\Police power\ (Law)
The inherent power of a government to regulate its police
affairs.
Note: The term police power is not definitely fixed in
      meaning. In the earlier cases in the United States it
      was used as including the whole power of internal
      government, or the powers of government inherent in
      every sovereignty to the extent of its dominions (11
      Peters (--U. S.) 102). The later cases have excepted
      from its domain the development and administration of
      private law. Modern political science defines the power
      as a branch of internal administration in the exercise
      of which the executive should move within the lines of
      general principles prescribed by the constitution or
      the legislature, and in the exercise of which the most
      local governmental organizations should participate as
      far as possible (--Burgess). Under this limitation the
      police power, as affecting persons, is the power of the
      state to protect the public against the abuse of
      individual liberty, that is, to restrain the individual
      in the exercise of his rights when such exercise
      becomes a danger to the community. The tendency of
      judicial and popular usage is towards this narrower
      definition.