The term "connection" was an apt term to express a relationship of equality and dignity. "Connection" implies two things, considered as units distinct from one another, which are bound together by a connecting medium. Just connection implies free statehood in all the communities connected. Union is a form of connection in which the connected free states are consolidated into a unity for the common purposes, though separate for local purposes. Merger is the fusion of two or more free states into a single unitary state. Connection between free states may be through a legislative medium, or through a justiciary medium, or through an executive medium. The connecting medium may be a person, a body corporate, or a state. States connected through a 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 them, whose legislative powers are unlimited or which determines the limits of its own legislative powers, are "dependent" upon or "subject" to the will of the legislative medium. Such states are "dependencies," "dominions," "subject states," or more accurately "slave-states,"--or more accurately still, not states at all, but mere aggregations of slave individuals. States connected through a legislative medium, whether a person, a body corporate or a state, and whether wholly external to the states connected or in part internal to them, whose legislative powers are granted by the states and which has only such legislative powers as are granted are in a condition of limited dependence, dominion, and subjection, but their relationship is by their voluntary act and they may, and by the terms of the grant always do to some extent control the legislative will to which they are subject and on which they are dependent. Where states 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