(A) government. The fundamental law of the state, containing the principles upon which the government is founded, and regulating the divisions of the sovereign powers, directing to what persons each of these powers is to be confided, and the, manner it is to be exercised as, the Constitution of the United States. See Story on the Constitution; Rawle on the Const. 2. The words constitution and government are sometimes employed to express the same idea, the manner in which sovereignty is exercised in each state. Constitution is also the name of the instrument containing the fundamental laws of the state. 3. By constitution, the civilians, and, from them, the common law writers, mean some particular law; as the constitutions of the emperors contained in the Code. (B) contracts. The constitution of a contract, is the making of the contract as, the written constitution of a debt.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
In public law. The organic and fundamental law of a nation or state, which may be written or unwritten, establishing the character and conception of its 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 its different departments, and prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers. In a more general sense, any fundamental or Important law or edict; as the Novel Constitutions of Justinian; the Constitutions of Clarendon. In American law. 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 all the 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. Cooley, Const Llm. 8.