[p. 250]
|250| But on the other side the rights of the citizens must also be protected by laws. A despotic government indeed has the highest power, but in such a constitution the rights of the citizens are sacrificed. The despot indeed has the greatest power and can use the forces of his realm at will, but this standpoint is also the most dangerous. – The constitution of government of a people is not merely an external arrangement. A people could just as well have this constitution as another. It depends essentially on the character, the customs, the degree of culture, the way of life and the extent of the people.
§ 29
The citizens as individuals are subject to the power of the state and obey it. The content and purpose of this power, however, is the actualization of the natural, i.e. absolute, rights of the citizens, who in the state do not renounce them but rather attain only in it to the enjoyment and cultivation of them.
§ 30
The constitution of the state determines, as internal public law of the state, the relation of the particular powers both to the government, their supreme unification, and to one another, as well as the relation of the citizens to them or their share in them.
§ 31
The external public law of the state concerns the relation of independent peoples to one another through their governments and rests chiefly on particular treaties, – law of nations
Explanation. States stand in a relation to one another that is more natural than a relation of right. There is therefore a continual strife among them, so that they conclude treaties with one another and thereby place themselves in a relation of right toward one another. On the other
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