Laws are. It may be said that the State, thus understood, is a mere Abstraction: but as we have all along seen, Moral Truths cannot be expressed but by Abstractions, and human life is governed by Abstractions. Law itself is an abstraction: Property, Power, Security, Life, the objects of human desire, are Abstractions: even Home, Food, Raiment, when we speak of them in the general way which moral reasonings require, are Abstractions. In like manner, the Family, the Tribe, are Abstractions; and the State is an extension of these Abstractions; including in the conception, some special attributes which belong to our subject; as for instance, that already mentioned; that the State gives reality to Rights, delivers and executes the Laws.

466. This conception prevailed from an early period. In the Jewish People, indeed, the Laws were God's Laws, supported by his sanction; and the conception of the State, as the origin of Law, was, among them, not brought into clear view. But the conception of the State as the origin of Rights and Obligations, was familiar among the Greeks. "It is manifest," says Aristotle*, "That the State (ʼn wóλis) is one of the Things which exist by nature: and that man is by nature an animal living in States (πολιτικὸν ζῶον, a political animal). A man belonging to no State, is less than man, or more. And thus we find in Homer, a savage

man reviled as

ἀφρήτωρ, ἀθέμιστιος, ἀνέστιος.

A Tribeless, Lawless, Homeless Wretch." (Il. 1x. 62.)

He further adds, "The State exists before the family or the individual, as the body exists before the members; for if the body do not exist, the hand or the foot is not really a hand or a foot." Where, as we find by the context, he means, that the State exists before the Individual, in the order of reasoning. The Conditions of the Individual's

* Polit. I. i.

being, are to be derived from the Conditions of the State, and not reversely. The variety of forms of Government which prevailed among the Greek cities, and the changes of form which often succeeded each other in the same city, prevented the philosophers of that nation from confounding the State with the Governors, as was often done in longenduring monarchies; while the strong constraint which the Laws, in many Grecian States, exercised over individual inclinations, made it unlikely that men should then view the State as a voluntary association; a doctrine which was adopted at a later period. That the State, notwithstanding this constraint, was an object of great reverence, not only as the Origin of Law, but the Teacher of Justice and Virtue, the reader of the Greek authors of the Republican time, will recollect abundant proofs. I may mention, for the sake of example, the expostulation which Socrates, in his dialogue with Crito, makes the State address to himself, on the supposition that he had attempted to escape from prison*.

467. The Romans were, in like manner, familiar with the conception of the State, as the condition of a society in which Rights exist. In Cicero's work De Republicâ he says, "Est igitur Res publica res populi: populus autem, non omnis hominum cœtus, quoquo modo congregatus: sed coetus multitudinis juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus."

468. The Conception of the State became, in later times, less clear and steady. The creation and destruction of Kingdoms and States which took place between the epochs of Alexander and Augustus; the concentration of all the

*Plato. Crito. §. 11.

† Lib. 1. 25. The State, or the Commonwealth, is the Community : but a Community is not every assemblage of men, anyhow gathered together: but an assemblage connected by agreement respecting Rights, and common participation of Advantage.

powers of the Roman Commonwealth in the Emperor: the separation of the Roman Empire into new kingdoms; the further subdivision of the powers of government which prevailed under the Feudal System; the nearly absolute power of Kings in most European countries;-all tended to unsettle and confuse in men's minds the Conception of the State. On the one side, men confounded the King with the State, and conceived that in him was the source of Law and Authority. And in opposition to this, there grew up, in modern times, opinions in which the doctrine of the State, as the source of Rights, was rejected; and Society was represented as a mere Concourse of Individuals. According

to this doctrine, individuals compose a State by contributing, to a common stock, the Rights which they naturally possess ; sharing the aggregate of such Rights among themselves by common consent; and establishing officers, to carry their agreement into effect.

469. This latter doctrine is quite untenable. Without the existence of a State, we have no Rights; nor can the Rights of the State be at all explained, by any aggregation of the Rights of Individuals. Has the State of England its Right to the National Territory by summing up in itself the Rights of individual Landholders? Or does not, rather, each Landholder derive his Right to his Property from the State? It is plain that the latter, not the former, is the case. The Right to Land is derived from the Law of the Land; that is the Law of the State. Independently of the Law of the Land, no man has a Right to land in England. The National Right is not the result, but the origin of the Right of individuals. And in like manner, of other National Rights. England, as a State, may make war upon France; and in the course of war, may kill Frenchmen, and seize French possessions. But an individual Englishman has no fraction of such a Right. Even if

he declares that he will withdraw himself from a share in the national compact, and will act for himself, he is not allowed to do, on a small scale, what the nation does upon a large one. The Right of the State to make War, depends on its being the State; not on its being a Collection of Individuals.

470. The State is conceived as one; the Individuals of which it is composed being many: the State is conceived as permanent, while the individuals are born and die. Individuals derive, from the State, their Possessions, Privileges, and Condition, in the community; either directly, or by the State determining the Possessions, Privileges, and Condition of the Family, and the Laws of their derivation. The State, as a single permanent agent, in its proper functions, acts for the many constantly changing individuals, of which it consists. States have, with each other, intercourse of various kinds; making Treaties of Peace, Commerce, or Alliance with each other; and making War on each other, if the necessity arises. The State bounds the legal relations of the individual: the citizens of different states have no legal relations with each other, except through their States.

471. The State is, thus, the necessary Origin of all the Rights which exist within itself. It is an Authority, superior to all other Authorities; and from which they are all derived. This Supreme and Original Authority, thus residing in the State, is its Sovereignty. A state which is, in all its internal relations, independent of all other States, is a Sovereign State. In the monarchies of modern Europe, the Supreme Power has been conceived as vested in the Monarch; and he has been looked upon as the origin of all other power. In such cases, the Monarch is termed the Sovereign but in Republics, such as the United States of North America, no person is Sovereign. The term Sovereign has also been applied to the People; but a people, deprived of that organization which makes them a State, are not sovereign. They cannot exercise or impart authority. We can

with no propriety speak of the Sovereign People of England; except we mean the State of England; and thus include King, Lords, and Commons, in the term People: if People denote individuals, without governors and magistrates, we can with no more propriety speak of the Sovereign People of England, than of the Sovereign People of Yorkshire. If the People of Yorkshire be not sovereign, because they are under the authority of England; the People of England are not sovereign, because, by the same rule, they are under the authority of King, Lords and Commons. If there be

any established Authority, the rule of such Authority determines where the Sovereignty resides. If we suppose all established authority annihilated, no body of men is sovereign over any individual; and each man is sovereign, with as good a Right as any other man or any collection of men.

472. If it be said that the People is really the Sovereign Authority, and the Source of Rights, because it is by the common consent of the People that the Supreme Authority is conferred upon the sovereign governors of the State we reply, that such a transfer of sovereign power to governors, by the common consent of the members of a society, has very rarely taken place; and if in a few societies it have ever occurred, such uncommon and extraordinary events afford no grounds for the existence of Rights, in communities in which nothing of the kind has ever taken place. And in the next place, we remark, that whenever a society have thus conferred supreme authority upon their governors by common consent, they have, in their actions, presupposed the existence of Rights derived from States. If a body of men, for instance, by common consent frame a government for the country in which they live; or for another country, which they have purchased, and into which they are migrating they suppose, in the first instance, that the country is theirs as their native land; and in the second instance, as a purchase. But yet mere individuals alone cannot have such