Commonwealth

The public or common weal or welfare. This cannot be regarded as a teclinical term of public law, though often used in political science. It generally designates, when so employed, a republican frame of government,—one in rather than the privileges of a class or the will of a monarch; or it may designate the body of citizens living under such a goverament. Sometimes it may denote the corporate entity, or the government, of a jural society (or state) possessing powers of sel[-goyernment in respect of its immediate concerns, but forming an integral part of a larger government, (or nation.) In this latter sense, it is the official title of several of the United States, (as Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, ) and would be appropriate tothemali. Inthe former serse, the word was used to designate the English government during the protectorate of Cromwell, See GOVERNMENT; Na- TION; STATE.