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State governments of the United States


State governments of the United States include the governments of the original 13 states and the governments of the remaining 37 which were admitted to the United States as authorized under Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution of the United States.

While state governments within the United States may enact their own laws and prosecute crimes pursuant thereto, they are not sovereign in the Westphalian sense in international law which says that each State has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another State's domestic affairs, and that each State (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law. Additionally, the member states of the United States do not possess international legal sovereignty, meaning that they are not recognized by other sovereign States such as, for example, France, Germany or the United Kingdom, nor do they possess full interdependence sovereignty (a term popularized by international relations professor Stephen D. Krasner), meaning that they cannot control movement of persons across state borders.

The idea of "dual sovereignty" or "separate sovereigns" is derived from the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Structured in accordance with state law (including state constitutions and state statutes), state governments share the same structural model as the federal system, with three branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial.


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