Tinsley v. Anderson (171 U. S., 101), 107 Union Pacific Ry. v. Peniston United States v. North Caro- United States v. Peters (5 Cr., 115), 41 United States v. Texas (143 Veazie Bank v. Fenno (8 Wall., 533), 129, 143 Virginia, Ex parte (100 U. S., 339), 183 Virginia v. Tennessee (148 Weber v. Harbor Commissioners (18 Wall., 57), 264 Weston v. Charleston (2 Pet., Williams v. Bruffy (96 U. S., 449), 52, 126 Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance 176), 83 Worcester v. Georgia (6 Pet., Co. (127 U. S., 265), 275 515), 251 Yarborough, Ex parte (110 U. S., 651), 168 THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM CHAPTER I 66 THE NATURE OF THE FEDERAL" STATE 1 The Definition of a State. In its form of governmental organization the American State represents a very complex political type. For this reason, in order to determine satisfactorily its exact legal character it will be necessary first to consider the essential attributes of a State in the abstract. An aggregate of men living together in a single community, and united by mutual interests and relationships, we term a Society. When there is created a supreme authority to which all the individuals of this society yield a general obedience, a State is said to exist. The social body becomes, in other words, a body politic. The instrumentalities through which this superior authority formulates its will and secures its enforcement is termed a Government; the commands it issues are designated Laws; the persons that 1 In this chapter the author has drawn liberally from an earlier work entitled "The Nature of the State: A Study in Political Philosophy." administer them, public officials, or, collectively, a Magistracy; the whole body of individuals, viewed as a political unit, is called a People; and, finally, the aggregate of rules or maxims, whether written or unwritten, that define the scope and fix the manner of exercise of the powers of the State, is known as the Constitution. The State itself, then, is neither the People, the Government, the Magistracy, nor the Constitution. Nor is it, indeed, the territory over which its authority extends. It is the given community of individuals viewed in a certain aspect-namely, as a political unity. The one characteristic that is essential to the State, and serves to distinguish it in toto genere from all other human associations, is its possession of political sovereignty. By political sovereignty is meant, on the one hand, complete freedom from the legal control of any other power whatsoever, and, on the other hand, absolute and exclusive control over the legal rights and obligations of its citizens, individually considered or grouped into larger or smaller associations. The State is thus supreme not only as giving the ultimate validity to all laws, but as itself determining the scope of its own legal powers and the manner of their exercise. In every politically organized community that is entitled to be termed a State, there must exist, then, an authority to which, from the legal standpoint, all interests are potentially subject. In the entire body of laws of a State are summed up the powers of that State as actually exercised. In the constitutional laws are declared the powers legally exercisable by |