_The State is a legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a certain territory._ 1. The State is a legal relation. A legal relation is the relation, determined by legal norms, of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed. Thus, for instance, the legal relation of a loan is a relation of the borrower, who is bound by the legal norms concerning loans, to the lender, for whose sake he is bound. The State is the legal relation of all the men who by legal norms are subjected to a supreme territorial authority, to all those for whose sake they are subjected to it. Here the circle of the entitled and the obligated is one and the same; the State is a bond upon all in favor of all. To this it might perhaps be objected that the State is not a legal relation but a person. But the two propositions, that an association of men is a person in the legal sense and that it is a legal relation, are quite compatible; nay, its attribute of personality is based mainly on its attribute of being a legal relation of a particular kind; law, in viewing the association in its outward relationships as a person, starts from the fact that men are bound together by a particular legal relation. A joint-stock corporation is a person not although, but because, it is a legal relation of a peculiar kind. And similarly, the fact that the State is a person is not only reconcilable with its being a legal relation, but is founded on its being a peculiar legal relation. 2. As to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary. A voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; for instance, entrance into the relation of tenancy is conditioned on agreeing to a lease. _Per contra_, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party, as, for instance, a patent is not conditioned on any action of those who are bound by it, and the sentence of a criminal is at least not conditioned on any action whereby he intended to bring it about. If the State were a voluntary legal relation, a supreme authority could exist only for those inhabitants of a territory who had acknowledged it. But the supreme authority exists for all inhabitants of the territory, whether they have acknowledged it or not; the legal relation is therefore involuntary. 3. The substance of this legal relation is, that a supreme authority exists in a territory.