Legal Term: REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT

Definition: A government in the republican form; a government of the people; it is usually put in opposition to a monarchical or aristocratic government.

2. The fourth section of the fourth article of the constitution, directs that "the United States shall guaranty to every state in the Union a republican form of government." The form of government is to be guarantied, which supposes a form already established, and this is the republican form of government the United States have undertaken to protect. See Story, Const. §1807.

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