It does not belong to the essence of the State as such to have as its foundation a people, nor several, nor an ethnic group, nor a nation, nor occupy a territory. Not even being constituted by human beings, nor the unrestricted promotion of justice nor the safeguarding of morality. All these features can be verified in the actual existing States, and some of them are even desirable. But from an a priori consideration of the State they do not belong to it structurally. There is no contradiction in the idea of ​​an orb of pure personal spirits, even of evil spirits, stately constituted. So, what a phenomenological ontology of the State discovers is, according to Edith Stein, a collectivity of people with the characteristics of a community and governed by a single principle: sovereignty. This is the main thesis of An Inquiry into the State (1925).
Articulated in the sphere of power and domain, the State is actually the unity of the two things. Its hallmark is its power of self-configuration, which is expressed in the exclusive ability to sit upright. In the prerogative of being the subject and object of positive law, the three powers recognized modernly to the State are collected, different forms of State can be configured and the State itself is obliged to limit its autonomy in benefit of the freedom of the people.