An Organic Conception of the Treaty-Making Power vs. State rights as Applicable to the United States

Authors

Charles Sumner Clancy

Abstract

When we talk of the State, its rights or its structures, we are necessarily led to the inquiry, "What do we mean by the State?" Beginning with the proposition that the State is a composite formed of individuals whose lives are shaped by the life of the whole, it necessarily follows that a perfect understanding of any particular State would involve a knowledge of the characteristics of the members who compose it. This of course is obviously impossible, but the theory underlying States generally is founded upon general human characteristics. So we may take as a basis the great truth discovered by Aristotle, that man is by nature a social and political animal and therefore a member of some State, however crude. Clearly, then, it is "apparent that the State is not to be considered as in any sense 'artificial,' or as a 'mechanism.' * * * The feelings that unite men into social and political units are as natural to them as are any of their individualistic impulses.'' Having given the State, then, our inquiry into its meaning is concerned with its structure and growth as a social organism.

Recommended Citation

Charles S. Clancy, An Organic Conception of the Treaty-Making Power vs. State rights as Applicable to the United States, 7 Mich. L. Rev. 19 (1908).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol7/iss1/3