State - a community of persons more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite portion of
territory, having a government of their own to which a great body of inhabitants render obedience and
enjoying freedom from external control.
The modern state has four (4) essential elements:
1. People
2. Territory
Four modes by which a state can acquire a territory:
a) Discovery and occupation
b) Prescription
c) Cession
d) Subjugation and Annexation
e) Accretion
3. Government
4. Sovereignty
Six (6) Classifications of sovereignty or power to govern:
a) Internal
b) External
c) Legal Sovereignty
d) Political sovereignty
e) Titular sovereignty
f) Actual Sovereignty
The (3) Fundamental powers of State-following are the fundamental powers of the state:
A. [Link] power- power of the State to enact/regulate such laws or regulations in relation to
persons and property as may promote public health,publicmorals,public safety and the general
welfare and convenience of the [Link] power is the inherent and plenary power of the
State which enables it to prohibit all that is hurtful to the comfort,safety and welfare of the
society,(e.g. to protect public morals,the law penalizes acts of prostitution)
Constitutional limitations: Police power is subject to the limitations of the [Link] power is
the exercise of sovereign right of a government to promote order and safety,security,health,morals and
general welfare within the constitutional limits.
Thus, Congress in the exercise of police power cannot pass a law in violation of Article X,of the
Constitution such as due process clause, equal protection clause,freedom of expression ,freedom of
religion,non-establishment clause, or Article 2 involving policies and principles of state.
B. [Link] Domain- right or power of the state or of those to whom the power has been lawfully
delegated to take private property for public use upon paying to the owner a just compensation to
be ascertained according to law.
In time of war or rebellion,the proper authorities may possess and hold any part of the territory of the
state for common [Link] time of peace the legislature may authorize the appropriation of the same to
public purposes such as the opening of roads,construction of defenses or providing channels for trade or
[Link] Domain is the highest and most exact idea of property remaining in government, or in the
aggregate body of the people in their sovereign [Link] gives right to resume the possession of the
property in the manner directed by the constitution and the laws of the state,whenever public interest
requires it.
Constitutional Limitation: The exercise of power of eminent domain is subject to Article X,Section 9 of
the constitution,which provides that Private Property shall not be taken for public use without just
compensation,.Thus,the inherent right of the state to take private property for public use in the exercise
of power eminent domain has a correlative constitutional duty to pay the affected owner just
compensation,equivalent into the fair market value of the property taken.
C. [Link]-the power of the state to impose charge or burden upon persons,or property rights,for
the use and support of the government and to enable it to discharge its appropriate functions.
Tax is the lifeblood of the government .Withouttaxes,the government would be paralyzed for lack of the
motive power to activate and operate [Link] the reluctance to surrender part of ones hard-earned
income to the taxing authorities,every person must contribute his share in the operation of the
[Link] government for its part is expected to respond in the form of tangible and intangible
benefits intended to improve the lives of the people. This symbiotic relationship is the rationale of
taxation and should dispel the erroneous notion that it is an arbitrary method of exaction by those in the
seat of power.
[Link] of taxation is also subject to constitutional limitations.,Section
28(1),Article 6 provides that The rule of taxation shall be uniform and equitable. The Congress shall
evolve a progressive system of [Link] rule of taxation means that persons or things belonging
to the same class shall be taxed at the same [Link] equitable rule of taxation simply means that the tax
burden must be imposed according to the taxpayers capacity to pay. Progressive system of taxation
means that as the resources of the taxpayer become higher his tax rates likewise increase. This is
exemplified by the income tax rate,which increases as the net taxable income [Link] is based on the
ability to pay and the implementation of the social justice principle that the more affluent should
contribute more to the communitys benefit.
@State distinguished fro, government-the government is only the agency through which the state
expresses its will; a state cannot exist without a government,but it is possible to have a government
without a state(relate this to the Philippine history)
@Purpose and necessity of Government
a. Advancement of the public welfare
b. Consequence of Absence
Kinds of Government
A. According to the number of persons in whom sovereignty resides:
1. Monarchy
2. Democracy
3. Aristocracy
B. According to the relation of the legislative to the executive branch:
1. Parliamentary
2. Presidential
C. According to the nature of official term
1. Hereditary
2. Elective
D. According to the extent of powers exercised by the national or central government
1. Unitary government
2. Federal government
E. According to legality of existence
1. De jure
2. De facto
F. Other Classifications
1. Civil government
2. Military government
3. Revolutionary government
Three Major Branches of Government
1. Legislative Branch
2. Executive Branch
3. Judicial Branch
State has four basic elements: people, territory, government and sovereignty. The absence of any of these
elements will not make a state a state. Thus, the state cannot exists without a government. There can be a
government however even without there being a state. Government may exist as long as a particular
society wanted to continue to have institutions that will carry out the rules of action which are necessary
for them to live in a social state.
A state is permanent while a government is not. A government may come and go, it may be overthrown.
But the state continues to be unimpaired and unaffected.
A state is an ideal person, intangible, indivisible and immutable. It can do no wrong. The government is
an agency of the state. It is perfect if it acts within the sphere. Whatever done wrong is attributed to the
government and not to the state.
Thomas Jefferson -- author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious
Freedom, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia -- voiced the
aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As a public official, historian, philosopher,
and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
Having attended the College of William and Mary, Jefferson practiced law and served in local
government as a magistrate, county lieutenant, and member of the House of Burgesses in his early
professional life. As a member of the Continental Congress, he was chosen in 1776 to draft the
Declaration of Independence, which has been regarded ever since as a charter of American and universal
liberties. The document proclaims that all men are equal in rights, regardless of birth, wealth, or status,
and that the government is the servant, not the master, of the people.
After Jefferson left Congress in 1776, he returned to Virginia and served in the legislature. Elected
governor from 1779 to 1781, he suffered an inquiry into his conduct during his last year in office that,
although finally fully repudiated, left him with a life-long pricklishness in the face of criticism.
During the brief private interval in his life following his governorship, Jefferson wrote Notes on the State
of Virginia. In 1784, he entered public service again, in France, first as trade commissioner and then as
Benjamin Franklin's successor as minister. During this period, he avidly studied European culture,
sending home to Monticello, books, seeds and plants, statues and architectural drawings, scientific
instruments, and information.
In 1790 he accepted the post of secretary of state under his friend George Washington. His tenure was
marked by his opposition to the pro-British policies of Alexander Hamilton. In 1796, as the presidential
candidate of the Democratic Republicans, he became vice-president after losing to John Adams by three
electoral votes.
Four years later, he defeated Adams and became president, the first peaceful transfer of authority from
one party to another in the history of the young nation. Perhaps the most notable achievements of his first
term were the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 and his support of the Lewis and Clark
expedition. His second term, a time when he encountered more difficulties on both the domestic and
foreign fronts, is most remembered for his efforts to maintain neutrality in the midst of the conflict
between Britain and France; his efforts did not avert war with Britain in 1812.
Jefferson was succeeded as president in 1809 by his friend James Madison, and during the last seventeen
years of his life, he remained at Monticello. During this period, he sold his collection of books to the
government to form the nucleus of the Library of Congress. Jefferson embarked on his last great public
service at the age of seventy-six, with the founding of the University of Virginia. He spearheaded the
legislative campaign for its charter, secured its location, designed its buildings, planned its curriculum,
and served as the first rector.
In 1815, Jefferson sold his 6,700-volume personal library to Congress for $23,950 to replace
books lost when the British burned the U.S. Capitol, which housed the Library of Congress,
during the War of 1812. Jefferson's books formed the foundation of the rebuilt Library of
Congress's collections
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, just hours before his close friend John Adams, on the fiftieth anniversary
of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. He was eighty-three years old, the holder of large
debts, but according to all evidence a very optimistic man.
THOMAS JEFFERSONS EARLY YEARS
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, a plantation on a large tract of land near
present-day Charlottesville, Virginia. His father, Peter Jefferson (1707/08-57), was a successful planter
and surveyor and his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson (1720-76), came from a prominent Virginia family.
Thomas was their third child and eldest son; he had six sisters and one surviving brother.
In 1762, Jefferson graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he
reportedly enjoyed studying for 15 hours then practicing violin for several more hours on a daily basis.
He went on to study law under the tutelage of a respected Virginia attorney (there were no official law
schools in America at the time), and began working as a lawyer in 1767. As a member of colonial
Virginias House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1775, Jefferson, who was known for his reserved manner,
gained recognition for penning a pamphlet, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774),
which declared that the British Parliament had no right to exercise authority over the American colonies.
MARRIAGE AND MONTICELLO
After his father died when Jefferson was a teen, the future president inherited the Shadwell property. In
1768, Jefferson began clearing a mountaintop on the land, in preparation for the elegant brick mansion he
would construct there called Monticello (little mountain in Italian). Jefferson, who had a keen interest
in architecture and gardening, designed the home and its elaborate gardens himself. Over the course of his
life, he remodeled and expanded Monticello and filled it with art, fine furnishings and interesting gadgets
and architectural details. He kept records of everything that happened at the 5,000-acre plantation,
including daily weather reports, a gardening journal and notes about his slaves and animals.
On January 1, 1772, Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-82), a young widow. The couple
moved to Monticello and eventually had six children; only two daughtersMartha (1772-1836) and Mary
(1778-1804)survived into adulthood. In 1782, Jeffersons wife Martha died at age 33 following
complications from child-birth. Jefferson was distraught and never remarried. However, it is believed he
fathered more children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings (1773-1835).
Slavery was a contradictory issue in Jeffersons life. Although he was an advocate for individual liberty
and at one point promoted a plan for gradual emancipation of slaves in America, he owned slaves
throughout his life. Additionally, while he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are
created equal, he believed African Americans were biologically inferior to whites and thought the two
races could not co-exist peacefully in freedom. Jefferson inherited some 175 slaves from his father and
father-in-law and owned an estimated 600 slaves over the course of his life. He freed only a small number
of them in his will; the majority were sold following his death.
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
In 1775, with the American Revolutionary War recently under way, Jefferson was selected as a delegate to
the Second Continental Congress. Although not known as a great public speaker, he was a gifted writer
and at age 33, was asked to draft the Declaration of Independence (before he began writing, Jefferson
discussed the documents contents with a five-member drafting committee that included John Adams and
Benjamin Franklin). The Declaration of Independence, which explained why the 13 colonies wanted to be
free of British rule and also detailed the importance of individual rights and freedoms, was adopted on
July 4, 1776.
In the fall of 1776, Jefferson resigned from the Continental Congress and was re-elected to the Virginia
House of Delegates (formerly the House of Burgesses). He considered the Virginia Statute for Religious
Freedom, which he authored in the late 1770s and which Virginia lawmakers eventually passed in 1786,
to be one of the significant achievements of his career. It was a forerunner to the First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution, which protects peoples right to worship as they choose.
From 1779 to 1781, Jefferson served as governor of Virginia, and from 1783 to 1784, did a second stint in
Congress (then officially known, since 1781, as the Congress of the Confederation). In 1785, he
succeeded Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) as U.S. minister to France. Jeffersons duties in Europe meant he
could not attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787; however, he was
kept informed of the proceedings to draft a new national constitution and later advocated for including a
bill of rights and presidential term limits.
JEFFERSONS PATH TO THE PRESIDENCY
After returning to America in the fall of 1789, Jefferson accepted an appointment from President George
Washington (1732-99) to become the new nations first secretary of state. In this post, Jefferson clashed
with U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1755/57-1804) over foreign policy and their
differing interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. In the early 1790s, Jefferson, who favored strong state
and local government, co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose Hamiltons Federalist
Party, which advocated for a strong national government with broad powers over the economy.
In the presidential election of 1796, Jefferson ran against John Adams and received the second highest
amount of votes, which according to the law at the time, made him vice president.
Jefferson ran against Adams again in the presidential election of 1800, which turned into a bitter battle
between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson defeated Adams; however, due to a flaw
in the electoral system, Jefferson tied with fellow Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr (1756-1836). The
House of Representatives broke the tie and voted Jefferson into office. In order to avoid a repeat of this
situation, Congress proposed the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which required separate
voting for president and vice president. The amendment was ratified in 1804
JEFFERSON BECOMES THIRD U.S. PRESIDENT
Jefferson was sworn into office on March 4, 1801; his was the first presidential inauguration held in
Washington, D.C. (George Washington was inaugurated in New York in 1789; in 1793, he was sworn into
office in Philadelphia, as was his successor, John Adams, in 1797.) Instead of riding in a horse-drawn
carriage, Jefferson broke with tradition and walked to and from the ceremony.
One of the most significant achievements of Jeffersons first administration was the purchase of the
Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million in 1803. At more than 820,000 square miles, the
acquisition (which included lands extending between the Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains and the
Gulf of Mexico to present-day Canada) effectively doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson then
commissioned Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) to explore the uncharted
land, plus the area beyond, out to the Pacific Ocean. (At the time, most Americans lived within 50 miles
of the Atlantic Ocean). The expedition, known today as the Corps of Discovery, lasted from 1804 to 1806
and provided valuable information about the geography, American Indian tribes and animal and plant life
of the western part of the continent.
In 1804, Jefferson ran for re-election and defeated Federalist candidate Charles Pinckney (1746-1825) of
South Carolina with more than 70 percent of the popular vote and an electoral count of 162-14. During
his second term, Jefferson focused on trying to keep America out of Europes Napoleonic Wars (1803-15).
However, after Great Britain and France, who were at war, both began harassing American merchant
ships, Jefferson implemented the Embargo of 1807. The act, which closed U.S. ports to foreign trade,
proved unpopular with Americans and hurt the U.S. economy. It was repealed in 1809 and, despite the
presidents attempts to maintain neutrality, the U.S. ended up going to war against Britain in 1812.
Jefferson chose not to run for a third term in 1808 and was succeeded in office by James Madison (1751-
1836), a fellow Virginian and former U.S. secretary of state.
THOMAS JEFFERSONS LATER YEARS
Jefferson spent his post-presidential years at Monticello, where he continued to pursue his many interests,
including architecture, music, reading and gardening. He also helped found the University of Virginia,
which held its first classes in 1825. Jefferson was involved with designing the schools buildings and
curriculum, and ensured that unlike other American colleges at the time, the school had no religious
affiliation or religious requirements for its students.
Jefferson died at age 83 at Monticello on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the
Declaration of Independence. Coincidentally, John Adams, Jeffersons friend, former rival and fellow
signer of the Declaration of Independence, died the same day. Jefferson was buried at Monticello.
However, due to the significant debt the former president had accumulated during his life, his mansion,
furnishing and slaves were sold at auction following his death. Monticello was eventually acquired by a
non-profit organization, which opened it to the public in 1954.