Rulers have claimed a variety of justifications for their authority.  Some have claimed it as a matter of divine right.  Some have professed an inherent superiority over their subjects, and a consequent authority.  Others have suggested that leadership is a duty, done for the good of those from whom they exact obedience.  In recent centuries, rulers have begun to claim that their powers are given to them willingly by the people and that they rule in the people's name.  That claim is based on the idea that all political power derives from the people and that governments exercise only powers delegated to them by the people.  Simply stated, it's the two ideas that people are sovereign and that jurisdiction is voluntary.

They aren't new ideas.  For quite some time now, men have been struggling toward an understanding of them.  Over 2200 years ago, Aristotle observed in Politics (Book 3, Chapter 14), that "... kings rule according to law over voluntary subjects, but tyrants over involuntary;  and the one are guarded by their fellow-citizens, the others are guarded against them."

The 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) gave considerable thought to the nature of sovereignty and jurisdiction.

The authors of the Mayflower Compact (1620) appear to have considered King James to have been unconditionally sovereign.

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In the Declaration of Rights of 1774, the American colonists implied that the sovereignty of a king was predicated upon powers ceded to him by the people.

Less than two years later, the writers of the Declaration of Independence made a better statement of the doctrine.

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After the Declaration of Independence, the reasonably clear vision of sovereign people was lost.  Sovereignty was assigned to the states in the Articles of Confederation.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof;  and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;  and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. —U.S. constitution, Article 6, clause 2, 17891 ... and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.... —U.S. constitution, Article 6, clause 3, 1789

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Although constitutions have not caused a reduction in the powers of governments, they have changed the fundamental nature of government.  A government based only on the whims, desires, or authority of a ruler is merely an extension of that ruler.  However, a government based on a constitution embodies all of the defining characteristics of a corporation.

Bouvier's definition of corporation contains the following:

Bouvier claims that a corporation is formed by a government, viewed as a sovereign authority with regard to the corporation.

A corporation is defined by its charter or act of incorporation.

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A constitutional government consists of some kind of a legislative body, and  officers, at least some of whom are elected by the voters.  Those officials exercise authority in the name of the voters.  They hire or appoint various bureaucrats and employees to do the work of running the government, and to manage its property.  While doing so, they remain answerable to the voters.

The only intrinsic parties to the contract represented by a charter of incorporation are the stockholders, the officers, and the employees.  Only by an express act of consent can someone else become a party to such a contract.  Similarly, the only intrinsic parties to the contract represented by a constitution are the voters, the elected or appointed officers, and the various employees and bureaucrats.   Only by an express act of consent can any other individual become a party to a constitution.  The Doctrine of Social Contract not only is completely consistent with this view of governments as corporations, but requires it.

This leads to a new insight into the relationship between people and governments.  The Doctrine of Social Contract defines the residence of sovereignty.  The corporate character of constitutional government identifies the parties from whom the government can expect obligations.  The result is this.

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Since the legitimate boundaries of lawful government are contractual, not geographical, a government can have legitimate jurisdiction only over individuals who are parties to the contract.  That requires a change in our understanding of participation in government.  Such participation must be understood in terms of the principles of contracts.

There are very few ways in which an individual can become a party to a contract of government and, thereby, come voluntarily under the legitimate jurisdiction of such a government.  He can voluntarily become a voter.  He can voluntarily run for office and be elected.  He can voluntarily be hired into the service of the government.  He might also, for some reason or another, voluntarily execute some other contract with the government that might include in its provisions an obligation to some jurisdiction of the government.  Marriage licenses, driver's licenses, and business licenses, if they were voluntary, would be examples of such contracts.  An individual can volunteer into the jurisdiction of the United States of America² by voluntarily declaring himself to be a citizen.  Any such voluntary action makes an individual a party to a contract and allows the accrual of legitimate obligations and jurisdictions.

Conversely, if an individual isn't a party to some such contract of government, then the government doesn't have any legitimate jurisdiction over him.  Any enforcement of the authority of a government on any such individual is an act of aggression by that government by which the government departs from the the domain of constitutional government and the Doctrine of Social Contract, and becomes a despotism.

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Since the legitimate boundaries of lawful government are contractual, not geographical, any legitimate government may extend anywhere in the world where there is an individual under its jurisdiction, or where it owns property.³  Any number of sovereign individuals greater than one might form such a government.  However, that government exists in any particular location only with regard to individuals within its legitimate jurisdiction or to property that it owns.  Many such governments might exist within the same geographical region, enjoying many possible kinds of coexistence.

Given the consequences of constitutional government and the Doctrine of Social Contract, national boundaries as they are presently understood are not legitimate.  All geographically based authority that is presently exercised by governments is invalid.  If constitutional governments really operated according to the Doctrine of Social Contract, then wars would be more difficult to administer than they presently are, and weapons of mass destruction would make even less sense than they do now, if such a thing is possible.

While many governments in the world today make a pretense of acknowledging the sovereignty of their people, none of them behave as if it's actually true.  They display their various constitutions and broadcast the rhetoric of human rights⁴ but rigidly maintain their geographical boundaries and forcibly control the people within those boundaries.  An example can be found in the State of California, where the sovereignty of the people is acknowledged.

A large part of the blame for the failure, so far, of constitutional government and the Doctrine of Social Contract, must rest with the people themselves.  All of the information that's necessary to understand such things as sovereignty, jurisdiction, des-

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The Doctrine of Social Contract must follow from the idea of sovereign individuals.  Otherwise, it lacks any meaning.  Additional thoughts regarding liberty and personal sovereignty can be found elsewhere in my writing.⁵  For the purposes of this essay, it's sufficient to note that a sovereign individual doesn't have any inherent legal obligation to any government, whether or not that government is legitimate.  However, there is a certain noblesse oblige associated with being a sovereign.  See my essay Personal Sovereignty, in Pharos.

A sovereign cannot be legitimately compelled by any court or by any legislature.  He may choose to negotiate with a government, as a sovereign, or he may demand something from a government, as a sovereign, but he must never do anything that can be construed as submitting to the jurisdiction of a government.  A sovereign who does that lowers himself to the position of a subject of that government.

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CONSTITUTION.  The fundamental law of a state, directing the principles upon which the government is founded, and regulating the exercise of the sovereign powers, directing to what bodies or persons those powers shall be confided and the manner of their exercise.

Constitution, in the former law of the European continent, signified as much as decree, -a decree of importance, especially ecclesiastical decrees.  The decrees of the Roman emperors referring to the jus circa sacra, contained in the Code of Justinian, have been repeatedly collected and called the Constitutions.  The famous bull Unigenitus was usually called in France the Constitution.  Comprehensive laws or decrees have been called constitutions;  thus, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, which is the penal code decreed by Charles V. for Germany, the Constitutions of Clarendon (q.v.).  In political law the word constitution came to be used more and more for the fundamentals of a government, - the laws and usages which give it its characteristic feature.  We find, thus, former English writers speak of the constitution of the Turkish empire.  These fundamental laws and customs appeared to our race especially important where they limited the power and action of the different branches of government;  and it came thus to pass that by constitution was meant especially the fundamental law of a state in which the citizen enjoys a high degree of civil liberty;  and, as it is equally necessary to guard against the power of the executive in monarchies, a period arrived - namely, the first half of the present century - when Europe, and especially on the continent, the term constitutional government came to be used in contradistinction to absolutism.

We now mean by the term constitution, in common parlance, the fundamental law of a free country, which characterizes the organism of the country and secures the rights of the citizen and determines his main duties as a freeman.  Sometimes, indeed, the word constitution has been used in recent times for what otherwise is generally called an organic law.  Napoleon I. styled himself Emperor of the French by the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Empire.

Constitutions were generally divided into written and non-written constitutions, analogous to leges scriptae and non scriptae. These terms do not indicate the distinguishing principle;  Lieber, therefore, divides political constitutions into accumulated or cumulative constitutions and enacted constitutions.  The constitution of ancient Rome and that of England belong to the first class.  The latter consists of the customs, statutes, common laws, and decisions of fundamental importance.  The Reform act is considered by the English a portion of the constitution as much as the trial by jury or the representative system, which have never been enacted, but correspond to what Cicero calls leges natae. Our constitutions are enacted;  that is to say, they were, on a certain day and by a certain authority, enacted as a fundamental law of the body politic.  In many cases enacted constitutions cannot be dispensed with, and they have certain advantages which cumulative constitutions must forego;  while the latter have some advantages which the former cannot obtain.  It has been thought, in many periods, by modern nations, that enacted constitutions and statutory law alone are firm guarantees of rights and liberties.  This error has been exposed in Lieber's Civil Liberty.  Nor can enacted constitutions dispense with the "grown law" (lex nata).  For the meaning of much that an enacted constitution establishes can only be found by the grown law on which it is founded, just as the British Bill of Rights (an enacted portion of the English constitution) rests on the common law.

Enacted constitutions may be either octroyed, that is, granted by the presumed full authority of the grantor, the monarch;  or they may be enacted by a sovereign people prescribing high rules of action and fundamental laws for its political society, such as ours is;  or they may rest on contracts between contracting parties, - for instance, between the people and a dynasty, or between

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2.  An arbitrary government;  the rule of a despot;  absolutism;  autocracy.

3.  Figuratively, absolute power or influence of any kind.  Such is the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds.  -Macaulay.

Duress of imprisonment exists where a man actually loses his liberty.  If a man be illegally deprived of his liberty until he sign and seal a bond, or the like, he may allege this duress and avoid the bond;  2 Bay, 211;  9 Johns. 201;  10 Pet. 137;  26 Barb. 122.  But if a man be legally imprisoned, and, either to procure his discharge, or on any other fair account, seal a bond or a deed, this is not by duress of imprisonment, and he is not at liberty to avoid it;  Co. 2d Inst. 482;  3 Caines, 168;  6 Mass. 511;  1 Lev. 69;  1 H. & M. 350;  17 Me. 338;  18 How. 307;  2 Wash. C. C. 180.  Where the proceedings at law are a mere pretext, the instrument may be avoided;  Al. 92;  1 Bla. Com. 136.

Duress per minas, which is either for fear of loss of life, or else for fear of mayhem or loss of limb, must be upon a sufficient reason;  1 Bla. Com. 131.  In this case, a man may avoid his own act.  Lord Coke enumerates four instances in which a man may avoid his own act by reason of menaces:  - for fear of loss of life;  of member;  of mayhem;  of imprisonment; Co. 2d Inst. 483;  2 Rolle, Abr. 124;  Bacon, Abr. Duress, Murder, A;  2 Stra. 856;  Foster, Cr. Law, 322;  2 Ld. Raym. 1578;  Savigny, Dr. Rom. § 114.

It has been held that restraint of goods under circumstances of hardship will avoid a contract;  2 Bay, 211;  9 Johns. 201;  10 Pet. 137.  But see 2 Metc. Ky. 445;  2 Gall. 337;  8 Ct. Cl. 461;  50 Ala. 437.

The violence or threats must be such as are calculated to operate on a person of ordinary firmness and inspire a just fear of great injury to person, reputation, or fortune.  See 4 Wash. C. C. 402;  39 Me. 559.  The age, sex, state of health, temper, and disposition of the party, and other circumstances calculated to give greater or less effect to the violence of threats, must be taken into consideration;  32 Am. Rep. 180, n.;  1 Ky. Law Rep. 137.

Violence or threats are cause of nullity, not only where they are exercised on the contracting party, but when the wife, the husband, the descendants or ascendants, of the party are the object of them.

If the violence used be only a legal constraint, or the threats only of doing that which the party using them had a right to do, they shall not invalidate the contract.  A just and legal imprisonment, or threats of any measure authorized by law and the circumstances of the case, are of this description.  See Norris Peake's Ev. 440, and the cases cited, also, 6 Mass. 506, for the general rule at common law.

But the mere forms of law to cover coercive proceedings for an unjust and illegal cause, if used or threatened in order to procure the assent to a contract, will invalidate it;  and arrest without cause of action, or a demand of bail in an unreasonable sum, or threat of such proceeding, by this rule invalidates a contract made under their pressure.

All the above articles relate to cases where there may be some other motive besides the violence or threats for making the contract.  When, however, there is no other cause for

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Excessive charges paid to railroad companies refusing to carry or deliver goods, unless these payments were made voluntary, have been recovered on the ground of duress;  27 L. J. Ch. 137;  32 id. 225;  31 id. 1;  30 L. J. Exch. 361;  28 id. 169.

See, generally, 2 Watts, 167;  1 Bail. 84;  6 Mass. 511;  6 N. H. 508;  2 Gall. 337.

In Contracts.  A permission.  A right given by some competent authority to do an act which without such authority would be illegal ....

Municipal corporation is a body politic and corporate, created to administer the internal concerns of the district embraced with its corporate limits, in matters peculiar to such place and not common to the state at large.  Tribe v. Salt Lake City Corp., Utah, 540 P.2d 499, 502.  A municipal corporation has a dual character, the one public and the other private, and exercises correspondingly twofold functions and duties - one class consisting of those acts performed by it in exercise of delegated sovereign powers for benefit of people generally, as arm of state, enforcing general laws made in pursuance of general policy of the state, and the other consisting of acts done in exercise of power of the municipal corporation for its own benefit, or for benefit of its citizens alone, or citizens of the municipal corporation and its immediate locality.  Associated Enterprises, Inc. v. Toltec Watershed Imp. Dist., Wyo., 490 P.2d 1069, 1070.

Quasi municipal corporations. Bodies politic and corporate, created for the sole purpose of performing one or more municipal functions.  Public corporations organized for governmental purposes and having for most purposes the status and powers of municipal corporations (such as counties, townships, school districts, drainage districts, irrigation districts, etc.), but not municipal corporations proper, such as cities and incorporated towns.

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In the latter part of the 17th century the philosopher John Locke (q.v.) recast Hobbes' theory in the interest of democratic government.  In justifying the Glorious Revolution (q.v.) of 1688 in his Treatise of Civil Government (1690), he made a notable presentation of the theory that in constituting social groups men sought a means of preserving life, liberty, and property;  and that the powers they had delegated to government were limited to the achievement of those ends.  According to Locke, sovereignty rested in the people.  In the 18th century Locke's ideas influenced the thinking of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (q.v.) and through Rousseau the leaders of the French Revolution of 1789.  Locke's views were also influential in shaping the conceptions of government of the leaders of the American Revolution.

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