ABSTRACT
In theology it may be that the chief artificial person is the Church; but in Jurisprudence the chief artificial person is the State. The abstract entity of the State which creates those rules lies behind the sovereign, who is only its organ. A king-maker or president-maker, the favorite of a monarch, the boss of State politics, may pride himself on his private station. Nor does the machinery of government make any great difference. Austin attempts to surmount this difficulty with the aid of the Fifth Article of the United States Constitution, which provides for amendments to be effected by a ratification by three-fourths of the States. Legal rights have been defined as the rights correlative to the duties which the State will enforce, either on its own motion, or on the motion of individuals; the former are the rights of the State, the latter are the rights of the individuals.
