regarded sovereignty as “indivisible, incommunicable, and imprescriptible”; but, sceking for its substance, not in “supreme power,” but in some form of moral obligation, he defined it as, “a right inherent in the entire body politic to unite by free association for its own protection and government.”

Thus conceived, sovereignty is not derived from force, but from the right to employ force for the protection of society. Even more skillfully than Rousseau, who wrote long after him, Althusius derives it, not vaguely from the “people,” but from the “body politic” as a moral organism. It is not, as he conceives it, an attribute of individuals, considered singly or as a mass; but of a community of free men united to secure and preserve their inherent rights to life, to property, and to liberty. As an expression of a moral necessity, he contends, the substance of the State is not "supreme power,” or power of any kind. The State

has authority because it is a moral organism, founded on moral principle, and representing a totality of human rights. Thus it belongs primarily and exclusively to the category of right, rather than to the category of might.

The State, thus defined, at once takes its place in the realm of jurisprudence. It exists de jure, but also sub jure. In this it differs from the State conceived as absolute, and by the diameter of the universe from the State conceived as “supreme power.” It may have but little power, but its right is indefeasible. A greater force may overwhelm it, take possession of its territory, enslave its population, and obliterate its name; but, in writing its epitaph, we may place over its grave the legend: "Here lies the victim of a crime!"

De jure, a State thus destroyed still continues to exist, and may at any time reassert its existence. But, even at the maximum of

its powers, it exists sub jure also. Belonging by definition to the order of jurisprudence, a State, however powerful, is essentially under law. As a member of the society of States, every State is responsible for its acts, and possesses outwardly as well as inwardly its rights and duties. The laws that govern its conduct may be enforceable or not, its obligations remain the same. As a moral organism endowed with consciousness of its rights and duties, it may be regarded as a moral person. Justly considered, it sustains to other like communities of men all the relations of a person.

It

may properly sue and be sued in a legal process before a court of its own election. It is, in brief, a responsible being, and the human mind cannot, without a defect in its logical procedure or the sacrifice of a fundamental principle essential to the very conception of a State, plead its irresponsibility.

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THE STATE AS A RESPONSIBLE ENTITY

All this cannot, of course, be said of the State regarded merely as “supreme power. With such a State goes the crude conception embodied in the old absolutist maxim, “Princeps legibus solutus est”; a maxim which, unfortunately, has outlived the system of which it formed a part. If, in fact, the prince is exempt from obedience to the laws, then the State has no place in the sphere of jurisprudence; it is merely a force among other forces of a like kind. If it is the stronger, it may overwhelm and destroy without scruple everything that opposes it. If it is the weaker, it must submit to the iron law of conquest, and surrender to its physical superior.

Unhappily, this relic of the age of absolutism still survives, and even enjoys a place of honor in the thoughts of statesmen and even of jurists. Sovereignty, whether of a monarch or of a republic, is still identified with “supreme power”; and the power of the State is still regarded as exempt from obedience to law. The alleged “right of conquest” still permits the stronger to impose an arbitrary and irresponsible will upon the conquered. The mere fact of war, which any sovereign State may at any time begin, is considered to signify the termination of all treaties. Of a modern State, of a constitutional State, even of a State founded upon the “sovereignty of the peo

“ ple,” equally with the absolutist State, which no civilized people would longer tolerate, it may still be said, when its outward relations alone are considered, “Legibus solutus est!"

The indictment may appear severe, but no well-informed person will dispute it. Within our century, within the present decade, within the year not yet ended, all this has been illustrated upon a scale that fills

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