1. The inherent and plenary power of a sovereign to make all laws necessary and proper to preserve the public security, order, health, morality, and justice. • It is a fundamental power essential to government, and it cannot be surrendered by the legislature or irrevocably transferred away from government. [Cases: Constitutional Law 81. C.J.S. Constitutional Law §§ 61, 432–443, 451–452; Insurance § 51.]
“[I]t is possible to evolve at least two main attributes or characteristics which differentiate the police power: it aims directly to secure and promote the public welfare, and it does so by restraint or compulsion.” Ernst Freund, The Police Power§ 3, at 3 (1904).
2. A state’s Tenth Amendment right, subject to due-process and other limitations, to establish and enforce laws protecting the public’s health, safety, and general welfare, or to delegate this right to local governments. [Cases: States 18.13. C.J.S. States § 23.]
3. Loosely, the power of the government to intervene in the use of privately owned property, as by subjecting it to eminent domain. See EMINENT DOMAIN. [Cases: Eminent Domain 1–5. C.J.S. Eminent Domain §§ 2–21, 23, 82–83, 87–88, 90–97, 104, 106–108, 115; Zoning and Land Planning §§ 24, 47.]
