Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/84

64 civil and political association, each citizen subjects himself to the authority of the whole; and the authority of all over each member essentially belongs to the body politic. A state which possesses this absolute power, without any dependence upon any foreign power or state, is in the largest sense a sovereign state. And it is wholly immaterial what is the form of the government, or by whose hands this absolute authority is exercised. It may be exercised by the people at large, as in a pure democracy; or by a select few, as in an absolute aristocracy; or by a single person, as in an absolute monarchy. But "sovereignty" is often used, in a far more limited sense than that of which we have spoken, to designate such political powers as, in the actual organization of the particular state or nation, are to be exclusively exercised by certain public functionaries, without the control of any superior authority. It is in this sense that Blackstone employs it, when he says that it is of "the very essence of a law, that it is made by the supreme power. Sovereignty and legislature are, indeed, convertible terms; one cannot subsist without the other." Now, in every limited government, the power of legislation is, or at least may be, limited at the will of the nation; and therefore the legislature is not in an absolute sense sovereign. It is in the same sense that Blackstone says, "the law ascribes to the king of England the attribute of sovereignty or preëminence," because, in respect to the powers confided to him, he is dependent on no man, and accountable to no man, and subjected to no superior jurisdiction. Yet the king of England cannot make a law; and his acts, beyond the powers assigned to him by the constitution are utterly void.

In like manner, the word "state" is used in various senses. In its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community. In this sense, the "state" means the whole people, united into one body politic; and the state, and the people of the state, are equivalent expressions. Mr. Justice Wilson, in his Law Lectures, uses the word "state" in its broadest sense. "In free states," says he, "the people form an artificial person, or body politic, the highest and noblest that can be known. They form that moral person, which, in one of my former lectures, I described as a complete body of free, natural persons, united together for their common benefit; as having an understanding and a will, as deliberating, and resolving, and acting; as possessed of interests which it ought to manage; as enjoying rights which it ought to maintain; and as lying under obligations which it ought to perform. To this moral person we assign, by way of eminence, the dignified appellation of ." But there is a more limited sense, in which the word is often used, where it expresses merely the positive or actual organization of legislative, executive, or judicial powers. Thus the actual government of a state is frequently designated by the name of the state. We say, the state has power to do this or that; the state has passed a law, or prohibited an act: meaning no more than that the proper functionaries, organized for that purpose, have power to do the act, or have passed the law, or prohibited the particular action. The sovereignty of a nation or state, considered with reference to its association, as a body politic, may be absolute and uncontrollable in all respects, except the limitations which it chooses to impose upon itself. But the sovereignty of the government, organized within the state, may be of a very limited nature. It may extend to a few, or to many objects. It may be unlimited, as to some; it may be restrained, as to others. To the extent of the power given, the government may be