I was reading a book called 100+ Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know with my daughter, and the first case presented was Chrisholm v. Georgia (1793), in which the state of Georgia had failed to make payment to a merchant from South Carolina. The estate of said merchant later sued the state of Georgia, but Georgia argued that it had sovereign immunity and could not be sued by the citizen of another state in federal courts.
The court ruled in favor of the merchant, but what struck me was the reasoning of Justice James Wilson, which touches on the sovereignty of the individual persons as his logic for why Georgia should be bound by the same laws that an individual is bound by:
The only reason, I believe, why a free man is bound by human laws, is, that he binds himself. Upon the same principles, upon which he becomes bound by the laws, he becomes amenable to the Courts of Justice, which are formed and authorised by those laws. If one free man, an original sovereign, may do all this; why may not an aggregate of free men, a collection of original sovereigns, do this likewise?
If the dignity of each singly is undiminished; the dignity of all jointly must be unimpaired. A State, like a merchant, makes a contract. A dishonest State, like a dishonest merchant, willfully refuses to discharge it: The latter is amenable to a Court of Justice: Upon general principles of right, shall the former when summoned to answer the fair demands of its creditor, be permitted, proteus-like, to assume a new appearance, and to insult him and justice, by declaring I am a Sovereign State?
Just thought it was interesting given bitcoiners' attention to the word "sovereign". I also wonder how it relates to the various sovereign citizen movements and the concept of a "sovereign individual" as modern people use that word today.
This is exactly the benefit of reading old books. You find many ways of thinking that aren't taught in school.
Indeed. Lies of omission are frequently a sin of modernity.
Indeed this is an interesting topic and historically significant evolution. I would argue this sort of view point on sovereignty and the state has been systematically attacked by the state education system as well as the political system in favor of social theories of consent.
True, though upon further study I don't think James Wilson believed that the sovereignty of the individual entitles them to "opt out" of the laws. Despite his wording here, he probably believed more in the social theory of consent.
Maybe. I wasn't referring to him specifically but more broadly.
The gripe I have with so called "sovereign citizens" is that they seem to believe they can say magic phrases to get out of things governments want to require. This requires a trust in the consistency and honesty in the legal system I simply can't maintain. I've talked to various "law enforcement" officers with experience with these people and I have yet to hear of an example where something ended well for them. Not saying it never happens but I have never heard of a case where it has.
Not saying you can't use the law in your favor or represent yourself but rather that you are always at the mercy of the legal system and often the whims of a judge. We have a lot history of judges abusing power especially individual sovereignty.
That said, the ideas of individual sovereignty seem to me to be assumed by the US founding documents and the founders.
To contrast with today, judges find the ideas of liberty weird and dangerous. It's not surprising since we are not taught these ideals in government schools. We are told we have rights but not that they are not granted by the state. And usually the focus is on speech and sexuality not self ownership and sovereignty.
So much of the state's current laws violate individual sovereignty. So it would be rather jarring to talk about actual sovereignty of each individual. Most people only seem to care about rights they can't get or do what they want. The principled view is rare to find.