The American Court and Sovereignty
As to that “American court,” with its “court chamber” and “court dress,” that has been established at Washington, D. C., we noted last week that the idea signifies “specifically, the collective body of persons who compose the retinue or council of a sovereign or other PRINCELY dignity.” Only royalty can appropriately hold court. It consists only with “a sovereign or other princely dignity.” The definition of “sovereign” is “supreme in power; possessing supreme dominion; not subject to any other; hence, royal; princely; a ruler, governor , chief, or master; one to whom allegiance is due.” Study now this subject in connection with the statements as to these colonial governors being the “personal representatives of the President,” and as such “possessing absolute power,” and “unswerving loyalty to their President,” etc. In his history of “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” Sismondi, tracing the decline from republic to empire, remarks that “the people of the provinces, strangers to the antique liberty, perceived no difference between the republic and the empire; the army, confounding fidelity to a standard with the duty of citizens, and blind obedience with patriotism, attached themselves to the Julian family with implicit and unhesitating devotion.”—Chap. 2, par. 9.