Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/181

 A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SOVEREIGNTY 167

mind of primitive man a conception of which he was incapable. But the growth of population, the necessities of agriculture, the efficiency of organization, led to the private appropriation of land by the only persons who were in a position to appropriate it — the conquerors and chiefs of tribes. In settling upon a fixed territory we find a decisive step in the organization of the modern state, but it must be borne in mind that this step could be taken only by extending the principle of private property. The state originates as private property, like other institutions. The feudal proprietor was owner of the land, of the serfs, of the highways, the mill, the bakery, the courts of justice, and every tangible object and personal relation that could be brought under his control. Even the king or overlord was but one among many private proprietors.' He was not a sovereign in the modern sense, because, first, he did not receive his title by hereditary right, but was elected by the barons. In this his position but conformed to the feudal idea of property, wherein the estate reverts to the overlord, and the heir enters only on his own personal oath of fealty. But, second, the king was even more restricted by custom, which ruled in those days the lowest and the highest more rigidly than constitutions. Custom was, indeed, the constitution. The rights and privileges of property, the possession of coercive sanctions, the grading and subordina- tion of classes, were all minutely bounded and guaranteed by custom. Within these bounds the private proprietor was auto- cratic ; and the king as monarch was supposed to have no addi- tional powers beyond those which belonged to him as a landed proprietor, except to organize the military forces, to support them by his prerogatives, and to declare and execute the custom of the land. That he could enact a law repealing the custom was inconceivable.

But, as we know, political and industrial conditions were against the permanence of this loose organization. The anarchy of the period, resulting from the private sovereignty of the

' "The king, it is true, is a highly privileged, as well as a very wealthy person. Still his rights are but private rights amplified and intensified." (POLLOCK and Mait- LAND, History of English Law, I, 209.)