What is the State?

from
Unconstitutionality of Slavery
Published 1860

Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner answers...

For what is "a state?" It is just what, and only what, the will and power of individuals may arbitrarily establish.

There is nothing fixed in the nature, character or boundaries of "a state." Will and power may alter them at pleasure. The will and power of Nicholas, and that will and power which he has concentrated around, or rather within himself, establishes all Russia, both in Europe and Asia, as "a state." By the same rule, the will and power of the owner of an acre of ground, may establish that acre as a state, and make his will and power, for the time being, supreme and lawful within it.

The will and power, also, that established "a state" yesterday, may be overcome today by an adverse will and power, that shall abolish that state, and incorporate it into another, over which this latter will and power shall today be "supreme." And this latter will and power may also tomorrow be overcome by still another will and power mightier than they.

"A state," then, is nothing fixed, permanent or certain in its nature. It is simply the boundaries, within which any single combination or concentration of will and power are efficient, or irresistible, for the time being.