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HeeYoon Park (2014190047)

Comparative Constitutional Traditions
Prof. Hahm
March 22, 2016
<Week 4. The English Constitution and Its People>
According to Edmund Morgan, the idea of popular sovereignty is a fiction, as much
as the divine right of kings was a fiction. It seems counterintuitive to regard popular
sovereignty and divine right of kings in the same manner since popular sovereignty is
supposedly a result of discarding the idea of divine right of kings. However, Morgan states
that the sovereignty of the people was not a repudiation of the sovereignty of God (Morgan
56). God was still the ultimate source, giving power to the people. The people still depended
on God and thus, the people were not sovereign. In this respect, Morgan argues that the
idea of popular sovereignty is merely a fiction.
Moreover, the history of how the idea of popular sovereignty originated also
manifests that it was merely a fiction employed by the Parliament. Popular sovereignty was a
notion put forth by the Parliament as an instrument to challenge the king, rather than a result
of popular demonstrations. Thus, the origin of popular sovereignty empowered the
representatives in the name of giving power to the people.
I partially agree with Morgans argument that popular sovereignty is a fiction. It is
true that in its conception, the notion of popular sovereignty was a fiction used by the
Parliament, in order to empower the representatives. However, I believe that it was still an
improvement from the fiction of kings divine rights, and a step closer to giving power to the
people. For the notion of popular sovereignty to be more than just a fiction, it needs to be
recognized that it is the people who gives legitimacy to the representatives, and there
should also be a caution against giving too much power to the representatives.