Subject

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SUBJECT, contracts. The thing which is the object of an agreement. This term is used in the laws of Scotland.

SUBJECT, persons, government. An individual member of a nation, who is subject to the laws; this term is used in contradistinction to citizen, which is applied to the same individual when considering his political rights.
     2. In monarchical governments, by subject is meant one who owes permanent allegiance to the monarch. Vide Body politic; Greenl. Ev. Sec. 286; Phil. & Am. on Ev. 732, n. 1.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.
References in classic literature ?
Some portion of this knowledge may, no doubt, be acquired in a man's closet; but some of it also can only be derived from the public sources of information; and all of it will be acquired to best effect by a practical attention to the subject during the period of actual service in the legislature.
No argument can be drawn on this subject, from the case of the delegates to the existing Congress.
For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger?
And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.
Such annotations as may be useful to assist the reader in comprehending the characters of the Jew, the Templar, the Captain of the mercenaries, or Free Companions, as they were called, and others proper to the period, are added, but with a sparing hand, since sufficient information on these subjects is to be found in general history.
This, my dear friend, I have found the most difficult part of my task; and, to speak frankly, I hardly expect to satisfy your less partial judgment, and more extensive knowledge of such subjects, since I have hardly been able to please my own.
Other things, again, are both predicable of a subject and present in a subject.
"Falk" -- the second story in the volume -- offended the delicacy of one critic at least by certain peculiarities of its subject. But what is the subject of "Falk"?
From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergey Ivanovitch differed on various points.
The subject was a German who kept a liquor-shop aud was an inveterate drunkard.
No, you needn't leave us; it's a subject in which you are interested.
To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind on the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in wandering from the letter to my mother, and concentrated themselves instead--on Miss Dunross?