Evening star., 1944-07-20
Letters to The Star
Likes Miss Thompson's Views
On National Sovereifnty.
To the Editor Of 1hs Star:

On National Sovereignty.
10 the Editor Of The Star:
Dorothy Thompson's excellent article
In Mondays Star ought to receive the
widest possible circulation. Her discus
sion Of national sovereignty Is timely
and good.
It Is noteworthy that the formation
Of our own Union was resisted on the
ground that the Constitution would
impair state sovereignty. In the Fed
eralist No. IS, James Madison answered:
WAS, then, the American Revolution
effected, was the American Confed-
eracy formed, was the precious blood
Of thousands split. and the hard-earned
substance Of millions lavished, not
that the people Of America should en-
Joy peace, liberty, and safety, but that
the Government OF the individual
States. that particular municipal estab-
lishments, might enjoy q certain ex-
tent OF power, and be arrayed with
certain dignities and attributes of
sovereignty? We have heard OF the
impious doctrine in the Old World, that
the people were made for kings, not
kings for the people. Is the same doc
trine to be revived In the New, in an
other shape-that the solid happiness
of the people Is to be sacrificed to the
views OF political institutions OF q diff
ferent form? 1t is too early for poll
ticians to presume on our forgetting
that the public good, the real welfare
Of the great body of the people, is the
supreme object to be pursued; and that
no form of government whatever has
any other value than as 1t may be fitted
for the attainment OF this object"
For q modern lawyers view OF SOW
ereignty, consider the following from
an article by Judge John J. Parker
in the November, ls43, issue Of the
American Bar Association journal:
There has been much nonsense talked
about sovereignty. Sovereignty says
Chief Justice Jay in Chisholm "
Georgia, 2 Dallas 4l9,472, is the right
to govern. This right is not arbitrary,
but arises out Of the nature OF the re-
lationship to which it Is applied. In
our American Union the people OF the
several States possess sovereign power
with respect to local affairs, the people
Of the entire union with respect to
national affairs. The international COM
munity, on the same principle, should
exercise sovereign power with respect to
international affairs. II matter con-
Germs me and nobody else, am the one
to decide what to do about 1t. If 1t con-
Germs the people Of North Carolina and
nobody else, the people Of North Carolina
should decide. II 1t concerns the people
Of the United States and nobody else,
they should decide. II however. 1t con-
Germs the international society of the
world. that society, properly organized,
should make the decision
At page 50 Of "A Quest for Interna-
tional Order" Judge jackson H. Ralston
asks: In short, what Is sovereignty?
Power. within and without, unrestrained
by laws. Can such q thing exist? Is
not mankind always restrained by law,
II not by ofncial force, then by the very
law of its existence, by the law Of
human nature? If power Is not 50 re-
strained, 1t can only be because it has
the ability. and only as far as it has
such ability. to break all laws-to de-
clare that the wrong Is the right. Ac-
tually there can be no such power. To
presume its existence involves the
greatest danger to all by whom the
presumption may be encountered"
CAPT. JOHN F. SCHMIDT, U. S. A.
Wants An6Io. A ~er;cor All;oco>