The word “sovereign” is beginning to get attached to jurisdictional and security questions surrounding artificial intelligence. “Sovereign AI” would limit other countries’ ability to use or control artificial intelligence to compromise my nation’s security or independence. But why use the word “sovereign?” Is it different from “national” or “government?”
The Brittanica Dictionary defines a sovereign as a monarch, then as an adjective that means, first, having unlimited authority, and second, as having independent authority or the right to govern itself.
America conceived itself in our Declaration of Independence, as a “People” assuming its own station among the “Powers of the Earth.” Separating from the king and his people, this new people was now its own sovereign. And it was a very new kind of sovereign.
The Declaration named this people as “we,” who hold certain truths – one of universal rights, and another that government exists to secure those rights, legitimated by consent of the governed. This identity lacks binders of blood, soil, or hierarchy that historically denoted a “People.” Normal sovereigns, usually kings, stood for the subjects they ruled over. Their interests equated to national interest and they granted rights as privileges. In our new polity, people’s rights come first, and governments – rulers – would serve to secure them. We inverted the idea of sovereign. Eleven years later, this upside-down sovereign, “We the people of the United States,” defined by conviction rather than blood, promulgated our second ruling state in the Constitution. This national structure, the longest-running of any on earth today, yet remains unusual, an experiment that will perpetually face tests whether, in Lincoln’s words, “any nation so conceived … can long endure.” Passing those tests, in perpetuity, is our bedrock sovereign interest.
America’s existence hinges on our validation of a paradoxical idea – of a nation ruled by consent of the governed. And that sovereign ruler comprises, tangibly, 330 million persons with real needs and interests but named only as holders of a creed rather than ethnic or landed traditions, and a creed of principle rather than ordained prescriptions for conduct and belief. We must successfully nurture a society defined by our founding creed, providing tangible security and well-being, all in fidelity to that unusual creed. How do so many people govern themselves, in freedom for their myriad diverse quests and yet as a People?
The first response says we elect legislators and Presidents, choosing among their competing political agendas. The problem is that mutually alienating voices dominate our politics. The vested interests of factions and politicians, all revolving around “winning,” presume their righteousness – and the other side’s malice – and twist the terms of our founding into contradictory, self-serving, claims. They actively undermine comity in our core tenets, debasing our declared national identity. And, as they exercise the authority delegated to them by elections conducted in such divisive partisan terms, they usurp the sovereign interest for their factional agendas.
Presidents and legislators, and their appointees, are not true stand ins for sovereign authority. They are agents, duly chosen on the terms We the People set out in the Constitution. Historically, yes, the American People have exercised our sovereign interest through those constitutional agents. But we elect them, even in good times, in contests over personal, sectoral, and parochial concerns. Most government functions address specific tangible interests – in agriculture, health, energy, finance, etc. Such interests are promoted by associations, lobbyists, and advocatory organizations. Electoral mandates generally address these interests and emotions.
At the same time, though, all Americans partake in the interest of the sovereign, “we the people” in aggregate. But it is not a direct objective for anyone’s quotidian life. It is a diffuse public good, part of everyone’s suite of interests, yet with no lobby. Whether an administration or Congress actually acts in the interest of that public good is by happenstance. And the Supreme Court, in adjudicating the constitutionality of any given law brought before it, acts on matters of the state, not the sovereign. Outcomes of the overall process of government may or may not serve the sovereign interest. At crucial times they have – Lincoln called on a nation to ensure government of, by, and for the People. But today’s politics make that kind of government all too unlikely.
Would formal institutional carriers of the sovereign interest offer a solution? America does have a respected institution that serves a sovereign function: the military. It provides a public good, distinct from other government departments and aside from vested interests, with apolitical discipline. Its special expertise – use of armed force to maintain tangible security from outside threats – must be carried apolitically; any partisan use of armed force violates our sovereign interest. Just so, the voicing of sovereign interest is a public good that must be furnished in apolitical terms. Vessels for this voice, trustworthy and cognizant of their commitments in the same spirit as the military, institutionally and as individual officers, might project that comity into the public discourse. But building them, or maintaining them against corrosive partisan discourse, will still require clear, apolitical, mandates from the sovereign people. It might be hoped that voicing the objective of restoring comity in our founding could spark a first impulse to such reform. But the obstacles are high.
So what about the individual American? We vote, we support our interest and community groups, we speak in front of each other, we contemplate our values and worship or we indulge our appetites, we buy or don’t buy goods of various value, we study or labor or carouse, we swipe or click. Those patterns can, in aggregate, impute some meanings to our public discourse. Businesses, advocates, and politicians all look for signals in those acts, and together we can set a tone. In fact, this aggregate spirit does carry sovereign authority. It’s just that the interpreters of that authority too often bend the signals to justify their own particular interests, commercial, partisan, egoistic, or other.
And of course no individual carries sovereign authority, absent a constitutionally bestowed mandate. Many pursue politics precisely to wield that authority. Others aim to influence the public, some to feel authoritative, some for the sake of a particular pursuit (whether of profit, piety, justice, or safety). It is also not incumbent on any free person to somehow help shape our sovereign will. The last call is actually used by partisan politicians to combat each other.
A free population bound together by a creed of principles depends on that population using its freedom in ways that simultaneously respect the social contract among them all, and pursue their happiness in ways that show people worthy of their freedom. Can we discipline ourselves to show that free people will use their freedom constructively, and with due regard for the needs and rights of our free compatriots? Will we pursue activities that promote human development, whether material, religious, artistic, protective? Do we constrain ourselves in our own freedom, to ensure America’s fidelity to everyone’s rights and to government by consent of the governed?
The movements, institutions and reforms, and philosophizing, may help, and must be oriented to our founding ethos. But the outcome of this experiment, as exhibited by We the People, is in the hand of this sovereign, which comprises i) 330 million persons who ii) hold our founding Truths in comity. The challenge is immense, with myriad issues, daunting questions, and deep emotions as well as reasons all in play. The first point, though, is simply to point it out. And, ultimately, we protect, promote, and preserve our nation by living good lives.
Common Conviction 