Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/234

 194 positive or actual organization of the 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 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 sovereign, and its acts may be deemed the sovereign acts of the state. Nay the state, by which we mean the people composing the state, may divide its sovereign powers among various functionaries, and each in the limited sense would be sovereign in respect to the powers, confided to each; and dependent in all other cases. Strictly speaking, in our republican