apologists for the Second
Empire admitted the theory of a Sovereign people, but claimed that the
Sovereign power could be safely and efficiently used only in case it
were delegated to one Napoleon III--a view the correctness of which the
results of the Imperial policy eventually tended to damage. There is in
point of fact no logical escape from a theory of popular
Sovereignty--once the theory of divinely appointed royal Sovereignty is
rejected. An escape can be made, of course, as in England, by means of a
compromise and a legal fiction; and such an escape can be fully
justified from the English national point of view; but countries which
have rejected the royal and aristocratic tradition are forbidden this
means of escape--if escape it is. They are obliged to admit the doctrine
of popular Sovereignty. They are obliged to proclaim a theory of
unlimited popular powers.

To be sure, a democracy may impose rules of action upon itself--as the
American democracy did in accepting the Federal Constitution. But in
adopting the Federal Constitution the American people did not abandon
either its responsibilities or rights as Sovereign. Difficult as it may
be to escape from the legal framework defined in the Constitution, that
body of law in theory remains merely an instrument which was made for
the people and which if necessary can and will be modified. A people, to
whom was denied the ultimate responsibility for its welfare, would not
have obtained the prime condition of genuine liberty. Individual freedom
is important, but more important still is the freedom of a whole people
to dispose of its own destiny; and I do not see how the existence of
such an ultimate popular political freedom and responsibility can be
denied by any one who has rejected the theory of a divinely appointed
political order. The fallibility of human nature being what it is, the
practical application of this theory will have its grave dangers; but
these dangers are only evaded and postponed by a failure to place
ultimate political responsibility where it belongs. While a country in
the position of Germany or Great Britain may be fully justified from the
point of view of its national tradition, in merely compromising with
democracy, other countries, such as the United States and France, which
have earned the right to dispense with these compromises, are at least
building their political structure on the real and righteous source of
political authority. Democ