Selected Quotations from Law Dictionaries:

To move again, from a different angle, to place all of this in the larger context; below are presented a number of important quotations, mostly from the reputable "Black's Law Dictionary"5. These definitions are basically split into two sections. Those in the first section immediately below, are related to good government, and they fit smoothly for Defining the "Constitutional State" in its Natural-Law based Ideal condition. The second group of definitions set forth further below, describe how a "Constitutionally-Lawless", "De-Facto", or Despotic State or Nation would look. The first group of citations form a foundation for realizing that many similar terms such as "Conscience", "Consent", "Consensus" "Constituent", and "Constable"; are all Directly Related to this term "Constitution". Broader research from other sources, and a bit of common sense, will verify all of this. These Positive "Black's Law Dictionary" Definitions read as follows:

Body Politic of Corporate: A social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good ... A term applied to a corporation ... Municipality ... School District ... State or nation or public associations ... (Black's 4th)

Common law. ... "Common law" consists of those principles, usage and rules of action applicable to government and security of persons and property which do not rest for their authority upon any express and positive declaration of the will of the legislature. ... In a broad sense, "common law" may designate all that part of the positive law, juristic theory, and ancient custom of any state or nation which is of general and universal application, thus marking off special or local rules or customs."

Complaint: ... In criminal law, a charge, preferred before a magistrate having jurisdiction, that a person named (or an unknown person) has committed a specified offense, with an offer to prove the fact, to the end that prosecution may be instituted. ... The complaint is a written statement of the essential acts constituting the offense charged. It shall be made upon oath before a magistrate. Fed R. Crim. P. 3. If it appears form the complaint that probable cause exists that the person named in the complaint committed the alleged crime, a warrant for his arrest will be issued. Fed R. Crim. P. 4.

Constant: Fixed or invariable, uniform. Continually recurring, regular, steady.

Constat: It is clear or evident; it appears; it is certain, there is no doubt.

Constate: To establish, constitute, or ordain. 'Constituting instruments' of a corporation are its charter, organic law, or the grant of powers to it.

Constituency: The inhabitants of an electoral district.

Constituent: He who gives authority to another to act for him. The term is used as a correlative to 'attorney', to denote one who constitutes another his agent or invests the other with authority to act for him. It is also used in the language of politics as a correlative to 'representative', the constituents of a legislator being those whom he represents and whose interests he is to care for in public affairs; usually the electors of his district.

Constitution: The organic and fundamental law of a nation or state, which may be written or un-written, establishing the character and conception of it's government, laying the basic principles to which its internal life is to be conformed, organizing the government, and regulating, distributing, and limiting the functions of the different departments, and prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers. A charter of government deriving its whole authority from the governed. The written instrument agreed upon by the people of the Union or of a particular state, as the absolute rule of action and decision for all departments and officers of the government in respect to points covered by it, which must control until it shall be changed by the authority which established it, and in opposition to which any act or ordinance of any such department or officer is null and void. In a more general sense, any fundamental or important law or edict ... ."

Constitutional Law. (1) That branch of the public law of a nation or state which treats of the organization, powers and frame of government, the distribution of political and governmental authorities and functions, the fundamental principles which are to regulate the relations of government and citizen, and which prescribes generally the plan and method according to which the public affairs of the nation or state are to be administered. (2) That department of the science of law which treats of constitutions, their establishment, construction, and interpretation, and of the validity of legal enactments as tested by the criterion of conformity to the fundamental law."

Confederacy: ... A league or agreement between two or more independent states, whereby they unite for their mutual welfare and for the furtherance of their common aims. ... more commonly used to denote that species of political connection between two or more independent states, by which central government is created, invested with certain powers of sovereignty, and acting upon the several component states as its units, which, however retain their sovereign powers for domestic purposes and some others. See Compact, Confederated States, Federal Government.

Confederation: A league or compact for mutual support, particularly of nations, or states. Such was the colonial government during the revolution.

Court: A space which is uncovered ... . ... A legislative assembly. Parliament is called in the old books a court of the king, nobility, and commons assembled. This meaning of the word has also been retained in the titles of some deliberative bodies, such as the 'General Court' of Massachusetts, i.e., the legislature. ... An organ of government, belonging to the Judicial Department, whose functions is the application of laws to controversies brought before it and the public administration of justice. The presence of a sufficient number of the members of such a body regularly convened in an authorized place at an appointed time, engaged in the full and regular performance of its functions. A body in the government to which the administration of justice is delegated. A body organized to administer justice, and including both judge and jury.

Democracy: A form of government in which the sovereign power resides in and is exercised by the whole body of free citizens directly or indirectly through a system of representation, as distinguished from a monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy.

De jure: ... a condition in which there has been total compliance with all requirements of law. Of right; legitimate; lawful; by right and just title. ... it is the contrary of de facto. It may also be contrasted with de grata, ... , as de grata means by grace or favor. Again, it may be contrasted with de equitate; ... as the latter means "by equity".

Due Course of Law. This phrase is synonymous with "due process of law", or "the law of the land", and the general definition thereof is "law in its regular course of administration through courts of justice".

Due Process of Law: Law in its regular course of administration through courts of justice. Due process of law in each particular case means such an exercise of the powers of the government as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of individual rights as those maxims prescribe for the class of cases to which the one in question belongs. ... To give such proceedings any validity there must be a tribunal competent by its constitution - that is by the law of its creation- to pass upon the subject matter of the suit ... . Due process of law implies the right of the person affected thereby to be present before the tribunal which pronounces judgement upon the question of life, liberty, or property, in its most comprehensive sense; to be heard, by testimony or otherwise, and to have the right of controverting, by proof, every material fact which bears on the question of right in the matter involved. If any question of fact or liability be conclusively presumed against him, this is not due process of law. ... Aside from all else, "due process" means fundamental fairness.

Federal Government: The system of government administered in a nation formed by the union or confederation of several independent states. ... a confederation ... denotes a league or permanent alliance between several states, each of which is fully sovereign and independent, and each of which retains full dignity, organization and sovereignty, though yielding to the central authority a controlling power for a few limited purposes, such as external and diplomatic relations. In this case, the controlling states are the units, with respect to the confederation, and the central government acts upon them, not upon the individual citizens. ...

Freeman: A person in the possession and enjoyment of all civil and political rights accorded to the people under a free government. In the Roman law, it denoted one who was either born free or emancipated, and was the opposite of "slave".

Freeman's roll: A list of persons admitted as burgesses or freemen for the purposes of the rights reserved by the municipal corporations act. ... The term was used, in early colonial history, in some of the American Colonies.

Free men: Before the Norman Conquest, a free man might be a man of small estate dependent on a lord. Every man not himself a lord, was bound to have a lord or be treated as unworthy of a free man's right. ...

Fundamental Law. The law which determines the constitution of government in a nation or state, and prescribes the manner of its exercise. The organic law of a nation or state; its constitution."

Fundamental Right. Those which have their origin in the express terms of the Constitution or which are necessarily to be implied from those terms."

General: From Latin word genus. It relates to the whole kind, class, or order. Pertaining to or designating the genus or class, as distinguished from that which characterizes the species or individual; universal, not particularized, as opposed to special; principal or central, as opposed to local; open or available to all; as opposed to select; obtaining commonly, or recognized universally, as opposed to particular; universal or unbounded, as opposed to limited; comprehending the whole or directed to the whole, as distinguished from anything applying to or designated for a portion only. Extensive or common to many.

General Assembly : Title of the legislative body in many states. See legislature. ... The highest "judicatory" body of the Presbyterian church, representing in one body all of the particular churches of the denomination.

General Jurisdiction: Such as extends to all controversies that may be brought before a court within the legal bounds of rights & remedies; as opposed to special or limited jurisdiction, which covers only a particular class of cases, or cases where the amount in controversy is below a particular sum, or which is subject to specific exceptions. ..."

General Law: A law that affects the community at large. A general law as contradistinguished from one that is special or local, is a law that embraces a class of subjects or places, and does not omit any subject or place naturally belonging to such class. A law, framed in general terms, restricted to no locality, and operating equally upon all of a group of objects, which, having regard to the purposes of the legislation, are distinguished by characteristics sufficiently marked and important to make them a class by themselves, is not a special or local law, but a general law. A law that relates to a subject of a general nature, or class, while one relating to particular persons or things of a class is a "special law".

Jus: ... right, justice, law; the whole body of law; also a right. ... "Jus" means "law", considered in the abstract; that is distinguished from any specific enactment, the science or department of learning, or quasi personified factor in human history or conduct or social development, which we call in a general sense, "the law". ... a capacity residing in one person of controlling with the assent and assistance of the state, the actions of another. ... Within the meaning of the maxim that "ignorantia juris non excusat" (ignorance of the law is no excuse), the word "jus" is used to denote the general law or ordinary law of the land, and not a private right.

Lex Non Scripta: The unwritten or common law, which included general and particular customs, and particular local laws.

Lex Terra: The law of the land. The common law, or the due course of the common law; the general law of the land. Equivalent to "due process of law". In the strictest sense, trial by oath; the privilege of making oath.

Liberty:... the necessary restraint on all, which is needed to promote the greatest possible amount of liberty for each.

Civil Liberty: A mans natural liberty , so far restrained by human laws and no further as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the public. The power of doing whatever the laws permit. The greatest amount of absolute liberty which can in the nature of things be equally possessed by every citizen in a state. Guaranteed protection against interference with the interests and rights held dear and important by large classes of civilized men, or by all the members of a state, together with an effectual share in the making and administration of the laws as the best means apparatus to secure that protection.

Natural liberty: The power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control unless by the law of nature. The right which nature gives to all mankind of disposing of their persons and property after the manner they judge most consistent with their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and so not to interfere with an equal exercise of the same rights by other men.

Personal liberty: The right or power of locomotion; of changing situation , or moving one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law.

Political Liberty: Liberty of the Citizen to participate in the operations of government, and particularly in the making and administration of the laws.

Malum in se: A wrong in itself; an act or case involving illegality from the very nature of the transaction, upon principles of natural, moral, and public law. An act is said to be malum in se when it is inherently and essentially evil, that is, immoral in its nature and injurious in its consequences, without any regard to the fact of its being noticed or punished by the law of the state. Such are most or all of the offenses cognizable at common law (without the denouncement of statute); as murder larceny, etc.

Natural Law: ... used in the philosophical speculations of the Roman jurists ... a system of rules and principles for the guidance of human conduct which independently of enacted law or of the systems peculiar to any one people, might be discovered by the rational intelligence of man, and would be found to grow out of and conform to his nature, meaning ... his whole mental, moral, and physical constitution. ... a life ordered "according to nature" which in its turn rested upon the existence, in primitive times, of a "state of nature" ... a condition of society in which men universally were governed solely by a rational and consistent obedience to the needs, impulses, and promptings of their true nature, such nature being as yet undefaced by dishonesty, falsehood, or indulgence of the baser passions. In ethics, it consists of practical universal judgements which man himself elicits. These express necessary and obligatory rules of human conduct which have been established by the author of human nature as essential to the divine purpose of the universe and have been promulgated by God solely through human reason.

Natural Rights: Those which grow out of nature of man, and depend upon his personality and are distinguished from those which are created by positive laws enacted by a duly constituted government to create an orderly civilized society.

Organic Law: The fundamental law, or constitution, of a state or nation, written or unwritten. That law or system of laws or principles which defines and establishes the organization of its government.

Organic Law: The fundamental law, or constitution, of a state or nation, written or unwritten. That law or system of laws or principles which defines and establishes the organization of its government.

Organic Act: ... A statute by which a municipal corporation is organized and created is its "organic act" and the limit of its power, so that all acts beyond the scope of the powers there granted are void.

Organize. To establish or furnish with organs; to systemize; to put into working order; to arrange in order for normal exercise of its appropriate functions.

People: A state; as the people of the state of New York. A nation in its collective and political and collective capacity. The aggregate or mass of individuals who constitute the state. ... In a more restricted sense, and as generally used in constitutional law, the entire body of those citizens of a sate or nation who are invested with political power for political purposes.

Political subdivision. A division of the state made by proper authorities there of, acting within their constitutional powers, for purpose of carrying out a portion of those functions of state which by long usage and inherent necessities of government have always been regarded as public.

Public Law: A general classification of law; consisting generally of constitutional, administrative, criminal, and international law, concerned with the organization of the state, the relation between the state and the people who compose it, the responsibilities of public officers to the state, to each other, and to private persons, and the relations of states to one another. An act which relates to the public as a whole. ... That branch or department of law which is concerned with the state in its political or sovereign capacity, including constitutional and administrative law; and with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights in cases where the state is regarded as the subject of the right or object of the duty, - including criminal law and criminal procedure, ...

Republic: A commonwealth; that form of government in which the administration of affairs is open to all the citizens. In another sense, it signifies the state, independently of its form of government.

Republican Government: ... a government of the people, a government by representatives chosen by the people.

Social contract or compact: In political philosophy, a term applied to the theory of the origin of society associated chiefly with the names of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau ... . ... Laws resulted from the combination of men, who agreed for mutual protection, to surrender individual freedom of action ... Government must therefore rest on the consent of the governed.

State: A people permanently occupying a fixed territory bound together by common-law habits and custom into one body politic, exercising, through the medium of an organized government, independent sovereignty and control over all persons and things within its boundaries, capable of making war and peace and of entering into international relations with other communities of the globe. ... The organization of social life which exercises sovereign power on behalf of the people. ... In its largest sense, "state" is a body politic or a society of men. A body of people occupying a definite territory and politically organized under one government. State ex rel. Maisano v. Mitchell, ... A territorial unit with a distinct general body of law. ... Term may refer to a body politic of a nation (e.g. United States) or to an individual governmental unit of such nation (e.g. California). ... The people of a state, in their collective capacity, considered as the party wronged by a criminal deed, the public, as in the title of a cause, 'The State vs A.B.' "

In efforts to lay a bit broader foundation to the above definition of the word "State", this author now cites another, older, and frequently precious source, entitled simply as "Law Dictionary"; by "John Bouvier"; as composed by him in 1856; and worded as follows:

"State, government. ... This word ... (i)n its most enlarged sense, it signifies a self-
sufficient body of persons united together in one community for the defense of their rights, and to do right and justice to foreigners. In this sense, the state means the whole people united into one body politic; (q. v.) and the state, and the people of the state, are equivalent expressions. ..."

And for contrast, for showing the Well-Known Legal Recognition of the existence of systems of so-called "Government" and of so-called "Law" which are Not in Harmony with the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God", and its "Single Voice"; it is good to also view some Negative Black's Law Dictionary Definitions ; as follows:

Anarchy: Absence of government, state of society where there is no law or supreme power, lawlessness or political disorder; destructive of and confusion in government. ...

Civil Action: Action brought to enforce, redress, or protect private rights. In general, all types of actions other than criminal proceedings. ... The term includes all actions, both those formerly known as equitable actions & those known as legal actions ...

Civil Law: That body of law ... more properly called "municipal" law, to distinguish it from the "law of nature", & from international law. Laws concerned with civil or private rights & remedies, as contrasted with criminal laws. The system of jurisprudence held and administered in the Roman empire, ... collectively denominated the "Corpus Juris Civilus", - as distinguished from the common law of England & the canon law. ...

Capital: Accumulated goods, possessions, and assets, used for the production of profits and wealth. ... there are several meanings ... ...

Capitalist: One exclusively dependent on accumulated property, whether denoting a person of large wealth or one having income from investments. And individual who owns all or part of an income producing asset.

Competition: Contest between two rivals. ... It is the struggle between rivals for the same trade at the same time; the act of seeking or endeavoring to gain what another is endeavoring to gain at the same time. ...

Competitors: Persons endeavoring to do the same thing, and each offering to perform the act, furnish the merchandise, or render the service better or cheaper than his rival.

De facto: In fact, in deed, actually. This phrase is used to characterize an officer, a government, a past action, or a state of affairs which must be accepted for all practical purposes, but is illegal or illegitimate. Thus an office, position or status existing under a claim or color of right such as a de facto corporation. In this sense, it is the contrary of de jure, which means rightful, legitimate, just or constitutional. Thus an officer, king, or government de facto is one who is in actual possession of the office or supreme power, but by usurpation, or without lawful title; while an officer, king, or government de jure is one who has just claim and rightful title to the office or power; but has never had plenary possession of it, or is not in actual possession. ...

De facto government: One that maintains itself by a display of force against the will of the rightful legal government and is successful, at least temporarily, in overturning the institutions of the rightful legal government by setting up its own in lieu thereof.

Lex Scripta: Written law; law deriving its force , not from usage, but from express legislative enactment, statute law.

Mala Prohibita: Prohibited wrongs or offenses; acts which are made offenses by positive law, and prohibited by such. Acts or omissions which are made criminal by statute: but which, of themselves, are not criminal. Generally, no criminal intent, or mens rea is required and the mere accomplishment of the act or omission is sufficient for criminal liability. Term is used in contrast to mala in se which are acts which are wrongs in themselves such as robbery.

Malum Prohibitum: A wrong prohibited; a thing which is wrong because prohibited; an act which is not inherently immoral, but becomes so because its commission is expressly forbidden by positive law; an act involving illegality resulting from positive law. Contrasted with malum in se.

Mancipium:Lat. ... slaves are frequently called "mancipia" in the non-legal Roman authors. ... When the pater familias sold his son , venum dare , mancipare, the paternal power was succeeded buy the mancipium, or the power acquired by the purchaser over the person whom he held in mancipio, and whose condition was assimilated to that of a slave.

Municipal Corporation: A legal institution formed by charter from sovereign (i.e. state) ... for the purpose and with the authority of subordinate self-government.

Municipal Affairs: ... it has come to include public service activities ... which were once regarded as being of a strictly private nature.

Municipal Function: ... those which specially and peculiarly promote the comfort, convenience, safety and happiness of the citizens of the municipality, rather than the welfare of the general public. ...

Municipality: ... A body politic created by the incorporation of the people of a prescribed locality invested with subordinate powers of legislation ...

Private International Law: A name used by some writers to indicate that branch of the law which is now more commonly called "Conflict of laws".

Private Law: As used in contradistinction to "Public Law", the term means all that part of the law which is administered between citizen and citizen, or which is concerned with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights in cases where both the person in whom the right inheres and the person in whom the obligation is incident are private individuals. See also: Private bill; Public law; Special law.

Special Interest Group. Groups in society that have a special interest in common. Special interest groups generally attempt to influence government legislation to benefit their own particular interest group.

Special Law. One relating to particular persons or things; one made for individual cases or for particular places or districts; one operating upon a selected class, rather than upon the public generally. A private law.

Unconstitutional. That which is contrary to the constitution. ... This word is used in two different senses. One, which may be called the English sense, is that the legislation conflicts with some recognized general principle. This is no more than to say that it is unwise, or is based upon a wrong or unsound principle, or conflicts with a generally accepted policy. The other, which may be called the American sense, is that the legislation conflicts with some provision of our written Constitution, which is beyond the power of the Legislature to change.

Both groups of these Definitions, are reinforced by multitudes of citations similar to these, many of which draw out these points even more clearly. But the first group of citations should be sufficient for readers to be able to see the profound and very broad-based "Natural-Law" Principles which are Fundamental to our American System of Constitutional Law and Government. Also, it should be clear from the second group of citations, that those forms of government which do not harmonize with this fundamental "Natural Law" Principle, are "Lawless", aka: "DeFacto".

From the first group of citations, this author finds four phrases particularly worthy of extraction and preservation for further examination and discussion here-in. These four phrases are: "Fundamental Law", "Organic Law", "Science of Law", and "Recognized General Principle".

The primary point which this author desires to draw from the first group of citations, is that the term "Constitution", is properly defined as "Organic Law". This was the proper definition of this term before the alleged adoption of the 1789 written "U.S. Constitution" document; and at least lip service continued on to be given to that definition for long periods of history after that event. Please note further from these citations that, this word "Organic" is a "Scientific" term, and that this entire focus on American "Constitutional-Law" may also be termed a "Science of Law" focus.

The definitions cited above also allow for such fashionably unfamiliar terms as "Body-
Politic", "Organic-Law", and "Common-Law", to be seen in the larger perspective of such more common terms as "Constitutional-Law" and "Natural-Law". These terms clearly relate to an "Organic Body", with Individual People forming its Many Sociological Component-Parts. This term "Body-
Politic" is specifically meant to denote a Group of People moving together for their Mutual Protection and Benefit. This is all analogous to a "flock of birds" or "school of fish"; acting together, in concert, organically and harmoniously. These are tangible/real entities, with solidly-physical component-parts. Each of these entities are logically recognizable as Voluntarily-Forming Their Own Separate physical, collective, Organic-Community.

Here-under; our American Constitutional-Law system is recognizable under the "Natural Sciences", and it denotes a living-breathing entity, or an "Organism". It can be a single-celled unit, a multi-celled animal or plant, or a Voluntary "Collective"; like a school of fish, a flock of birds; or even an organic Human "Community of People", which could more appropriately in this discussion be termed as a "Body-Politic". Among societies of people, these Natural/Organic Communally-Accepted "Laws", would regulate such things as how they would collectively breath quality air, drink and bathe in clean water, eat nutritional food, and provide for their clothing and shelter. Those sociologically natural-organic-constitutional "Laws" historically have resolved those simple concerns without very much difficulty.

Back in 1789, these words were all used in these precise manners, by street-level early American commoners, patriots, and constitutional-law scholars; and by all politicians who sought their support. A Community of People such as this is a "Constitutional Body-Politic", specifically and only because it is an "Organic Body-Politic". The terms "Organic" and "Constitutional" being clearly Equivalent; just as the terms "State" and "the People" are Equivalent; just as this is all shown in the above definitions quoted from "Blacks Law Dictionary".