Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America

"At the time when England's American colonies were founded, the fictions that sustained government--and liberty--were almost the reverse of those we accept today. Englishmen of the 16th and early 17th century affirmed that men were created unequal and that they owed obedience to government because the Creator had endowed their king with his own sacred authority. These propositions too were fictional, requiring suspension of disbelief…

"How then did one [set of governing fictions] give way to the other? How did the divine right of kings give way to the sovereignty of the people? And how did the new fictions both sustain government by the few and restrain the few for the benefit of the many? In other words, how did the exercise and authentication of power in the Anglo-American world as we know it come into being?."

Morgan argues, in effect, that representative democracy is a tool to bolster rule by the powerful few over the many. The majority are thus led to believe they control their own destiny. In this quietly subversive rereading of our history, American colonists perfected the fiction of popular rule by involving voters in extravagant electoral campaigns & by insisting that elected representatives derived their power from their constituents. Meanwhile, elitist colonial rulers who owned considerable property pulled strings to get their way.

The idea that people are the ultimate sovereign & source of authority has justified government for three centuries in both the UK & America. This text explores how such an idea gained acceptance & how it affected both the few who governed & the many whom they governed.