Excerpt from The Government of the People of the State of Pennsylvania A State or Commonwealth is. A public corporation, and has many rights also possessed by a free person. It can buy and sell property and hold it in possession. It can make contracts or agreements and compel those who form the contract to perform their part. Yet because it is the State and possesses many powers which a human being cannot possess or exercise, the State cannot be sued as easily as an individual or a private corporation. The State as a public corporation is next in rank to the United States. Public corporations of lesser rank are counties, cities, and boroughs. There are cases in which the United States, a State, a county, a city, or a borough may be sued. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.