Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/599

* STATES-GENERAL. 513 STATIONERS' HALL. be regarded as indispensable. The advisers of Louis XIII. convoked the states-general, after a long interval, in 1014, but the body was soon dismissed for looking too elosely into the finani-es : and from thal time there was no convocation of the states-general till the memorable meeting in 1789, which initiated the French Revolution. The states-general voted by orders, but in 1789 the Third Estate refused to abide by a regulation which enabled the other two orders to combine against it and to thwart its purposes. Thej- insisted that the vote should be by members in a single body (with the Third Es- tate as numerous as the other two orders com- bined), and they achieved their object by consti- tuting themselves the National Assemblj'. See Frk.nch Revolution. The name States-General is also applied to the existing legislative body of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (q.v. ), as was formerly the case in the Republic of the Netherlands from 1.593 to 1795.. STATES or THE CHURCH. The territoiy in Central Italy formerly under the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See. For their history, see P.PAL States; and for the theory involved, Temporal Power. STATES' RIGHTS. A political term having reference to the rights of the individual .States as compared with the central Government in coun- tries having a federal form of government. In the history of the United States, the term is used to denote the view prevailing in the South prior to the Civil War with regard to the nature of the Union. According to this view the Union was a compact of sovereign and independent States; the central or Federal Government was the mere agent of the States, which were re- garded as the principals: and the primary alle- giance of the individual was to his State rather than to the United States. In effect this view U|dicld the right of a State to interpose its au- thority when the central Government enacted op- pressive or unconstitutional laws. (See Nulli- fication.) Southern statesmen and political leaders contended for this view with particular insistence in connection with the long controversy over slavery. Prior to the Civil War. a large proportion of the people of the Southern States held to the States' rights view of the Constitu- tion, although many of them were not nuUifiers. In the early part of the nineteenth century, par- ticularly at the time of the War of 1812, the States' riyhts view was also strong in the North and East, and was not abandoned until it be- came the view and support of the slavery inter- est. The Civil War settled the issue adversely to the States'-rights view, and it is no longer a constitutional question in the old sense of the term. In the German Empire. States' Rights, or Particularism, as the Germans call it, is very strong, and has been at the bottom of many great constitutional struggles in that country. The Imperial Constitution recognizes a large sphere of autonomy of the individual States, and some of those in South Germany enjoy rights which are survivals of the Confederation. STATESVILLE. The county-seat of Iredel! County. N. C. 1.56 miles west of Raleigh, on the Sotithern Railway (Map: North Carolina. B 2). It is in the centre of a rich grain and toliacco growing section, with some mineral deposits. One of the State experiment farms is just outside the city limits. There are furniture factories. Hour mills, cotton mills, tanneries, fovindries. and iron works. The water works and tlic electric light plant are owned by the municipality. Pop- uliilion. in IIMIO, :il41. STATE TRIALS. In English law, a phrase employed to denote trials involving offenses against the State, or which determine questions concerning the duties and privileges, etc., of important officers of the Crown. The first col- lection of State Trials appeared iu 1719: a second in 1730; a third in 1742; Huryruvc's edition in ten volumes in 1776-81 ; and l)etween 1809 and 1826, the fifth edition in thirty-three volumes was published. Tliis edition is the one now used, and is known as '"Ilowell's State Trials," after the real editor, Thomas Bayley Howell, who compiled the work, although the name of one Cobbett appears as editor on the title-page of volume i. These rei)orts contain much learn- ing in criminal and constitutional law. A new series is being prepared under the supervision of a Parliamentary Committee, and all impor- tant cases in constitutional and international law will be included. STATIC ELECTRICITY. See Electricity. STATICS (from Gk. o-totikos, statikos, relat- ing to standing, from uTOTis, stutos, placed, standing, from fordi/ai, liistaiiai, to stand). That branch of dynamics which treats of the properties of material bodies when, under the action of forces, their motion is not changing. They are then said to be in equilibrium. See Mechanics and Equilibrium. STATIC SENSE. In close anatomical con- nection with the cochlea of the inner ear there are in ' man and most other vertebrates three bent tubes of bone inclosing three membranous tubes, filled with and floating in a fluid, the en- dolymph and perilymph. These tubes, known as the semicircular canals, lie approximately in the three planes of space. At the termination of each canal is a flask-like swelling (ampulla), within which are to be found certain specialized nervous end-organs. The ingoing fibres from the three ampullie constitute the nuin portion of the vestibular branch of the eighth or auditory nerve. Arguing from these anatomical features, it was long supposed that the canals served some audi- tory function such as the sensation of noise or the perception of localization of sounds. But we now have abundant evidence for regarding thera as the organ of the 'static sense' — by which is meant ( 1 ) that they constitute a phi/siological apparatus for the maintenance of ei|uilibrium (and some would add, for the maintenance of muscular tonicity): (2) that any irregularity in their operation makes itself felt mcntnlly as giddiness or dizziness: and more doubtfully (3) that an acceleration or a diminution of the rate of movement of the body as a wliole so affects them as to set up sensations which are inter- preted as what has very loosely been termed a 'sense of translation.' STATIONERS' HALL. The guildhouse of the 'Master and Keepers or Wardens and Com- monalty of the ilystery or Art of Stationers of the City of London,' now situated near Ludgate Hill in London. This company, which had been