sovereignty

"...physical force, that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty" - Hawthorne, Blithedale Romance. Veblen himself would not have put this better. The context is also enlightening:

"I would call upon my sex," rails Hollingsworth, "to use its physical force, that unmistakeable evidence of sovereignty, to scourge them back within their proper bounds!"

see also In a pig's eye: masculinity, mastery, and the returned gaze of The Blithedale Romance.

Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil beneath our feet had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride.