This essay is an attempt to use some of the concepts of legal theory to interpret the emergence of the modern state. Starting from Kelsen’s and Weber’s definition of the State, I argue that the modern State or Sate stricto sensu is a form of political power that is exercised in the form of law and justified with the use of concepts like sovereignty and I try to show that these concepts, that are constitutive of the State, emerge as the result of constraints arising from the hierarchy of norms and weighing on legal argumentation.