What is popular sovereignty?
About this video
This video defines popular sovereignty as the idea that people have the capacity to elect their own representatives, so at least part of government, usually the legislature, must be elected. It explains that in 1776 Americans took this further than ever before, imagining a government in which every part rests on the people, with no monarchy and no aristocracy, unlike Britain.
You'll be able to
- define popular sovereignty.
- explain how the American version of popular sovereignty differed from the British system.
Key words
- popular sovereignty
- The idea that government's power comes from the people, who elect their representatives.
- representative
- A person elected to speak and act for others in government.
- legislature
- The part of government that makes laws, usually the elected part.
- monarchy
- Rule by a king or queen who is not elected by the people.
- aristocracy
- A ruling class whose power comes from birth rather than election.
Transcript
The idea of popular sovereignty simply says that all human beings have a capacity to elect their own representatives to government, and it doesn't necessarily presuppose that you have to have a democracy in which all people equally are represented in government, but it certainly means that in some part of the government, there needs to be an elected portion, usually the legislature. Popular sovereignty begins to develop in the 18th century as a potentially radical idea in which you begin to imagine that a whole government can rest upon popular sovereignty alone. That is that no part of the government includes anybody who is not somehow beholden to the popular people. Unlike the British system in which even today, there is a monarch who is not popularly elected but the Americans, by contrast, in 1776, begin to imagine, really, for the first time in human history,
that all parts of the government would rest upon popular sovereignty, there would be no aristocracy, there would be no monarchy. That's the latent revolutionary nature of popular sovereignty.
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