328 



SOVEREIGN SOY. 



is viewed by some as of great importance ; others 

 think it of little moment. The inquiries of the 

 first class have led them to diverse results. Some of 

 them say that the power which the divine law con- 

 fers on the father over his family, gradually gave 

 rise to chief priests and monarchs. They acknow- 

 ledged no true sovereignty but that vested in a 

 monarch. Others derive sovereignty from the right 

 of the strongest. The husband has a right, they 

 say, to exercise authority over his wife, because he 

 has the power to do so ; and the authority of the 

 monarch rests on the same foundation. Strangely 

 enough, this very theory, which, in fact, justifies 

 all kinds of revolutions, and is the principle whence 

 spring the violences which continually convulse the 

 despotisms of Asia (see the beginning of the article 

 Slavery), has been preached of late, with great zeal, 

 by many of the apostles of divine right and absolu- 

 tism. Others, again, have traced the origin of sove- 

 reignty to the social compact, representing a num- 

 ber of men as uniting to form a state, and as delegat- 

 ing certain powers to certain individuals or bodies of 

 men, either expressly or tacitly (in the latter case, 

 the delegation being proved by the resumption of the 

 delegated power at the pleasure of the majority). 

 The advocates of this opinion rely upon the fact, 

 that in many instances we have such contracts ac- 

 tually made in the case of civilized nations, as well 

 as of tribes in their infancy, who easily remove a 

 chief if he is disagreeable to the majority ; and 

 where no contract is found recorded, they say that 

 the monarch's power rests on the consent of the 

 people, because they find the power to remove 

 him if they choose ; and we often find him, in fact, 

 driven from his throne by a revolution of his sub- 

 jects. The doctrine of divine right, they contend, 

 is quite unnecessary to account for a people's sub- 

 mission to a particular man, because there are abun- 

 dance of other causes to account for the fact of a 

 people or an army supporting one man in authority 

 rather than another. 



Others, we have said, consider the historical 

 origin of sovereignty of little importance in deter- 

 mining the true source of sovereign power. Its 

 principles, they say, can be well settled without 

 ascertaining this point, just as we can settle the 

 true principles of language, music, architecture, 

 the useful arts, &c.. although we may be unable to 

 trace out their origin. The great question is not, 

 How did governments originate? but, What is the 

 principle which lies at the basis of them all, and 

 becomes more distinctly developed with the pro- 

 gress of political society? The principle which 

 supports the organization of a tree remains the 

 same whether it be raised from a seed or a cutting; 

 and the inquirer would learn but little of its nature 

 from determining to which of these its origin is to 

 be referred. If we investigate the nature of man 

 and of governments, we cannot but see that the 

 fundamental principle of all the latter is the sove- 

 reignty resting in the collective body of the indi- 

 viduals comprising a political society, often disguised 

 in various ways, sometimes to the benefit, some- 

 times to the disadvantage, of the people. This 

 theory has rapidly gained ground of late, and, in 

 fact, was, to a great degree, always acted upon 

 in Europe until the last century, when the monarchs 

 of the continent strove to establish systematic 

 despotisms.. Never would so much have been said 

 about the sovereignty of the people, had not the 

 raonarchs and the supporters of absolute govern- 

 ments started such absurd theories respecting the 1 



nature of sovereignty. What we have said refers 

 immediately to the internal organization of states. 

 The external sovereignty, i. e. the entire inde- 

 pendence of one government upon others, and the 

 acknowledgment of this independence by other 

 governments, are intimately connected with its 

 internal constitution. A sovereign state, there- 

 fore, may adopt whatever laws it pleases for the 

 regulation of its domestic concerns, and, as to its 

 external relations, is not bound to acknowledge 

 any superior. It may, therefore, appeal to arms 

 or to arbitration, if differences arise between it 

 and another state. The princes of the German 

 empire (while that empire existed) were called ctnt 

 mi-souverains, because they stood, in certain re- 

 spects, under the emperor, and were not entirely 

 free in their foreign relations. The states forming 

 the confederacy of the United States, call them- 

 selves sovereign; but they are not so in the sense 

 in which this word has always been taken, because 

 they have given up to the general government 

 many of the rights of sovereignty; i. e. such as 

 can be exercised only by the supreme power 

 of the state, or in the name of the whole state. 

 The rights of sovereignty embrace the power of 

 making laws and of providing for the adminis- 

 tration of justice, even by capital punishments; 

 the power of making war and peace, and of con- 

 ducting the foreign relations of the country; of 

 raising and supporting armies, levying taxes, of 

 coining money, &c. The various states of the 

 Union have ceded the following powers to congress 

 the power to declare war, maintain armies and 

 navies, and make peace; to regulate all foreign 

 relations; to raise taxes; to coin money, and pro- 

 vide for matters connected with it; jurisdiction in 

 certain cases (see Courts), and the power of legis- 

 lation necessary for carrying into execution the 

 delegated powers. See also Constitution. 



Sovereign also means, in a narrower sense, the 

 monarch, even if he is acknowledged to share his 

 power with other branches, as in England, where 

 the king by no means unites in himself the whole 

 sovereign power. See Political Institutions, Estates, 

 and Legitimacy. 



SOVEREIGN; an English coin. See Coins. 



SOY; a dark-coloured sauce, prepared by the 

 Chinese from the seeds of a sort of bean (dolichos 

 so/a). The plant has an upright and hairy stem, 

 erect bunches of flowers, and pendulous, bristly 

 pods, each containing about two seeds. The 

 common story that soy is made from cockroaches 

 or beetles, has probably originated from the form 

 and colour of these seeds. The process of preparing 

 soy consists in boiling the seeds until they become 

 soft, and mixing with them an equal weight of 

 wheat or barley meal, coarsely ground. This 

 mixture is fermented, and, a certain proportion ot 

 salt and water being added, the whole is allowed 

 to stand for two or three months, care being taken 

 to stir it daily: at the end of this time it is ready 

 for use. The seeds are, besides, employed in China 

 and Japan as food : they are made into a kind of 

 jelly or curd, which is esteemed very nutritious, 

 and is rendered palatable by seasoning of different 

 kinds. In Japan, they are put into soups, and are 

 the most common dish of the country, being fre- 

 quently eaten three times a day. Soy is chiefly 

 imported from China and Japan, and that from the 

 latter country is the most highly esteemed. The 

 quantity annually sold in England, at the East 

 India company's sales, is from 800 to 2000 gallons. 



