1. The regulation, restraint, supervision, or control which is exercised upon the individual members of an organized jural society by those invested with the supreme political authority, for the good and welfare of the body politic; or the act of exercising supreme political power or control.2. The system of polity in a state; that form of fundamental rules and principles by which a nation or state is governed, or by which individual members of a body politic are to regulate their social actions; a constitution, either written or unwritten, by which the rights and duties of citizens and public officers are prescribed and defined, as a monarchical government, a republican government, etc. Webster.3. An empire, kingdom, state or independent political community; as in the phrase,”Compacts between independent governments.”4. The sovereign or supreme power in a state or nation.5. The machinery by which the sovereign power in a state expresses its will and exercises its functions; or the framework of political institutions, departments, and offices, by means of which the executive, judicial, legislative, and administrative business of the state is carried on.6. The whole class or body of office-holders or functionaries considered in the aggregate, upon whom devolves the executive, judicial, legislative, and administrative business of the state.7. In a colloquial sense, the United States or its representatives, considered as the prosecutor in a criminal action; as in the phrase, “the government objects to the witness.”
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