Christopher Breay

James Wilson was perhaps the most influential advocate for the American Constitution to be based on popular sovereignty. Yet there have been few significant attempts to recover Wilson's intellectual influences in this regard. Some have identified Thomas Reid but have given indeterminate explanations of how Reid influenced Wilson. A comparison of Reid's and Wilson's works, and an examination of two neglected manuscripts, establishes that Reid's philosophy served as the very foundation of Wilson's theory of popular sovereignty. Wilson feared defeat in a future war due to the States's desire for sovereignty as opposed to a strong national government. Wilson's solution was for the national government to be based on popular sovereignty. But a principle espoused by Blackstone-that government must be superiour to the people-strongly supported State sovereignty. The foundation for this 'superiority principle' was scepticism, which denied that man has the ability to know divine law. Wilson's response relied on Reid's conception of the moral sense: A God-given natural faculty which gives all men access to objective 'first principles of morals'. Man is superiour to government because man must be free of any positive law that may interfere with his attempt to discharge his God-given duties.