in general, is the polity of a state, or an orderly power constituted for the public good.

Civil government was instituted for the preservation and advancement of mens civil interests, and for the better security of their lives, liberties, and properties. The use and necessity of government is such, that there never was an age or country, without some sort of civil authority: but as men are seldom unanimous in the means of attaining their ends, so their differences in opinion in relation to government have produced a variety of forms of it. To enumerate them would be to recapitulate the history of the whole earth. But, according to Montesquieu, and most others writers, they may, in general, be reduced to one of these three kinds. 1. The republican. 2. The monarchical. 3. The despotic.—The first is that, where the people in a body, or only a part of the people, have the sovereign power; the second, where one alone governs, but by fixed and established laws; but in the despotic government, one person alone, without law and without rule, directs everything by his own will and caprice. See the article LAW, No. 1. 3—10. On the subject of government at large, see Montesquieu's L'Esprit des Lois, l. 2. c. 1.; Locke, ii. 129, &c. quarto edition, 1768; Sidney on government; Sir Thomas Smith de Republ. Angl. and Achery's Britannic Constitution.—As to Gothic government, its original and faults, &c. see Montesquieu's L'Esprit des Lois, l. 11. c. 8.—With respect to the feudal policy, how it limited government, see FEUDAL System.

GOVERNMENT is also a post or office, which gives a person the power or right to rule over a place, a city, or a province, either supremely or by deputy.

GOVERNMENT is likewise used for the city, country, or place to which the power of governing is extended.