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HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION.
[BOOK II.
positive or actual organization of the legislative, executive, or judicial powers.
[1] 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.
[2] 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.
[3] Strictly speaking, in our republican
- ↑ Mr. Madison, in his elaborate Report in the Virginia legislature in January, 1800, adverts to the different senses, in which the word "state" is used. He says, "It is indeed true, that the term 'states' is sometimes used in a vague sense, and sometimes in different senses, according to the subject, to which it is applied. Thus it sometimes means the separate sections of territory, occupied by the political societies within each; sometimes the particular governments established by those societies; sometimes those societies, as organized into those particular governments; and lastly, it means the people, composing those political societies in their highest sovereign capacity."
- ↑ 2 Dall. 433; Iredell J. Id. 455, 456. Per Wilson J.
- ↑ 3 Dall. 93. Per Iredell J. 2 Dall. 455, 457. Per Wilson J.
