I do not, of course, deny the power of the people. Ultimately they condition the action of those who govern; and it is salutary that it should be so. It is wise also, if it be not indispensable, that the extent and manner of their control should be explicitly set forth and definitively agreed upon in documents of unmistakable tenor. I say simply that such control is no new thing. It is only the precise formulation of it that is new. If it seem to be after all a question of words, a little closer scrutiny will disclose the fact that it is much more than that. Mr. Ritchie, of Oxford University, in an able article on “The Conception of Sovereignty,” contributed to the _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science_ (January, 1891), perceiving some part of the distinction that I have pointed out, and wishing to realize it in his thought, proposes to distinguish three several kinds of sovereigns: viz. a nominal sovereign--the English queen, for example; a legal sovereign--the law-making body; and a political sovereign--the voters, whom we might call the sovereign of appeal. But why not confine ourselves to substantives, if we may, and avoid the quicksands of adjectives? Sovereignty is something quite definite; so also is power; so also is control. Sovereignty is the highest political power in the state, lodged in active organs, for the purposes of governing. Sovereign power is a positive thing; control a negative thing. Power belongs to government, is lodged in organs of initiative; control belongs to the community, is lodged with the voters. To call these two things by the same name is simply to impoverish language by making one word serve for a variety of meanings. It is never easy to point out in our complex modern governments the exact organs in which sovereignty is lodged. On the whole, however, it is always safe to ascribe sovereignty to the highest originative or law-making body of the state,--the body by whose determinations both the tasks to be carried out by the Administration and the rules to be applied by the courts are fixed and warranted. Even where the courts utter authoritative interpretations of what we call the fundamental law--the law that is embodied in constitutions--they are rather the organs through which the limitations of sovereignty are determined than organs of sovereignty itself. They declare the principles of that higher, constituent law which is set above sovereignty, which expresses the restrictions set about the exercise of sovereign authority. Such restrictions exist in all states, but they are given definite formulation only in some. As for the Executive, that is the agent, not the organ, of sovereignty.