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Chapter II. Sovereign Power

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The State and the Rule of Law
This chapter is in the book The State and the Rule of Law
CHAPTERIISovereign PowerThe Prince is not superior to the laws.—Duplessis-MornayThe earlymodern doctrine of power can be summed up in a word:sovereignty. Amid the most strident of the civil wars against Henry III,Jean Bodin articulated the doctrine, “A commonwealth [or republic] maybe defined as the rightly ordered government of a number of families, andof those things which are their common concern, by a sovereign power.”1A century later, it was restated dramatically by Charles Loyseau: “Sover-eignty is the defining moment and culmination of power, the momentwhen the State must come into being.”2The concepts of legitimate powerand of beneficent power are present in these early definitions. Supremepower, as Bodin defined it, is also, as Loyseau emphasized,the very es-sence of the state:“Sovereignty is the form which gives being to the state;it is inseparable from the state; without it, the state vanishes.”Is Sovereignty an Evil?Sovereign power does not have a very good reputation. It is often confusedwith absolutism. “The two concepts of sovereignty and absolutism wereforged together on the same anvil,” wrote Jacques Maritain.3Then as now,the doctrine of sovereignty served as a focal point for anti-statist charges;it appeared to represent an aggrandizement of the institution of the stateand a valorization of power, an interruption in the process of the witheringaway of the medieval state and of the devaluation of power that earlymodern political philosophy had initiated. For a long time, the ancientsand the Christians had fared well. The Greeks scrutinized the most inti-mate features of the political pathology and cataloged in detail the de-struction wrought by untempered power in the polis; their sages, fed up
© 2016 Princeton University Press, Princeton

CHAPTERIISovereign PowerThe Prince is not superior to the laws.—Duplessis-MornayThe earlymodern doctrine of power can be summed up in a word:sovereignty. Amid the most strident of the civil wars against Henry III,Jean Bodin articulated the doctrine, “A commonwealth [or republic] maybe defined as the rightly ordered government of a number of families, andof those things which are their common concern, by a sovereign power.”1A century later, it was restated dramatically by Charles Loyseau: “Sover-eignty is the defining moment and culmination of power, the momentwhen the State must come into being.”2The concepts of legitimate powerand of beneficent power are present in these early definitions. Supremepower, as Bodin defined it, is also, as Loyseau emphasized,the very es-sence of the state:“Sovereignty is the form which gives being to the state;it is inseparable from the state; without it, the state vanishes.”Is Sovereignty an Evil?Sovereign power does not have a very good reputation. It is often confusedwith absolutism. “The two concepts of sovereignty and absolutism wereforged together on the same anvil,” wrote Jacques Maritain.3Then as now,the doctrine of sovereignty served as a focal point for anti-statist charges;it appeared to represent an aggrandizement of the institution of the stateand a valorization of power, an interruption in the process of the witheringaway of the medieval state and of the devaluation of power that earlymodern political philosophy had initiated. For a long time, the ancientsand the Christians had fared well. The Greeks scrutinized the most inti-mate features of the political pathology and cataloged in detail the de-struction wrought by untempered power in the polis; their sages, fed up
© 2016 Princeton University Press, Princeton

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Introduction. The Paradoxes of Anti-statism 1
  5. Part One: The State and the Rule of Law
  6. Chapter I. Problems for a History of the State 9
  7. Chapter II. Sovereign Power 15
  8. Chapter III. Human Rights 33
  9. Chapter IV. Law and Morality 51
  10. Chapter V. Toward a History of the French State 64
  11. Chapter VI. Inflections 91
  12. Part Two: The State and Despotism
  13. Chapter VII. Romanticism and Totalitarianism 97
  14. Chapter VIII. Anti-statism and Nationalism 106
  15. Chapter IX. Anti-juridism 112
  16. Chapter X. The Secularization of Faith 123
  17. Chapter XI. Marx’s Romanticism 135
  18. Chapter XII. The State under the Rule of Despotism 144
  19. Conclusion. The State and the Slaves 149
  20. Notes 153
  21. Index 171
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https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400821761-004

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Introduction. The Paradoxes of Anti-statism 1
  5. Part One: The State and the Rule of Law
  6. Chapter I. Problems for a History of the State 9
  7. Chapter II. Sovereign Power 15
  8. Chapter III. Human Rights 33
  9. Chapter IV. Law and Morality 51
  10. Chapter V. Toward a History of the French State 64
  11. Chapter VI. Inflections 91
  12. Part Two: The State and Despotism
  13. Chapter VII. Romanticism and Totalitarianism 97
  14. Chapter VIII. Anti-statism and Nationalism 106
  15. Chapter IX. Anti-juridism 112
  16. Chapter X. The Secularization of Faith 123
  17. Chapter XI. Marx’s Romanticism 135
  18. Chapter XII. The State under the Rule of Despotism 144
  19. Conclusion. The State and the Slaves 149
  20. Notes 153
  21. Index 171
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