Legal Governments

[Kanamori]

I want to know what it means for a government to be legal.

I think a government would be legal if it were created, or modified, by an existing authority, or if it were created agreeably within existing custom or by a consensus.

I am fairly sure that, in this context, "quasi-legal" refers to the difference between the authority of "the people", congress, and the the established authority of the English Government. "Extra-legal" implies that some of the "representative" congresses or local governments weren't actually representative and definitely weren't approved by the English authority. I would reckon though that Pindar would be the best person to ask in this matter.

[Kanamori]

Bmolsson's approach would certainly be a practical definition though if the definition of "legal" was simplified to "right (to)"; which it often is, but I do not believe it is in the case of your quote.

[English assassin]

I suspect different academics will use the term differently. It seems to me that a legal government is one appointed in accordance with that country's then-existing constitutional rules for appointing a government. As opposed to a revolutionary government which has come to power otherwise than by those rules, albeit it may still very effectively exercise governmental powers.

I don't know what the situation is in the US but in the UK we recognise states rather than governments, thereby avoiding having to decide who is the "real" government in a civil war. So in our context at least "legal government" cannot mean "internationally recognised government".

In the section you quote though, unless the "legal" governments were asserting that they were governments by right of their place within the british constitutional structure, I think all the author means is that they were the same bodies and people who had previously been part of that struture albeit they were now independent. My US history is vague but it seems to me they can't truly have been legal if they were in a state of rebellion.