19OI-2 TRANSACTIONS. 77 



world are not free to do so as they will because they are sub- 

 ject to the governmental control of the State ; while on the 

 other hand the State is absolutely free and omnipotent, in a 

 mundane sense, within the limits of its jurisdiction. 



Having thus explained to you the nature of a State, you 

 may very reasonably expect me to give you some idea of its 

 origin in the records of sociology. In answer to such an 

 assumed expectation on your part let me merely remind you 

 that theories concerning the beginnings of Society, theories 

 contractual, theories intuitional, and theories evolutional, 

 have been exploited ever since the days of Plato, who de- 

 clared (i), what all modern sociological research attests, 

 namely, that political government originated in parental 

 authority, the family being the primordial social unit ; and to 

 offer, as an apoiogy for my abstention from troubling you 

 with any hypothesis of my own, the observation that as his- 

 tory demonstrates that no Society ever existed without the 

 rudiments, if no mere, of laws and of government, tli'^ 

 lawyer, whose business is with the latter, may profitably leave 

 all speculation as to the origin of the former to the lively 

 genius of the philosopher. 



Ju'^t let me illustrate, in passing, the difference between 

 an independent or 'simple' State, and that body-politic which 

 although called a State is subject to an extra-territorial sovere- 

 ignty And I shall use our neighbors to the South as afford- 

 ing sufficient illustrations of both types. The federal republic 

 known as the United States of x\merica is a member of the 

 family of nations because it possesses sovereign power, 

 and is free from control outside of its territorial jurisdiction. 

 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has no recognition in pub- 

 lic International law because it has surrendered to the federal 

 State the prerogatives which constituted its complete inde- 

 pendence within the family of nations — such as the treaty- 

 making power, the right to raise and equip an army and nav)^, 

 the right to declare war. 



(1) Laws, IV, 209. 



