SELF-GOVERNMENT • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Self-government

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/sˈɛlfgˈəvərnmənt/ Listen

noun

Self-government n.

The act of governing one's self, or the state of being governed by one's self; self-control; self-command.

Hence, government of a community, state, or nation by the joint action of the mass of people constituting such a civil body; also, the state of being so governed; democratic government; democracy. "It is to self-government, the great principle of popular representation and administration, the system that lets in all to participate in the councels that are to assign the good or evil to all, that we may owe what we are and what we hope to be."

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Etymology of 'Self-government'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Self-government" Quotes from Famous Books

... when afterwards meditating on this subject, "the Turks have for centuries proved themselves to be utterly unworthy of self-government; they have shown themselves to be ignorant of the first principles of righteousness,—meum and tuum; they (or rather their rulers) have violated their engagements and deceived those who trusted them; have of late repudiated their debts, and murdered, robbed, violated, tortured those ...

— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... nobles and marshals and hereditary institutions and laws of primogeniture have existed for ages? Sir, when the masses of any people, inspired by the love of country, have demanded in modern times the right of self-government, they have been pointed to France with its revolution of 1798, to South America, where changing republics rise and disappear so rapidly that not ten men in this House can tell me their names, and also to Mexico. God forbid that the despots of the Old World ...

— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... of our Revolution to the present day almost forty years have elapsed, and from the establishment of this Constitution twenty-eight. Through this whole term the Government has been what may emphatically be called self-government. And what has been the effect? To whatever object we turn our attention, whether it relates to our foreign or domestic concerns, we find abundant cause to felicitate ourselves in the excellence of our institutions. During a period fraught with difficulties ...

— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... in every sense of the word; and the Patrol System, which is the keynote of the organization, by which eight girls of about the same age and interests elect their Patrol Leader and practice local self-government in every meeting, carries out ...

— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... acquirement of citizenship under more stringent regulations, and to check the growth and promulgation of seditious doctrines. If it be true, as is sometimes maintained with some plausibility, that citizens, to be intrusted with self-government, should be endowed with a certain degree of intelligence and virtue, then the aim of the framers of the laws, in the first case, was a good one; and, in the second case, the country has had some ...

— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

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