SOVEREIGNTY. The union and exercise of all human power possessed in a state : it is a combination of all power ; it is the pow er to do everything in a state without ac countability,—to make laws, to execute and to apply them, to impose and collect taxes and levy contributions, to make war or peace, to form treaties of alliance or of commerce with foreign nations, and the like. Story, Const. 207.
The artificial soul of that artificial body, the state. Spencer.
As long as it is accurately employed . . . it is a merely legal conception and means simply the power. of law-making unrestricted by any legal limit. But it is sometimes em ployed in a political rather than a legal sense. Dicey, Engl. Constitution.
Abstractly, sovereignty resides in the body of the nation and belongs to the people. But these powers are generally exercised by dele gation.
When analyzed, sovereignty is naturally divided into three great powers : namely, the legislative, the executive, and the judi ciary ; the first is the power to make new laws and to collect and repeal the old; the second is the power to execute the laws, both at home and abroad ; and the last is the power to apply the laws to particular facts, to judge the disputes which arise among the citizens, and to punish crimes. See EXECUTIVE POWER; LEGISLATIVE POWER; JUDICIAL POWER, Strictly speaking, in our republican forms of government the absolute sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation ; and the residuary sovereignty of each state, not granted to any of its public function aries, is in the people of the State ; Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. (U. S.) 471, 1 L. Ed. 440.
In international law a state is considered sovereign when it is organized for political purposes and permanently occupies a fixed territory. It must have an organized gov ernment capable of enforcing law and be free from all external control. A wander ing tribe of savages, or nomads, or people united merely for commercial purposes or under control of another state cannot be considered as a sovereign state. Until a state becomes sovereign in the sense above described, it is not subject to international law. The states of the American Union are each, in a certain sense, sovereign in their do mestic concerns, but not in international law, and Norway is an instance of a community not sovereign in international law because bound in a union with Sweden. The fact of
sovereignty is usually established by general recognition of other states, and, until such recognition is universal, no community can be considered as sovereign; Snbw, Int. Law 19. See INTERNATIONAL LAW.
Every sovereign state is bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign state, and the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the gov ernment of another, done within its own territory. Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 18 Sup. Ct. 83, 42 L. Ed. 456.
"The transactions of independent states between each other are governed by other laws than those which municipal courts ad minister; such courts have neither the means of deciding what is right, nor the power of enforcing any decision which they may make." 13 Moore, P. C. 75. And the same is the case with their dealings with the sub jects of other states ; Pollock, Torts 105.
Public agents, military or civil, or foreign governments, whether such governments be de jure or de facto,, cannot be held responsi ble in any courts of the United States for things done in their own states in the exer cise of the sovereignty thereof, in pursuance of the directions of their governments ; Un derhill v. Hernandez, 65 Fed. 577, 13 C. C. A. 51, 38 L. R. A. 405. The government of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the government of another country, done within its own territory ; Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 18 Sup. Ct. 83, 42 L. Ed. 456.
Sovereignty means that the decree of the sovereign makes law ; and foreign courts can not condemn the influences persuading the sovereign to make the decree ; American Ba nana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347, 29 Sup. Ct. 511, 53 L. Ed. 826, 16 Ann. Cas. 1047.
The idea of sovereignty was not associated in the Teutonic mind with dominion over a particular portion of the earth's surface ; it was distinctly perSonal or tribal; and so was their conception of law. Taylor, Science of Jurispr. 133.
See SOVEREIGN; STATE.