This article relates to an early discourse from the Supreme Court which essentially ties the concepts of “Liberty” and “Sovereignty” together as companion concepts.
Few people understand the concept of individual sovereignty as it pertains to citizenship. Below is an early Supreme Court opinion written by Justice John Jay, the first Chief Justice to be appointed to the Supreme Court. I have been told by an attorney that the idea/concept of individual sovereignty was a “big lie” and that sovereignty devolved to the people as one body for the whole. While such a notion violates the existence theorem and has no precedent to protect it from being categorized as belonging to the class of fictions, I have footnoted the following passage to help the reader decide whether Chief Justice Jay is referring to the body of individuals as a whole or whether he is referring to the body of individuals as individuals.
“The revolution, or rather the Declaration of Independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time, providing for more domestic concerns, by states conventions, and other temporary arrangements. From the crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of their country passed to the people of it: and it was then not an uncommon opinion that the un-appropriated lands, which belonged to the crown, passed, not to the people of the colony or states within those limits they were situated, but to the whole people… ‘We the people of the United States do ordain and establish this constitution.’ Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country: and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a constitution by which it was their will that the state governments should be bound, and to which constitutions should be made to conform… It will be sufficient to observe briefly, that the sovereign¬ties of Europe, and particularly in England, existed on feudal principles. That system considers the prince as the sovereign, and the people his subjects; it regards his person as the object of allegiance, and excludes the idea of his being on an equal footing with a subject, either in a court of justice or elsewhere. That system contemplates him as being the fountain of honor and authority; and from his grace and grant, derives all franchises, immunities, and privileges; it is easy to perceive, that such a sovereign could not be amenable to a court of justice, or subjected to judicial control and actual constraint… The same feudal ideas run through all their jurisprudence, and constantly remind us of the distinction between the prince and the subject. No such ideas obtain here; at the revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country , but they are sovereigns without subjects … and have none to govern but themselves; the citizens of America are equal as fellow-citizens, and as joint tenants in the sovereignty. From the differences existing between feudal sovereignties and governments founded on compacts, it necessarily follows that their respective prerogatives must differ. In Europe, the sovereignty is generally ascribed to the prince; here it rests with the people; there the sov¬ereign actually administers the government; here never in a single instance; our governors are agents of the people; and at most stand in the same relation to their sovereign, in which the regents of Europe stand to their sovereigns. Their princes have personal powers, dignities and preeminence; our rulers have none but official; nor do they partake in the sovereignty otherwise, or in any other capacity, than
as private citizens. Chief Justice Jay, Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 (US) Dall 419, 457, 1 LEd 440, 456 at 454. (1793) (emphasis added)
AND
“Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to the law, for it is the author of the law, but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts… For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, at the mere will of another, seems intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Sheriff, 118 US. 356 (1886) (emphasis added)