sovereignty

n. supreme power; autonomy, self-rule, independence; self-governing state or territory

Sovereignty is the exclusive right to complete political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) control over an area of governance, people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority, subject to no other. Some people may argue that this authority is the head of state.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Book III, Chapter III of his 1763 treatise Of the Social Contract, argued that "the growth of the State giving the trustees of public authority more temptations and means to abuse their power, the more the Government has to have force to contain the people, the more force the Sovereign should have in turn in order to contain the Government," with the understanding that the Sovereign is "a collective being" (Book II, Chapter I) resulting from "the general will" of the people, and that "what any man, whoever he may be, orders on his own, is not a law" (Book II, Chapter VI) - and furthermore predicated on the assumption that the people have an unbiased means by which to ascertain the general will. Thus the legal maxim, "there is no law without a sovereign."
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Noun
1. government free from external control
(hypernym) self-government, self-determination, self-rule
2. royal authority; the dominion of a monarch
(synonym) reign
(hypernym) dominion, rule
(hyponym) scepter, sceptre

(n.)
The quality or state of being sovereign, or of being a sovereign; the exercise of, or right to exercise, supreme power; dominion; sway; supremacy; independence; also, that which is sovereign; a sovereign state; as, Italy was formerly divided into many sovereignties.
  

SOVEREIGN - A chief ruler with supreme power; one possessing sovereignty. It is also applied to a king or other magistrate with limited powers.

In the United States the sovereignty resides in the body of the people.

SOVEREIGNTY - The union and exercise of all human power possessed in a state; it is a combination of all power; it is the power to do everything in a state without accountability; 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.

Abstractedly, sovereignty resides in the body of the nation and belongs to the people. But these powers are generally exercised by delegation.

When analysed, sovereignty is naturally divided into three great powers; namely, the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary; the first is the power to make new laws, and to correct 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.

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 functionaries, is in the people of the state.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.