Theoretically, there is no limit to the extent to which a state may go in the delegation to other states of the exercise of its power. If, however, in any one respect it is absolutely de prived of a power, so that it cannot legally, at its own discretion, resume the exercise of it, its legal omnipotence is destroyed and, together with it, its sovereignty and right to the title state.
Because the denial of the name state to non sovereign powers makes it necessary to refuse that title to the many bodies-politic that gen erally have been, and are, so designated, as for example, the members of a federation such as the United States of America, many writers have endeavored to discover some distinctive attribute other than sovereignty that will serve sharply to distinguish states from provinces, departments and other simple administrative districts. The better opinion would seem to be, however, that these efforts have failed, and must continue to fail. With the test of sovereignty discarded, the dividing line between states and other political bodies becomes an indeterminate one, and, therefore, an exact definition of a state an impossibility. Logical exactness, therefore, even at the expense of wounding political sentiments, requires an ad herence to the definition of a state as a neces sarily sovereign body.
Bibliography.—(1) American: Baldwin, 'The Province of Jurisprudence De termined' (1898) ; Burgess, J. W., 'Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law' (1893) ; Crane and Moses, 'Politics' (1893) ; Lowell, J. R., 'Essays on Government' (1899); Woolsey, T. D., 'Political Science' (1878) ; Wilson, W., 'The State> (1889) ; Willoughby, W. W., 'The Nature of the State' (1896). (2) English: Bosanquet, B., The Philosophical Theory of the State' (1899) ; Green, J. R., 'Lectures on the Principles of Political Obliga tion' (1893) ; Lilly, W. S., 'First Principles in Politics' (1899) : Lorimer, J., 'Institutes of Law' (1880) ; M'Kechnie. W. S., 'The State and the Individual' (1896) ; Mathews, J. M