No political concept has played a greater role in human history than that of popular sovereignty. During the last few centuries it has agitated human hearts, organized peoples into powerful revolutionary forces and toppled over several thrones of ancient monarchies e.g. of France, Russia. It has been propounded by some of the greatest political philosophers, like Locke and Rousseau. Yet it has been questioned, doubted and even indignantly rejected by several others.
As compared to its role in political thought and1 history, the theory of legal sovereignty seems to be mere hair-splitting verbiage of the lawyers and jurists, and the theory of political sovereignty as a distorted Statement of facts by honest and laborious professors of Political Science and publicists. The idea of popular sovereignty was first presented in the 16th and 17th centuries. But the high priest of the popular sovereignty was the Frenchman, J.J.Rousseau, who transformed it into a revolutionary dogma, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the people in the form of the General Will. It led straight to the great French Revolution of 1789. The growth of democracy, individual liberty, spread of education and political awakening have increased the influence and importance of the idea of popular sovereignty. It has now become, as Bryce says, “the basis and watchword of democracy”.
In spite of an unflinching faith in it, popular sovereignty is not an easy term to define. It is at once a very simple and a very complex concept. In simple terms, it means that supreme power ultimately lies with the people, that government should be based on the consent of the governed. It means, as Gilchrist says, the power of the masses, as distinguished from the power of the individual ruler or of the ruling classes. The difficulty arises when we try to see how and when the people exercise this supreme and ultimate power attributed to them. Various theories are suggested to show how the will of the people directs the will of the government in an actual State. One of them is that of Professor Ritchie.