8 Strawberry Bank Rd.

Suite 20

Nashua, New Hampshire

    Similarly, Blackstone, from his commentaries on the law (1:93) writes:
    "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."

    From this we see that rights, natural rights, precede government. Madison said in the National Gazette, 1791:
    "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."

    So we see that the very purpose of government is to protect natural rights. Our founders then considered privileges to be what we now consider civil rights, or those rights which exist only because government exists and grants them. Rights of this sort include voting.

Figure 1. The first paragraph of the Constitution of the State of New
Hampshire, Part the Second

  The Constitution of New Hampshire, Part 2, Article 1, states the principal of people organizing into a sovereign and independent State quite succinctly:
  “The people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other, to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent Body-Politic, or State, by the name of the State of New Hampshire.”

  Note the similarity of the language to de Vattel’s. The word sovereign was so important that in the 1792 enrolled copy, when the secretary failed to include it, sovereign was written over the line to insert it as shown in the image above. Note, too, that the fundamental definition of corporation is body politic, so that Part 2, Article 1, also creates the corporation to carry out the business of the republic, which enjoys sovereign immunity (the members can’t be sued for the actions of the corporation), as do all corporations, and enterprises incorporated by the authority of the State.
     The intent of Sovereignty is Confirmed in the Constitution of New Hampshire, as shown above. It is important that this was ratified in 1784 and then again in 1792 which was after the ratification of the Constitution for the United States.  The People of the State of New Hamphire considered their State to be as sovereign and independent after ratification as before.
     I have also tried to be consistent in my use of the word people. When referring to individuals or a group of individuals, I use lower case p as in people. When referring to those people acting corporately as in We the People, I use an upper case P. I have tried to be consistent throughout. I have, of course, not changed this in any quoted material.

SUMMARY:
    The term State as used in our fundamental documents refers to a political body that has all the powers and privileges that we attribute to nations. These States can enter into treaties or federations to which they delegate certain of their powers for the purpose of greater effectiveness.

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