

that the leaders of a state and its

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political legitimacy. Popular sovereignty, being a principle, does not imply any particular political implementation.Leonard Levy notes of the "doctrine" of popular sovereignty that it "relates primarily not to the Constitution's ctualoperation but to its source of authority and supremacy, ratification, amendment, and possible abolition" (Tarcov 1986, v. 3, p. 1426).

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...

expressed the concept when he wrote that "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns".

Origins

In ''

Defensor pacis The tract ''Defensor pacis'' (''The Defender of Peace'') laid the foundations of modern doctrines of popular sovereignty. It was written by Marsilius of Padua (Italian: Marsilio da Padova), an Italian medieval scholar. It appeared in 1324 and prov ...

'',

Marsilius of Padua Marsilius of Padua (; born ''Marsilio Mainardi'', ''Marsilio de i Mainardini'' or ''Marsilio Mainardini''; – ) was an Italian scholar, trained in medicine, who practiced a variety of professions. He was also an important 14th-century pol ...

advocated a form of republicanism that views the people as the only legitimate source of political authority. Sovereignty lies with the people, and the people should elect, correct, and, if necessary, depose its political leaders. Popular sovereignty in its modern sense is an idea that dates to the

social contract In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is an idea, theory, or model that usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Conceptualized in the Age of Enlightenment, it ...

school represented by

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...

(1588–1679),

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...

(1632–1704), and

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...

(1712–1778). Rousseau authored a book titled ''

The Social Contract ''The Social Contract'', originally published as ''On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right'' (), is a 1762 French-language book by the Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The book theorizes about how ...

'', a prominent political work that highlighted the idea of the "

general will In political philosophy, the general will () is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It can be considered as an early, informal predecessor to the idea of a social ...

". The central tenet of popular sovereignty is that the legitimacy of a government's

authority Authority is commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group of other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' may be practiced by legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government,''The New Fontana Dictionary of M ...

and of its

laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

is based on the

consent of the governed In political philosophy, consent of the governed is the idea that a government's political legitimacy, legitimacy and natural and legal rights, moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society o ...

. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau all held that individuals enter into a social contract, voluntarily giving up some of their natural freedom, so as to secure protection from the dangers inherent in the freedom of others. Whether men are seen as naturally more prone to

violence Violence is characterized as the use of physical force by humans to cause harm to other living beings, or property, such as pain, injury, disablement, death, damage and destruction. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence a ...

and rapine (Hobbes) or to

cooperation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition ...

and

kindness Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward in return. It is a subject of interest in philosophy, religion, and psychology. It can be directed towards o ...

(Rousseau), the idea that a legitimate social order emerges only when liberties and

duties A duty (from "due" meaning "that which is owing"; , past participle of ; , whence "debt") is a commitment or expectation to perform some action in general or if certain circumstances arise. A duty may arise from a system of ethics or morality, e ...

are equal among citizens binds the social contract thinkers to the concept of popular sovereignty. An earlier development of the theory of popular sovereignty is found among the

School of Salamanca The School of Salamanca () was an intellectual movement of 16th-century and 17th-century Iberian Scholasticism, Scholastic theology, theologians rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the ...

(see e.g.

Francisco de Vitoria Francisco de Vitoria ( – 12 August 1546; also known as Francisco de Victoria) was a Spanish Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian, and jurist of Renaissance Spain. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Sala ...

(1483–1546) or Francisco Suarez (1548–1617)). Like the theorists of the divine right of kings and Locke, the Salamancans saw sovereignty as emanating originally from

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

. However, unlike the divine right theorists and in agreement with Locke, they saw it as passing from God to all people equally, not only to

monarch A monarch () is a head of stateWebster's II New College Dictionary. "Monarch". Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest ...

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

s and popular monarchies are theoretically based on popular sovereignty. However, a legalistic notion of popular sovereignty does not necessarily imply an effective, functioning

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

. A

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

or even an individual

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute Power (social and political), power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to r ...

may claim to represent the will of the people and rule in its name, which would be congruent with Hobbes's view on the subject. Most modern definitions present democracy as a necessary condition of popular sovereignty. Judge

Ivor Jennings Sir William Ivor Jennings () (16 May 1903 – 19 December 1965) was a British lawyer and academic. He served as the Chancellor (education), vice chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1961–63) and the University of Ceylon (1942–55). E ...

called the notion that governments are the creation of the consent of its people "ridiculous", as "the people cannot decide until somebody decides who are the people".

United States

The application of the doctrine of popular sovereignty receives particular emphasis in American history, notes historian Christian G. Fritz's ''American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War'', a study of the early history of American constitutionalism.Christian G. Fritz
''American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War''
(

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 2008) at p. 290, 400. In describing how Americans attempted to apply this doctrine prior to the territorial struggle over slavery that led to the Civil War, political scientist Donald S. Lutz noted the variety of American applications: The American Revolution marked a departure in the concept of popular sovereignty as it had been discussed and employed in the European historical context. American revolutionaries aimed to substitute the sovereignty in the person of

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...

, with a collective sovereign—composed of the people. Thenceforth, American revolutionaries generally agreed with and were committed to the principle that governments were legitimate only if they rested on popular sovereignty – that is, the sovereignty of the people. This was often linked with the notion of the consent of the governed—the idea of the people as a sovereign—and had clear 17th- and 18th-century intellectual roots in English history.

1850s

In the 1850s, in the run-up to the Civil War, Northern Democrats led by Senator

Lewis Cass Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782June 17, 1866) was a United States Army officer and politician. He represented Michigan in the United States Senate and served in the Cabinets of two U.S. Presidents, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan. He was also the 1 ...

of Michigan and

Stephen A. Douglas Stephen Arnold Douglas (né Douglass; April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. As a United States Senate, U.S. senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party (United States) ...

of Illinois promoted "popular sovereignty" as a middle position on the slavery issue. It said that white residents of territories should be able to decide by voting whether or not slavery would be allowed in the territory. The federal government did not have to make the decision, and by appealing to democracy, Cass and Douglas hoped they could finesse the question of support for or opposition to slavery. Douglas applied "popular sovereignty" to Kansas in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which passed Congress in 1854. The Act stated that in Kansas and Nebraska, "every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years...shall be entitled to vote at the first election". The Act had two unexpected results. By dropping the

Missouri Compromise The Missouri Compromise (also known as the Compromise of 1820) was federal legislation of the United States that balanced the desires of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand ...

of 1820 under which said slavery would never be allowed in Kansas, it was a major boost for the expansion of slavery. Overnight, outrage united anti-slavery forces across the North into an "anti-Nebraska" movement that soon was institutionalized as the Republican Party, with its firm commitment to stop the expansion of slavery. Also, pro- and anti-slavery elements moved into Kansas with the intention of allowing or banning slavery, which led to a raging state-level civil war, known as "

Bleeding Kansas Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War, was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the ...

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

targeted popular sovereignty in the

Lincoln–Douglas debates The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas ...

of 1858, which left Douglas in a position that alienated Southern pro-slavery Democrats, who considered him weak in his support of slavery. The Southern Democrats broke with the party and ran their own candidate against Lincoln and Douglas in 1860.Childers 2011, pp. 48–70

Notes

References

* Adams, Willi Paul (1980), ''The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era'', University of North Carolina Press, * Childers, Christopher (March 2011),
Interpreting Popular Sovereignty: A Historiographical Essay
, ''Civil War History'' 57 (1): 48–70 * Conkin, Paul K. (1974), ''Self-Evident Truths: Being a Discourse on the Origins & Development of the First Principles of American Government—Popular Sovereignty, Natural Rights, and Balance & Separation of Powers'', Indiana University Press, * Lutz, Donald S. (1980), ''Popular Consent and Popular Control: Whig Political Theory in the Early State Constitutions'', Louisiana State Univ. Press, * Lutz, Donald S. (1988), ''The Origins of American Constitutionalism'', Louisiana State University Press, * Morgan, Edmund S. (1977), "The Problem of Popular Sovereignty", in ''Aspects of American Liberty: Philosophical, Historical and Political: Addresses Presented at an Observance of the Bicentennial Year of American Independence'' (The American Philosophical Society, 1977) * Morgan, Edmund S. (1988), ''Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America'', W.W. Norton and Company, * Peters, Jr., Ronald M. (1978) ''The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: A Social Compact'', University of Massachusetts Press, * Reid, John Phillip (1986–1993), ''American Revolution'' III (4 volumes ed.), University of Wisconsin Press, * Silbey, Joel H., ed. (1994), "Constitutional Conventions", ''Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System'' (3 volumes ed.) (Charles Scribner's Sons) I, * Tarcov, Nathan (1986), "Popular Sovereignty (in Democratic Political Theory)", in Levy, Leonard, ''Encyclopedia of the American Constitution'' 3,

Origins

United States

1850s

See also

Notes

References

Further reading