GOVERNMENT is the term used to de scribe the mechanism or ensemble of agencies through which a body-pblitic formulates and executes its will.
Governments de facto and de Since they act only as the agents of the sovereign political power, governmental agents in order legally to exercise the functions of their offices are obliged to possess a delegation of powers from the state they represent. In case they are not able to produce a sufficient evidence of this authorization, their acts are ultra vires, and as such of no legal force, and they them selves are subject to civil or criminal suit at the instance of parties whose persons or prop erty they may have injured by their acts.
It not infrequently happens, however, that persons claiming political authority, while able to produce satisfactory evidence of their official status and competence, do so by referring to grants of power from a political sovereignty, the legitimacy of which is not admitted by the parties over whom their authority is attempted to be exercised. It thus becomes necessary to distinguish between governments de facto (sed non de jure) and governments de jure.
The terms de facto and de jure are appli cable to governments in a purely relative sense. That is to say, which of the two L. properly descriptive of a given political organization depends upon the point of view of those who characterize it. Thus a government is de jure as well as de facto when it has been estab lished by, claims to represent and is in fact guided by the will of a state the legitimacy of which is recognized by the individuals over whom its control is extended. It is de facto but not de jure to any pirticular individual when, though actually in existence and able to exercise a certain amount of power, its legal character is denied by that individual. Thus in the case of an attempted revolution; from the standpoint of those who have repudiated their allegiance to the old state, refuse obedience to its government and have organized for them selves a new political machinery, the old gov ernment has but an actual and not a legal ex istence, the new government being the only one in their eyes possessing a legal basis. Upon the other hand, from the point of view of those who still support the old state, the newly established government has but a de facto existence, the old government being conceived as the one legal organization. Thus, during the American Civil War, the existence of the Southern Confederacy as a state was never recognized by the United States nor by foreign powers. The existence of a de facto Confed erate government was, however, admitted, and its soldiers recognized as belligerents. The continued allegiance of its supporters to the United States was, however, always asserted by the United States, and no legal force of any sort was ever ascribed, then, or after the end of the war, to any of its acts. No formal treaty of peace was entered into with the Southern Confederacy, the surrender of its armies being received simply as military acts, and its government permitted to go out of ac tual existence without any formal act to mark its demise.
The Ethical Right of Governments to Exist — The concrete question as to the moral right of a particular government to exist and to coerce individuals is often confused with the abstract one as to the moral justification for the existence of political restraint in gen eral. These two questions are, however, quite distinct, and are to be answered upon quite different principles. So long as men's interests conflict, or, at least, so long as they are con ceived by them to conflict, coercion of some sort must result, for the desires of all, under such circumstances, cannot be satisfied. Some will have to g.ve way to others, or all yield in part. The force bringing about the final set tlement may be individual, social, political or religious, but in any case restraint is applied and the freedom of action of the individuals concerned correspondingly interfered with. This being so, it is clear that the question as to the ethical legitimacy of coercion by the state is not to be answered by viewing such coercion as a restraint upon individuals who otherwise would possess entire freedom of action. Rather it is to be viewed as a control of individuals who, but for the existence of political government and law, would be sub ject to the compulsion of other forces. In other words, so long as men's desires conflict there cannot properly be raised the abstract question as to the rightfulness of restraint humanly imposed, or even the question as to its proper amount. The conflict of desires makes coercion inevitable, and the extent of this con flict fixes its amount. The only questions, therefore, that rightfully may be raised are as to the form that the compulsion shall assume, and the general principles that shall guide it. The justification, then, for the existence of any particular political authority, if justification there be, consists in the fact that it furnishes a more intelligent, more beneficial, more just and less painful form of restraint than that which, in its absence, any other force or forces would supply. A state and its government is but an instrument humanly devised for a peo ple's good. It, therefore, has to be justified by its works. There is, thus, no theoretical difficulty in conceiving of a political authority so corruptly and oppressively administered as to cause evils overbalancing those that it pre vents. In such a case, it has no ethical right to be. Practically speaking, however, there can he no question but that so grievous are the inevitable evils of lawlessness and anarchy that it is difficult to picture to oneself a politi cal regime so evil in its effects as to render preferable to it a complete absence of political order.