Sovereignty is a political concept that refers to dominant power
or supreme authority. In a monarchy, supreme power resides in
the "sovereign", or king. In modern democracies, sovereign power
rests with the people and is exercised through representative
bodies such as Congress or Parliament. The Sovereign is the one
who exercises power without limitation. Sovereignty is
essentially the power to make laws, even as Blackstone defined
it. The term also carries implications of autonomy; to have
sovereign power is to be beyond the power of others to
interfere. Beyond lawmaking power, two other (often contentious)
aspects of sovereignty are eminent domain (the right of the
sovereign to take private property for public use) and sovereign
immunity(which offers the sovereign protection from lawsuits).