Site Symbology for Political Terms “United States”, “State”

Throughout this site, we consistently employ the following symbology conventions for political terms. We emphasize that according to the U.S. Supreme Court, the POLITICAL sense is the PRINCIPAL sense of all words used in the constitution.

In the Constitution the term state most frequently expresses the combined idea just noticed, of people, territory, and government. A state, in the ordinary sense of the Constitution, is a political community of free citizens, occupying a territory of defined boundaries, and organized under a government sanctioned and limited by a written constitution, and established by the consent of the governed. It is the union of such states, under a common constitution, which forms the distinct and greater political unit, which that Constitution designates as the United States, and makes of the people and states which compose it one people and one country.

[. . .]

But it is also used in its geographical sense, as in the clauses which require that a representative in Congress shall be an inhabitant of the State in which he shall be chosen, and that the trial of crimes shall be held within the State where committed.

And there are instances in which the principal sense of the word seems to be that primary one to which we have adverted, of a people or political community, as distinguished from a government.

[Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1134912565671891096]

1. “United States”

1. United States^P (political/nation)
2. United States⁵⁰ (50 bodies politic)
3. United States^G (50 States + DC in their geographical senses)
4. United States^F (DC/gov franchise)
5. United States^GOV (national government body corporate)
6. United States^T (geographical extent of Congress’ exclusive legislative jurisdiction under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17)

2. “State”

1. State^P (political/state)
2. State^G (geographical extent of body politic)
3. State^F (state/gov franchise)
4. State^GOV (state body corporate/government)

3. Relationship of the above terms to each other

For a detailed exposition of how all the above terms relate to each other, see:

INTERNAL and EXTERNAL, DOMESTIC and FOREIGN terms, FTSIG
https://ftsig.org/internal-and-external-domestic-and-foreign-terms/