are connected or united through a justiciary medium, whether that
justiciary medium is a person, a body corporate, or a state, all the
states are free states, their relationships being governed by law.
Where states are connected through an executive medium, whether that
executive medium is a person, a body corporate, or a state, all the
states are free and independent states, and each acts according to its
will. All connections in which the legislative medium--whether a
person, a body corporate or a state, and whether wholly external to
the states connected, or to some extent internal to the states
connected,--has unlimited legislative powers or determines the limits
of its own legislative powers, are fictitious connections, the
relationship being really one which implies "empire" or "dominion" on
one side, and "subjection" or "dependence" on the other. Such
connections are properly called "empires" or "dominions." So also all
connections in which the only connecting medium is a common executive,
whether a person, a body corporate or a state, are fictitious
connections, the relationship being one of "permanent alliance" or
"confederation" between independent states. Such connections are
properly called "alliances" or "confederations." The only true
connections are those in which there is a legislative medium, whether
a person, a body corporate or a state, whose legislative powers are
limited, by agreement of the connected states, to the common purposes,
and those in which there is a justiciary medium, whether a person, a
body corporate, or a state, which recognizes its powers as limited to
the common purposes by the law of nature and of nations, and which
ascertains and applies this law, incidentally adjudicating, according
to this law, the limits of its own jurisdiction. Just connections tend
to become unions, it being found in practice necessary, for the
preservation of the connection in due order, that the power of
adjudicating and applying the law for the common purposes should