having similar authority as the subordinate magistrates named by Blackstone, might be said to be subordinate state magistrates.

Our primary division of magistrates or officers will be therefore into federal and state (21).

There are certain officers who derive their position from appointment of other officers, to whom the terms inferior or subordinate might be applied, e. g., the cabinet of the president and similar state officers; but these are not of the class mentioned by Blackstone, and the mode of appointment does not always indicate the nature of the powers to be exercised.

Federal officers are divided, according to the department in which they act, into legislative, executive and judicial.

As to state officers it is not deemed advisable to observe the division made by Blackstone into supreme and subordinate magistrates, for the reason that it appears from the opening words of his chapter on subordinate magistrates that he might well have included other officers not so designated, and for the further reason that the plan of the division we shall adopt seems more simple and natural (22).

21 See Mr. Justice Wilson's comparison of the constitution of the United States with that of Great Britain. 1 Wilson's Works, ch. XI.

22 Under the English system many offices were property and classed as incorporeal hereditaments, giving the individual incumbent a right to the office and its emoluments. A man was said to have an estate in them. Thompson v. Peo., 23 Went. 535. Certain offices or public duties annexed to the possession of real estate. 2 Cooley's Blk. (3d ed.), p. 36; Rex v. Knolly's, I Ld. Ray. 13. The American theory of government does not permit ownership of offices and they are not hereditaments. 3 Kent, *454.

In one class of state officers will be included all such officers as many be termed "general state officers," including in it legislative, executive and judicial officers of the state. Under the other head, "local officers," we will include county officers, township officers, and municipal officers, using this latter term in the more restricted sense with reference to municipal corporations.

§ 96. Public persons. In American law the word "person" embraces all the beings and entities, official, individual, bodies politic and corporate, capable of having, owning or exercising rights (23); and under this title will be discussed the capacities, rights, duties and privileges of the various persons, official and private, recognized by our law. A classification of persons familiar to any one who has had even a slight acquaintance with law is that into natural persons and artificial persons. This classification is not because of any difference in the nature or capacity to own or enjoy rights. This is the classification of Blackstone, and he treats parliament among natural persons, and also as a body politic. Inasmuch as the title "artificial persons" embraces not only private corporations, but all bodies politic, including the United States, the states, etc., by following this classification we violate the principle of classification adopted, and treat under artificial persons, persons moving in entirely different spheres of action (24).

23 "Personable, personabilis, le adj. One who may maintain a plea in a court, qui habet personam standi in judicio." From Old Dictionary by F. O., 1701.

24 All corporations, strictly so-called, are created by the government or by the people. The nation and the states come into existence by original agreement or convention of the people.

Whereas, the private corporation, so far as concerns its ordinary rights and the sphere in which it moves, does not differ materially from a natural individual, the corporation simply has not so many kinds of rights. While, therefore, this natural classification is not disregarded, we will adopt, as a primary division of persons, a classification which contrasts them because of the essential differences between the modes in which they arise, and the differences between their legal attributes and capacity and the sphere in which they move. In that view, all persons recognized by the law of the United States may be arranged under two great classes-public persons and private persons (25). This classification enables us to use the next obvious and natural classification of public persons, namely magistrates and people. Under it may be brought into view, in that position and prominence due to the legal personage which in reality constitutes the body politic, the people, and its treatment is permitted from the American standpoint, which is entirely different from the nature of the same title-head as used in the English law.

If the student will but turn to the Commentaries of Blackstone, he will find under the head "People," that people is used as synonymous with subjects, and only noticed as individuals. They are not said to be a part of the body politic. Justice Wilson very correctly brings this out as follows: "The parliament formed the great body politic of England. What, then, or where, are the people? Nothing; nowhere. From legal con

25 Walker, Am. Law, p. 59.

templation they totally disappear. They are not so much as the baseless fabric of a vision. Am I not warranted in saying that, if this is a just description, a government so, and justly so, described, is a despotic government" (26).

§ 97. The people of the United States. The people of the United States, in their aggregate capacity, constitute the great body politic, the nation, and are commonly spoken of as the sovereign people. The identity, capacity and obligations of the people may be examined under this classification.

The people of the United States appear in a double aspect-as the people of the nation and of the states. Private persons are likewise naturally classified as individuals and corporations, which corresponds identically with the natural and artificial persons of Black

stone.

The word "magistrate" is used in conformity with the prevailing idea in the United States, and in conformity with the meaning of the word "person" as heretofore explained, designating not, in strictness, the individual who holds the office, because we are not concerned with who he is, but with what is his legal or political capacity or personality (27).

Officers are state and federal. In the treatment of these subjects it will be observed that not only the meanings of the words "people" and "magistrate" are differ

26 Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 462.

27 Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475, 501; Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch. 137.

ent from the ideas associated with the same words in the English law, but the position of the treatment and classification is transposed, for the reason that it is more natural and convenient that we address ourselves to the principal personage first, viz., the people (28), and next, to their agents or officers, after which, in the proper place, may be treated, in their order, private persons, artificial and natural, domestic relations, property and procedure or actions. The criminal law may conclude the subject of municipal law, after which the other branch of jurisprudence, international law, may be briefly treated.

In order to obtain a clear conception of the political relations of the various persons that compose the body politic, it is necessary that we obtain a distinct idea of the nature of the persons themselves.

§ 98. Definition of terms. The words society, people, nation, state, government, citizen and magistrate are all familiar words, and each is supposed to have, and in fact should have, a distinct and definite meaning. It would be beyond the scope of this work to enter into an extended discussion of the origin and nature of society prior to the time when it had progressed so far as to be properly denominated civil society. Those discussions will be found

28 The editor of the fourth edition of McCrary on Election says: "In the great case of Chisholm, Ex'r, v. The State of Georgia, decided in 1793, Justice Wilson, one of the chief architects of our system of government, said: "The well-known address of Demosthenes, when he harangued and animated his assembled countrymen, was: "O men of Athens." With the strictest propriety, therefore, classical and political, our national scene opens with the most magnificent object which the nation could present. "The people of the United States" are the first personages introduced. Who were those people? They were the citizens of the thirteen states.'" Sec. 15.