It may include a larger or a smaller number; it may
mean the political people, or it may mean simply population; it
may mean peasants, artisans, shopkeepers, traders, merchants, as
distinguished from the nobility; hired laborers or workmen as
distinguished from their employer, or slaves as distinguished
from their master or owner. In which of these senses is the word
to be taken when it is said, "The people are sovereign?" The
people are the population or inhabitants of one and the same
country. That is something. But who or what determines the
country? Is the country the whole territory of the globe? That
will not be said, especially since the dispersion of mankind and
their division into separate nations. Is the territory
indefinite or undefined? Then indefinite or undefined are its
inhabitants, or the people invested with the rights of society.
Is it defined and its boundaries fixed? Who has done it? The
people. But who are the people? We are as wise as we were at
starting. The logicians say that the definition of idem per
idem, or the same by the same, is simply no definition at all.
The people are the nation, undoubtedly, if you mean by the people
the sovereign people. But who are the people constituting the
nation? The sovereign people? This is only to revolve in a
vicious circle. The nation is the tribe or the people living
under the same regimen, and born of the same ancestor, or sprung
from the same ancestor or progenitor.
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