Popular Sovereignty in Early Modern Constitutional
Thought
Daniel Lee
Popular sovereignty - the doctrine that the public
powers of state originate in a concessive grant of power from 'the people' - is
perhaps the cardinal doctrine of modern constitutional theory, placing full
constitutional authority in the people at large, rather than in the hands of
judges, kings, or a political elite. Although its classic formulation is to be
found in the major theoretical treatments of the modern state, such as in the
treatises of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, this book explores the intellectual
origins of this doctrine and investigates its chief source in late medieval and
early modern thought.
Long regarded the principal source for modern legal
reasoning, Roman law had a profound impact on the major architects of popular
sovereignty such as François Hotman, Jean Bodin, and Hugo Grotius. Adopting the
juridical language of obligations, property, and personality as well as the
model of the Roman constitution, these jurists crafted a uniform theory that
located the right of sovereignty in the people at large as the legal owners of
state authority. In recovering the origins of popular sovereignty, the book
demonstrates the importance of the Roman law as a chief source of modern
constitutional thought.
