Why Does Sovereignty Matter to America?

Contact Your Elected Officials
The Heritage Foundation Header

The United States is a sovereign nation. Sovereignty is a simple idea: the United States is an independent nation, governed by the American people, that controls its own affairs. The American people adopted the Constitution and created the government. They elect their representatives and make their own laws.

The Founding Fathers understood that if America does not have sovereignty, it does not have independence. If a foreign power can tell America โ€œwhat we shall do, and what we shall not do,โ€ George Washington once wrote to Alexander Hamilton, โ€œwe have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.โ€

The Founders believed in sovereignty. In 1776, they fought for it. But why does sovereignty still matter to America?

The Declaration of Independence tells us why sovereignty mattered to Americaโ€™s Founders.

When America declared its independence in 1776, the Declaration described Americans as โ€œone peopleโ€ who had the right โ€œto assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natureโ€™s God entitle them.โ€

With these words, the United States declared its sovereignty. It became a separate nation, entitled to all the rights of existing nations. It therefore claimed the โ€œfull Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.โ€

But the existing nations of the world were mostly monarchies. The Founding Fathers had a different vision for America. The United States is legitimately sovereign not because of a monarchโ€™s decree, but because, in America, the people rule.

The purpose of government is to secure the peopleโ€™s rights. Legitimately sovereign governments derive โ€œtheir just powers from the consent of the governed.โ€ Thus, American sovereignty is justified by the inherent, God-given right of self-government.

The Declaration cataloged the ways in which King George III had infringed upon American liberties and denied the right of Americans to consent to the laws by which they were governed. Through his โ€œrepeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny,โ€ the King had treated the American colonists as mere subjects to be ruled.

In the Declaration, King George IIIโ€™s offenses included:

  • โ€œTransporting us beyond the Seas to be tried for pretended Offences.โ€ The King claimed the authority to seize American colonists and force them to stand trial in Great Britain for criminal offenses allegedly committed in America.
  • โ€œHe has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws.โ€ Although the American colonists were British subjects, they never consented to be bound by the commands of the British Parliament, a legislative body in which they were not represented.
  • โ€œImposing Taxes on us without our Consent.โ€ Americans were incensed by the Kingโ€™s imposition of the Stamp Act of 1765, which taxed colonists by requiring them to print their legal documents, newspapers, and magazines on specially stamped paper produced only in London.

“It is universally acknowledged that the enlarged prospect of happiness, opened by the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, almost exceeds the power of description.”ย ย โ€“ George Washington November 2, 1783

Library of Congress

These acts infringed on the colonistsโ€™ ability to govern themselves. A people subject to foreign taxation, or to being transported across the seas to face criminal charges in a foreign land, are not truly independent. In the Declaration, the Founding Fathers gave notice that these infringements on American sovereignty would not stand.

But today, our sovereignty faces new threats. International organizations and courts seek to reshape the international system. Nations are to give up their sovereignty and be governed by a โ€œglobal consensus.โ€ Independent, sovereign nations will be replaced by โ€œtransnationalโ€ organizations that reject national sovereignty.

The demand that the United States bow to this โ€œglobal consensusโ€ does not respect American sovereignty. The offenses the Founders complained of in the Declaration of Independence now have an international flavor. This new project is filled with examples of institutions, courts, and โ€œtaxesโ€ that violate the spirit of the Declaration:

  • In 1998 the International Criminal Court was established. It is empowered to subject American soldiers to criminal prosecution in Holland for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Founders rejected trying Americans outside American courts.
  • In Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2010, an international conference drafted a global treaty to regulate energy use in the United States. An international bureaucracy would monitor compliance with the treatyโ€™s terms. The Founders rejected subjecting Americans to โ€œa Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution.โ€
  • In recent years, international organizations and foreign leaders have proposed โ€œinternational taxesโ€ on airline tickets and financial transactionsโ€”taxes that would be borne by American citizens and businesses. The revenues collected would be spent by unaccountable international organizations. The Founders rejected taxation without representation.

This transnationalist vision also carries profound implications for U.S. national security. Many international leaders, and even some American legal scholars, believe that the United Nations Security Councilโ€”and not the American people, the President, or Congressโ€”should have the final say on the legitimacy of the use of American military force.

International organizations seek to dictate fundamental aspects of Americansโ€™ personal and professional lives. Committees whose members include egregious human rights violators such as Cuba, China, and Syria regularly admonish the U.S. to implement racial and gender quotas, and lecture American families on how to raise and educate their own children.

“No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle …that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.” โ€“ Woodrow Wilson January 22, 1917

The proper exercise of diplomacy by the United States does not threaten our sovereignty. The Founding Fathers understood the value of diplomacy. They drafted the Constitution, in part, because they wanted the United States to be able to negotiate treaties with other nations. But they also understood that American foreign policy must ultimately be controlled by the American people.

That is why, for instance, the United States Senate must approve treaties that are negotiated by the President. That is how our diplomatic process works. But today, American sovereignty is threatened by the many treaties that seek to take power away from the nations that negotiate them. The solution is not to reject treaties or diplomacy: it is to return to the vision of the Founders, and to their belief that the American people have an inherent right of self-government, through their elected representatives, that cannot be extinguished by any treaty.

The drafters of the Declaration would be surprised to find Americans submitting themselves to these international organizations, and the constraints on independence that they have spawned. The United States may, of course, work with other nations in a principled way that advances its national interests. But the Founders would be amazed by the extent and depth of the threats to American sovereignty posed by this new transnationalist vision.

The Founders did not risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor casting off the rule of King George III so that, two hundred years later, the United States could subject itself to the whims of unelected foreign bureaucrats and international lawyers. Sovereignty was essential to the founding of America in 1776, and it is essential to America today.

By declaring its independence from King George III and the British Parliament, America declared its sovereignty. By dedicating itself to the principles of liberty, equality, and popular consent, it set the standard by which all sovereign nations are to be judged.

Steven Groves is the Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation.

Enduring Truths

  • George Washington, โ€œResignation Address to the Continental Congress,โ€ December 23, 1783
    In this short speech, Washington resigned his commission as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. In it, he expresses his gratitude to Providence, and his satisfaction at the confirmation of American sovereignty.
  • The Declaration of Independence
    The Declaration states that the United States is and has the right to be โ€œfree and independent.โ€ The Declaration is based on the right of self-government inherent in the American people, and on their need to form a government that would protect their inalienable rights.
  • Jeremy A. Rabkin, The Case for Sovereignty: Why the World Should Welcome American Independence, 2004
    Rabkin defends the concept of sovereignty against common misunderstandings and distortions, and shows how the Founding Fathers relied on it as the basic principle in international affairs. Abandoning sovereignty would undermine American democracy, and destroy the advantages sovereignty offers America and the world.
  • John Bolton, โ€œThe Coming War on Sovereignty,โ€ Commentary, March 2009
    Ambassador Bolton demonstrates that the liberal elite views sovereignty as a mere abstraction. But that is not the understanding of the U.S. Constitution, which โ€œlocates the basis of its legitimacy in โ€˜we the people,โ€™ who constitute the sovereign authority of the nation.โ€

Current Issues

  • THE LANGUAGE OF FREEDOM. The Heritage Foundation, โ€œReclaiming the Language of Freedom at the United Nations,โ€ September 6, 2006.
    In this report, Heritage experts explain how the U.N. is failing the cause of freedom, and how national sovereignty is critical to achieving and protecting human rights.
  • THE UNITED NATIONS. Steven Groves and Brett Schaefer, โ€œThe U.N. Human Rights Council: No Better for Obamaโ€™s Engagement,โ€ November 9, 2009.
    Groves and Schaefer explain the history of the Council and its failures, demonstrate that American involvement has not improved its sorry record, and make recommendations for fundamental reform.
  • DEFENDING SOVEREIGNTY. Steven Groves, โ€œThe โ€˜Kyoto IIโ€™ Climate Change Treaty: Implications for American Sovereignty,โ€ November 17, 2009.
    Groves demonstrates that the contemplated successor to the Kyoto treaty on climate change will seriously threaten American sovereignty. It will be intrusive, inflexible, transfer vast sums of money to other countries, and give up power to international bureaucracies.

Download Report:

PDF (Color)
PDF (en Espaรฑol)

By Steven Groves

Read Original Report on Heritage.org

The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundationhttps://www.heritage.org/
The Heritage Foundation formulates and promotes public policies based on free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values, and strong national defense.

Remember Epsteinโ€™s โ€œLittle Black Booksโ€?

Image of Bill Clinton getting a massage from Jeffrey...

On the Major Leagueโ€™s periphery: A major trip through the minors

For Nick Dunn, the trek through the minors is a trifecta of physical, mental, and organizational hurdles filled with politics, roster volatility, and injuries.

Private Citizens are Now Looking into Epstein Client List

Most Americans have never felt so betrayed and confused by a president and his admin as they are by the Trump admin over the Epstein client list issue.

Peace In Ukraine Wonโ€™t End The Westโ€™s Hybrid War On Russia

The Westโ€™s Hybrid War on Russia to follow peace in Ukraine is inevitable due to neoconservatives and liberal-globalists in its decision-making ecosystem.

Epstein Case Closed?

The DOJ and FBI announced on Sunday evening of the July 4th holiday weekend that Jeffry Epstein had no client list and didnโ€™t kill himself in prison.

Federal Judge Blocks Trumpโ€™s Birthright Citizenship Order After Supreme Court Ruling

Judge barred Trump admin from enforcing EO limiting birthright citizenship, after Supreme Court restricted judges from issuing nationwide injunctions.

California Might Stop Making Necessary Debt Payments for 2 Years

California State Legislature met the budget submission deadline and it was signed by the governor, but they still need to cut $12 billion in spending.

MP Materials Secures Rare Earths Deal With DOD, Shares Surge 50 Percent

MP Materials Corp. announced a public-private partnership with the DOD to build out rare earth magnet supply chain and reduce dependency on China.

Ex-CIA Director Brennan Says DOJ Hasnโ€™t Contacted Him About an Investigation

Former CIA Dir Brennan said he hasn't been contacted by DOJ, FBI, or CIA following reports he and former FBI Dir. Comey are under investigation.

RFK Jr. Bans Illegal Immigrants From Government-Funded Programs

HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rescinding a 1998 interpretation of a law that allowed illegal immigrants to access certain government-funded programs.

Rubio Set to Visit Malaysia for ASEAN Meetings Amid Tariff Tensions

A delegation including U.S. Sec. of State Marco Rubio will travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for series of high-profile meetings between July 11 and 12.

US Will Collect More Than $300 Billion in Tariff Revenues This Year, Treasury Secretary Says

U.S. is on track to potentially raise โ€œwell over $300 billionโ€ in tariff income by end of the year, Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent said during WH Cabinet meeting.

Senate Panel Advances Trumpโ€™s CDC Director Nominee

A Senate committee on July 9 voted to advance the nomination of Susan Monarez to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
spot_img

Related Articles