Sometimes sovereignty is defined as the organized or general will of the community. "Sovereignty resides in the community" (Woodrow Wilson).
This was the belief in the Vench Revolution. "Sachez que vous etes rois et plus des rois," said a revolutionary orator cited by Taine. It was the language of the founders of the American constitution and contemporary political writers.
The same theory assumes a more subtle form, especially in the writings of Hegelians. Sovereignty is with them a term descriptive of the real will of the community, which is not neces sarily that of the majority.
Sovereignty is used in a further sense when Plato and Aristotle speak of the sovereignty of the laws (Laws, 4. 715; Politics, 4. 4 ; 3. 15). Thus Plato remarks : "I see that the State in which the law is above the rulers, and the rulers are the inferiors of the law, has salvation." (See also Gierke, Genossenschaftsrecht, 3. 8.) Even in mediaeval writers, such as Bracton, is found the notion that the king is subject to the laws (J. N. Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings, p. 13). We find the same expressed by many German jurists (Gierke x.). In Der Souveranitatsbegri ff im Bodin, etc., by Adolf Dock [1897] p. 6, and in La Conception juridique de l'etat, by Combothecra, p. 9o. There are many definitions—some ideal—of sovereignty.
Half Sovereign States.—The phrase half sovereign States was invented by J. J. Moser to describe States possessing some of the attributes of sovereignty. Under this class are grouped very diverse communities.
Feudalism had terms to express the varieties of fiefs which existed under it ; modern international law has no generally accepted terminology for the still greater variety of States which now exist. These varieties tend to multiply, and it is difficult to reduce them all to a few types. The theory that States are equal, and possess all the attributes of sovereignty, was never true. It is still more at variance with the facts in these days when a few great States predominate, and when the contact of western States with African and Asiatic States or communities gives rise to rela tions of dependence falling short of conquest. We have:
I. States which have complete independence, complete au tonomy, external and internal, and which are recognized in inter national law as sovereign States.
2. States which have complete external independence, but are more or less subject permanently to other States as to their internal affairs. Of this class there are now few examples.
3. States which enjoy complete autonomy as to internal affairs, but which are more or less subject to other States as to foreign relations. These are some examples : a. Protectorates and Suzerainties (q.v.).
4. States which have, by treaty or otherwise, parted with some portion of their sovereignty and formed new political units : what Herbert Spencer calls "compound political heads." For years one of the burning questions in the politics of the United States was the question whether the individual States of the Union remained sovereign.
5. Another division includes anomalous cases, such as Egypt, until August 1936, in which one Government administers a coun try as to which another State retains certain powers.
6. The territories governed or administered by chartered companies form a class by themselves. Nominally such com panies are the delegates of some States ; in reality they act as if they were true sovereigns.
7. Two other classes may be mentioned : (a) cases of real union between States, as formerly between Austria and Hungary; (b) personal unions, distinguished from the above-named f orms e.g., the union of Great Britain and Hanover.