GOVERNMENT, in its political signification, may be considered as including the power by which communities are ruled, and the means by which, and the form and manner in which, this power is exercised. In treating of the subject, we shall first indi cate those characteristics that seem essential to the existence of government altogether, and then proceed to mention the various forms which its machinery has assumed, or is capable of assuming.
1. It is of the essence of every government that it shall represent the supreme power or sovereignty of the state, and that it shall thus be capable of subjecting every other will in the community, whether it be that of an individual, or of a body of individuals, to its own. There is and can be no constitutional or fundamental law, not self-imposed, which is binding on a government in this, its highest sense. Whatever be the restraints which humanity, Christianity, or prudence may impose upon governments as on indi viduals, it is implied in the idea of a government that it should be politically respon sible to no human power, at least for its internal arrangements, or, in the language of politics, that it should be autonomous. The government of states which are mem bers of a confederatiou—as, for example, the states of the American republic, or the Swiss cantons—do not, it is true, possess this independent character. But in so far as they fall short of it, they are deficient in the characteristics of a government in the absolute sense, just as the states are states, not in the highest, but only in a subsidiary sense. The sovereign power with which. government is thus armed may be an expres sion either of the general will of the community itself, as in free states, or of the will of a conqueror, and of the army which supports him, as in subject states. In the former case, the power of government over the individual citizen is as absolute as in the latter; but there is this very important difference between them, that in the former case he himself voluntarily contributes a portion of the absolute power to which he submits, whereas in the latter it is entirely independent of his volition. In the power which government possesses of controlling every other will, is implied the power of protecting every separate will from beimg needlessly or wrongfully controlled by any other will, or number of wills, the will of government always excepted. With a view to the
exercise of this latter power, government possesses a right, which politically is also unlimited—the right, namely, of inquiry into the relations between citizen and citizen. It is of its essence that its scrutiny should be as irresistible as the execution of its decrees. Every government, whatever be its form, seeks the realization of what we have described as its necessary character, by the exercise of three distinct functions, which are known as its legislative, judicial, and executive functions. The first, or legis lative, function of government, consists in expressing its sovereign will with reference to a particular matter, irrespective altogether of the effect which it may have on the inter ests of individuals; the second, or judicial, consists in applying the general rule, thus enunciated, to individual cases in which disputes as to its application have arisen; whilst the third, or executive function, consists in carrying into effect the determinations of the sovereign will, whether these determinations be expressed in the exercise of its legislative or its judicial functions.
In large communities, which are at the same time free—that is to say, in which the general will of the people is sovereign—the performance of the legislative functions of government almost necessarily implies the existence of a general council, parliament, or, as it is often called, a legislature; whilst the performance of itsjudicial functions implies the existence of judges and courts of justice, and of its executive that of a police and an army. But all of these, like the existence of of ministers, or servants of the sovereign will—governments in the narrower sense—and the rules by which their appointment, resignation, etc., are regulated, are practical necessities of government in certain circumstances, not theoretical necessities of government 'in the abstract.