Austin completes his account of positive law in Lecture VI by analyzing the concept of a sovereign. He added the discussion of a variety of related topics to this “lecture” (in the second edition, it runs almost as many pages as the first five combined), but the heart of his account can be found in the selection Culver provides.

In the handout, I’ve added further material on several topics. The first selection begins where Culver’s ends and continues a few paragraphs to include what Austin has to say about international law.

The remainder of the handout is drawn from Austin’s discussion of forms of government. In addition to the first couple of paragraphs of this part of lecture VI, I’ve included two passages where he addresses cases in which the application of his ideas sovereignty are not obvious—representative democracy (e.g., the British parliament) and the American federal system.

So you should focus on the selection in Culver’s anthology, and most of our discussion will concern it. But the issues of representative government and American governmental structures naturally arise in that discussion, and you should look at what Austin has to say about them in preparation for that. The material on international law is mainly for future reference; we’ll discuss international law in the last two weeks of the course; and Austin’s brief comments provide a succinct account of one of the standard positions.