Spherical Sovereignty
idea · 1 work · 4 mentions · 10 anchored passages
spherical sovereignty · sovereignty of spheres · a sovereignty of spheres · coordinate spheres · new spherical sovereignty · sphere · sphere of action · spheres · spherical sovereignties
in the texts
Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated
The central metaphor and doctrine of the passage: the notion that governmental powers are divided into limited 'spheres' (federal, state, judicial, and within England, king, lords, commons) that may be co-ordinate but not individually sovereign.
It follows from both aspects of the case, one of which must be admitted, that political spheres, constituting a spherical sovereignty, must controul and restrain each other;
If we should relinquish this essential principle from the same apprehension, we should adopt the English spherical sovereignty, renounce the English security of a co-ordinacy or balance of spheres, and lose the sovereignty of the people.
“The limited monarchy of spheres” would have been more appropriate to the apparent meaning of the court in this extract, as clearly conveying the idea of spherical limitation, and clearly excluding that of a spherical extension of power lurking in the word sovereignty.