up into fractional
shares--each of you possessing (say) one thirty-millionth part of the
integral unit, and possessing it, of course, exclusively and therefore
separately, if you are to exercise it individually, even in the way of
clubbing your respective shares as you propose! Heard ever any one the
like? Why, you might as well say that each individual in the nation
possesses the entire sovereign power. As well say thirty million whole
sovereigns, as thirty million fractional sovereigns. Equal falsehood,
equal absurdity, either way.

Political sovereignty is as incapable of division as it is of forfeiture
or of alienation. It is the right and power which society--considered as
the state--has to do whatever is necessary to its existence and welfare.
It resides in the whole people as one body politic. It is not an
attribute of individuals. Individual rulers are sometimes called
sovereigns; but they cannot be such in the strict and just sense of the
term. It is simply impossible that any individual should possess in
himself the inherent, indefeasible, inalienable, and inviolable right
and power to govern a nation; and it is no less impossible that you and
your associates, in your separate capacity as individuals, should
possess any 'portion' of it, and therefore none 'of right belongs' to
you.

I do not deny your 'rights of free discussion.' But I deny that they are
sovereign rights, and that the exercise of them is an exercise of
sovereign power. They are individual, personal rights, and that of
itself determines the absurdity of calling them sovereign.

Besides, in point of fact, they are rights which are practically valid
for you only in the will of the sovereign. Whether they are in their
nature primordial or prescriptive rights, makes no difference as to this
point. The will of the sovereign is the only effectual guarantee of the
natural rights of individuals, and the only source of their political
rights. The sovereign recognizes the former, confers the latter, and
secures both. There is not a particle of political right or power
possessed or exercised by any individual in the nation which is not
derived by grant from the sovereign power. A certain number of
individuals in the nation have, for instance, the right of voting at the
primary elections and for the determination of certain questions
submitted to a popular vote. This is a delegated right, granted only to
a certain number of individuals, not as sovereign