Government in the United States

Government Definition

(Lat. gubemaculum, a rudder. The Romans compared the state to a vessel, and applied the term gubernator, helmsman, to the leader or actual ruler of a state. From the Latin, this word has passed into most of the modern European languages). That institution or aggregate of institutions by which a state makes and carries out those rules of action which are necessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming a state. We understand, in modern political science, by “state,” in its widest sense, an independent society, acknowledging no superior, and by the term “government,” that institution or aggregate of institutions, by which that society makes and carries out those rules of action which are necessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those who possess the power or authority of prescribing them.

Government is the aggregate of authorities which rule a society. By “administration,” again, we understand in modern times, and especially in more or less free countries, the aggregate of those persons in whose hands the reins of government are for the time being, the chief ministers or heads of departments. But the terms “state,” “government,” and “administration” are not always used in their strictness. The government of a state being its most prominent feature, which is most readily perceived, “government” has frequently been used for “state”; and the publicists of the last century, almost always used the term “government,” or “form of government,” when they discussed the different political societies or states. On the other hand, “government” is often used, to this day, for “administration,” in the sense in which it has been explained. They are never actually created by agreement or compact. Even where portions of government are formed by agreement, as, for instance, when a certain family is called to rule over a country, the contracting parties must previously be conscious of having authority to do so.

As society originates with the family, so does authority or government. Nowhere do men exist without authority among them, even though it were but in its mere incipiency. Men are forced into this state of things by the fundamental law that with them, and with-them alone of all mammals, the period of dependence of the young upon its parentsoutlasts by many years the period of lactation, so that, during this period of post-lactational dependence, time and opportunity are given for the development of affection and the habit of obedience on the one hand, and of affection and authority on the other, as well as of mutual dependence. The family is a society, and expands into clusters of families, into tribes and larger societies, collecting into communities, always carrying the habit and necessity of authority and mutual support along with, them. As men advance, the great and pervading law of mutual dependence shows itself more and more governmently, and acts more and more intensely. Man is eminently a social being, not only as to an instinctive love of aggregation, not only as to material necessity and security, but also as to mental and affectional development, and not only as to a given number of existing beings, or what we will call as to “extent,” but also as to “descent” of generation after generation, or, as we may call it, “transmission.” Society, and its government along with it, are continuous.

Government exists and continues among men, and laws have authority for generations which neither made them, nor had any direct representation in making them, because the necessity of government necessary according to the nature of social man and to his wants is a continuous necessity. But the family is not only the institution from which once, at a distant period, society, authority, and government arose. The family increases in importance, distinctness, and intensity of action as man advances, and continues to develop authority, obedience, affection, and social adhesiveness, and thus acts with reference to the state as the feeder acts with reference to the canal. The state originates daily anew in the family. Although man is an eminently social being, he is also individual, morally, intellectually, and physically; and, while his individuality will endure even beyond this life, he is necessitated, by his physical condition, to appropriate and to produce, and thus to imprint his individuality upon the material world around, to create property. But man is not only an appropriating and producing, he is also an exchanging, being. He always exchanges and always intercommunicates. This constant intertwining of man’s individualism and socialism creates mutual claims of protection, rights, the necessity of rules, of laws, in one word, as individuals and as natural members of society, men produce and require government. No society, no cluster of men, no individuals banded together even for a temporary purpose, can exist without some sort of government instantly springing up.

Government is natural to man, and characteristic. No animals have a government; no authority exists among them; instinct and physical submission alone exist among them. Man alone has laws which ought to be obeyed, but may be disobeyed. Expansion, accumulation, development, progress, relapses, disintegration, violence, error, superstition, the necessity of intercommunication, wealth and poverty, peculiar disposition, temperament, configuration of the country, traditional types, pride and avarice, knowledge and ignorance, sagacity of individuals, taste, activity and sluggishness, noble or criminal bias, position, botti geopraphical and chronological, all that affects numbers of men affects their governments, and an endless variety of governments and political societies has been the consequence; but, whatever form of government may present itself to us, the fundamental idea, however rudely conceived, is always the protection of society and its members, security of property and person, the administration of justice therefor, and the united efforts of society to furnish the means to authority to carry out its objects, contribution, which, viewed as imposed by authority, is taxation. Those bands of robbers which occasionally have risen in disintegrating societies, as in India, and who merely robbed and devastated, avowing that they did not mean to administer justice or protect the people, form no exception, although the extent of their soldiery, and the periodicity of their raids, caused them to be called governments.

What little of government continued to exist was still the remnant of the communal government of the oppressed hamlets; while the robbers themselves could not exist without a government among themselves. Aristotle classified governments according to the seat of supreme power, and he has been generally followed down to very recent times. Accordingly, we had monarchy, that government in which the supreme power is vested in one man, to which was added, at a lateir period, the idea of hereditariness. Aristocracy, the government, in which the supreme power is vested in the aristoi, which does not mean, in this case, the best, but the excelling ones, the prominent, i. e., by property and influence. Privilege is its characteristic. Its corresponding degenerate government is the oligarchy (from oligos, little, few), that government in which supreme power is exercised by a few privileged ones, who generally have arrogated the power.

Democracy, that government in which supreme power is vested in the people at large. Equality is one of its characteristics. Its degenerate correspondent is the ochlocracy (from ochlos, the rabble), for which at present the barbarous term “mobocracy” is frequently used. But this classification was insufficient, even at the time of Aristotle, when, for instance, theocracies existed; nor is the seat of supreme power the only characteristic, nor, in all respects, by any means the chief characteristic. A royal government, for instance, may be less absolute than a republican government. In order to group together the governments and political societies which have existed, and are still existing, with philosophical discrimination, we must pay attention to the chief power holder (whether he be one or whether there are many), to the pervading spirit of the administration or wielding of the power, to the characteristics of the society, or the influencing interests of the same, to the limitation or entirety of public power, to the peculiar relations of the citizen to the state. Indeed, every principle, relation, or condition characteristically influencing or shaping society or government in particular may furnish us with a proper division. We propose, then, the following Grouping of Political Societies and Governments.

Grouping of Political Societies and Governments

I. According to the supreme power holder, or the placing of supreme power, whether really or nominally so.

The power holder may be one, a few, many, or all; and we have, accordingly:

A Principalities

That is, states the rulers of which are set apart from the ruled, or inherently differ from the ruled, as in the case of the theocracy.

In relation to Monarchy:

• Patriarchy
• Chieftain government (as our Indians)
• Sacerdotal monarchy (as the states of the church; former sovereign bishoprics)
• Kingdom, or principality proper
• Theocracy (Jehovah was the chief magistrate of the Israelitic state).

In relation to Dyarchy: It exists in Siam, and existed occasionally in the Roman empire; not in Sparta, because Sparta was a republic, although her two hereditary generals were called kings.

B Republic

This covers:

In the case of Aristocracy:

• Aristocracy proper, including Aristocracies which are democracies within the body of aristocrats (as the former Polish- government) and Organic internal government (as Venice formerly)
• Oligarchy
• Sacerdotal republic, or hierarchy
• Plutocracy; if, indeed, we adopt this term from antiquity for a government in which it is the principle that the possessors of great wealth constitute the body of aristocrats.

In the case of Democracy:

• Democracy proper
• Ochlocracy (mob rule), “mob” meaning unorganized multitude.

II According to the unity of the public power, or its division and limitation

A. Unrestricted power, or absolutism

This covers:

According to the form of government:

• Absolute monarchy, or despotism
• Absolute aristocracy (Venice) ; absolute sacerdotal aristocracy, etc.
• Absolute democracy (the government of the Agora, or market democracy).

According to the organization of the administration:

• Centralized absolutism. Centralism, called “bureaucracy” when carried on by writing; at least, bureaucracy has very rarely existed, if ever, without centralism.
• Provincial (satraps, pashas, proconsuls).

C According to division of public power

This covers:

• Governments in which the three great functions of public power are separate, viz., the legislative, executive, judiciary. If a distinct term contradistinguished to centralism be wanted, we might call these “co-operative governments.”
• Governments in which these branches are not strictly separate, as, for instance, in our government, but which are nevertheless not centralized governments; as Republican Rome, Athens, and several modern kingdoms.

C Institutional government

This covers:

In the case of Institutional government comprehending the whole, or constitutional government:

• Deputative government
• Representative government (which includes Bicameral government and Unicameral government).

In the case of Local self-government. See groupong by Constitutions. We do not believe that any substantial self-government can exist without an institutional character and subordinate selfgovernments. It can exist only under an institutional government (see Lieber’s Civil Liberty and Self-Government, under “Institution”).

Whether the state is the substantive or the means, or whether the principle of socialism or individualism preponderates

This covers:

• Socialism, that state of society in which the socialist principle prevails, or in which government considers itself the substantive; the ancient states absorbing the individual or making citizenship the highest phase of humanity; absolutism of Louis XIV Indeed, all modern absolutism is socialistic.
• Individualism, that system in which the state remains acknowledged a means, and the individual the substantive; where primary claims, that is, rights, are felt to exist, for the obtaining’ and protection of which the government is established, the government, or even society, which must Qot attempt to absorb the individual. The individual is immortal, and will be of another world; the state is neither.

III According to the descent or transfer of supreme power.

This covers:

• Hereditary governments. Monarchies. Aristocracies. Hierarchies, etc.
• Elective. Monarchies. Aristocracies. Hierarchies.
• Hereditary elective governments, the rulers of which are chosen from a certain family or tribe.
• Governments in which the chief magistrate or monarch has the right to appoint the successor; as occasionally the Roman emperors, the Chinese, the Russian, in theory, Bonaparte when consul for life.

IV According to the origin of supreme power, real or theoretical.

A According to the primordial character of power

This covers:

Based on jus divinum:

• Monarchies
• Communism, which rests its claims on a jus divinum, or extrapolitical claim of society. (c) Democracies, when p r oclaiming that the people, because the people, can do what they list, even against the law; as the Athenians once declared it, and Napoleon III., when he desired to be elected president a second time against the constitution.

Based on the sovereignty of the people:

• Establishing an institutional government, as with us
• Establishing absolutism (the Bonaparte sovereignty, for example).

B Delegated power

This covers:

• Chartered governments (which includes Chartered city governments, Chartered companies, as the former great East India Company and Proprietary governments).
• Vice royalties; as Egypt, and, formerly, Algiers.
• Colonial government with constitution and high amount of selfgovernment, a government of great importance in modern history.

Constitutions

(To avoid too many subdivisions, this subject has been treated here separately. See II). Constitutions, the fundamental laws on Which governments rest, and which determine the relation in which the citizen stands to the government, as well as each portion of the government to the whole, and which, therefore, give feature to the political society, may be:

A As to their origin

This covers:

• Accumulative; as the constitutions of England or Republican Rome
• Pacts between two parties, contracts, as Magna Charta, and most charters in the Middle Ages. The medieval rule was that as much freedom was enj6yed as it was possible to conquer, expugna/re in the true sense.
• Enacted constitutions (generally, but not philosophically, called “written constitutions”)

In the last case, enacted constitutions, it can be grouped in the following manner:

• Octroyed constitutions (as the French, by Louis XVIII)
• Enacted by the people, as our constitutions. (“We, the people, charter governments ; formerly governments chartered the liberties of the people.”)

B As to extent or uniformity

This covers:

• Broadcast over the land. We may call them national constitutions, popular constitutions, constitutions for the whole state.
• Special’ charters. Chartered, accumulated and varying franchises, medieval character. (See article “Constitution” in the Encyclopaedia Americana.)

VI. As to the extent and comprehension of the chief government

A. Military governments

This covers:
(1) Commercial government; one of the first in Asia, and that into which Asiatic society relapses, as the only remaining element, when barbarous conquerors destroy all bonds which can be torn by them.
(2) Tribal government. (a) Stationary. (b) Nomadic. We mention the nomadic government under the tribal government, because no other government has been nomadic, except the patriarchal government, which indeed is the incipiency of the tribal government.
(3) City government; that is, city states; as all free states of antiquity, and as the Hanseatic governments in modern times.
(4) Government of the Medieval Orders extending over portions of societies far apart; as the Templars, Teutonic Knights, Knights of St. John. Political societies without necessary territory, although they had always landed property.
(5) National states; that is, populous political societies spreading over an extensive and cohesive territory beyond the limits of a city.

Confederacies

This covers:
(1) As to admission of members, or extension. (a) Closed, as the Amphictyonic council, Germany. (b) Open, as ours.
(2) As to the federal character, or the character of the members, as states. (a) Leagues. (aa) Tribal c ies; confederafrequently observed in Asia; generally of a loose character. (bb) City leagues, as the Hanseatic League, the Lombard League. (cc) Congress of deputies, voting by states and according to instruction; as the Netherlands r epublic and our Articles of Confedera t i o n, Germanic Confederation. (dd) Present “state system of Europe” (with constant congresses, if we may call this “system,” a federative government in its incipiency). (b) Confederacies proper, with national congress. (aa) With ecclesiae or democratic c o n gress (Achaean League). (bb) With representative national congress, as ours.

C. Mere agglomerations of one rulers

This covers:
(1) As the early Asiatic monarchies, or Turkey.
(2) Several crowns in one head; as Austria, Sweden, Denmark.

VII. As to the construction of society, the title of property and allegiance

A. As to the classes of society

This covers:
(1) Castes, hereditarily dividing the whole population, according to occupations and privileges. India, ancient Egypt.
(2) Special castes. (a) Government with privileged classes or caste; nobility. (b) Government with degraded or oppressed caste; slavery. (c) Governments founded on equality of citizens (the uniform tendency of modern civilization).

B As to property and productions

This covers:
(1) Communism.
(2) Individualism.

C As to allegiances

This covers:
(1) Plain, direct; as in unitary governments.
(2) Varied; as in national confederacies.
(3) Graduated or encapsulated; as in the feudal system, or as is the case with the serf.

prevailing interests or classes

Governments are occasionally called according to the prevailing interests or classes; as Military states; for instance, Prussia under Frederick II. Maritime state. Commercial. Agricultural. Manufacturing. Ecclesiastical, etc.

VIII. According to simplicity or complexity

As in all other spheres, we have:
A Simple governments (formerly called “pure”; as “pure democracy”).
B Complex governments, formerly called “mixed.”

The Federal Courts in American Government and the Federal Courts

In the words of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts: The three branches of the federal government—legislative, executive, and judicial—operate within a constitutional system of “checks and balances.” This means that although each branch is formally separate from the other two, the Constitution often requires cooperation among the branches. Federal laws, for example, are passed by Congress and signed by the President. The judicial branch, in turn, has the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes over federal laws, but judges depend upon the executive branch to enforce court decisions.

Government in the International Business Landscape

Definition of Government in the context of U.S. international business and public trade policy: A social institution empowered to make decisions for a whole society or community.

Government in the International Business Landscape

Definition of Government in the context of U.S. international business and public trade policy: The institutions that provide protection and justice to constituents by exercising monopoly power over the use of force. Also see state.

U.S. Government Contents

History & Basics

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U.S. Constitution

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U.S. Legal System

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U.S. Political System

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Income Tax & the IRS

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Defense & Security

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Federal Safety Net

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Consumer Awareness

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Campaigns & Elections

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Business & Finance

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Government in Foreign Legal Encyclopedias

For starting research in the law of a foreign country:

Link	Description
Government	Government in the World Legal Encyclopedia.
Government	Government in the European Legal Encyclopedia.
Government	Government in the Asian Legal Encyclopedia.
Government	Government in the UK Legal Encyclopedia.
Government	Government in the Australian Legal Encyclopedia.

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Notes

1. This definition and description of Government is based on The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary