The suffrage by which the legislature is elected is almost universal.
It is given in all the states to all male citizens who have reached
the age of one-and-twenty. In many it is given also to _denizens_
of foreign birth who have declared an intention of becoming citizens.
In some it is given without further specification to every male
_inhabitant_ of voting age. Residence in the state for some
period, varying from three months to two years and a half, is also
generally required; sometimes a certain length of residence in the
county, the town, or even in the voting precinct, is prescribed. In
many of the states it is necessary to have paid one's poll-tax. There
is no longer any property qualification, though there was until
recently in Rhode Island, Criminals, idiots, and lunatics are excluded
from the suffrage. Some states also exclude duellists and men who bet
on elections. Connecticut and Massachusetts shut out persons who are
unable to read. In no other country has access to citizenship and the
suffrage been made so easy.

[Sidenote: Separation between legislation and the executive.]
A peculiar feature of American governments, and something which it is
hard for Europeans to understand, is the almost complete separation
between the executive and the legislative departments. In European
countries the great executive officers are either members of the
legislature, or at all events have the right to be present at its
meetings and take part in its discussions; and as they generally have
some definite policy by which they are to stand or fall, they are wont
to initiate legislation and to guide the course of the discussion. But
in America the legislatures, having no such central points about which
to rally their forces, carry on their work in an aimless, rambling
sort of way, through the agency of many standing committees. When
a measure is proposed it is referred to one of the committees for
examination before the house will have anything to do with it. Such a
preliminary examination is of course necessary where there is a vast
amount of legislative work going on. But the private and disconnected
way in which our committee work is done tends to prevent full and
instructive discussion in the house, to make the mass of legislation,
always chaotic enough, somewhat more chaotic, and to facilitate the
various evil devices of lobbying and log-rolling.

In pointing out this inconvenience attendant upon the American plan of
separating the executive and legislative departments, I must not be
understood as advocating the European plan as preferable for this
country. The evils that inevitably flow from any fundamental change in
the institutions of a country are apt to be much more serious than the
evils which the change is intended to remove. Political government is
like a plant; a little watering and pruning do very well for it, but
the less its roots are fooled with, the better. In the American system
of government the independence of the executive department, with
reference to the legislative, is fundamental; and on the whole it is
eminently desirable. One of the most serious of the dangers which
beset democratic government, especially where it is conducted on a
great scale, is the danger that the majority for the time being will
use its power tyrannically and unscrupulously, as it is always tempted
to do. Against such unbridled democracy we have striven to guard
ourselves by various constitutional checks and balances. Our written
constitutions and our Supreme Court are important safeguards, as
will be shown below. The independence of our executives is another
important safeguard. But if our executive departments were mere
committees of the legislature--like the English cabinet, for
example--this independence could not possibly be maintained; and the
loss of it would doubtless entail upon us evils far greater than those
which mow flow from want of leadership in our legislatures.[11]

[Footnote 11: In two admirable essays on "Cabinet Responsibility and
the Constitution," and "Democracy and the Constitution," Mr. Lawrence
Lowell has convincingly argued that the American system is best
adapted to the circumstances of this country. Lowell, _Essays on
Government_, pp. 20-117, Boston, 1890.]

We must remember that government is necessarily a cumbrous affair,
however conducted.

The only occasion on which the governor is a part of the legislature
is when he signs or vetoes a bill. Then he is virtually in himself
a third house.[12] As an executive officer the governor is far less
powerful than in the colonial times. We shall see the reason of
this after we have enumerated some of the principal offices in the
executive department. There is always a secretary of state, whose main
duty is to make and keep the records of state transactions. There is
always a state treasurer, and usually a state auditor or comptroller
to examine the public accounts and issue the warrants without which
the treasurer cannot pay out a penny of the state's money. There is
almost always an attorney-general, to appear for the state in the
supreme court in all cases in which the state is a party, and in
all prosecutions for capital offences. He also exercises some
superintendence over the district attorneys, and acts as legal adviser
to the governors and the legislature. There is also in many states
a superintendent of education; and in some there are boards of
education, of health, of lunacy and charity, bureau of agriculture,
commissioners of prisons, of railroads, of mines, of harbours, of
immigration, and so on. Sometimes such boards are appointed by the
governor, but such officers as the secretary of state, the treasurer,
auditor, and attorney-general are, in almost all the states, elected
by the people. They are not responsible to the governor, but to the
people who elect them. They are not subordinate to the governor, but
are rather his colleagues. Strictly speaking, the governor is not the
head of the executive department, but a member of it. The executive
department is parcelled out in several pieces, and his is one of the
pieces.

[Footnote 12: The state executive.]

[Sidenote: The governor's functions: 1. Advisor of legislature. 2.
Commander of state militia. 3. Royal prerogative of pardon. 4. Veto power.]
The ordinary functions of the governor are four in number. 1. He
sends a message to the legislature, at the beginning of each session,
recommending such measures as he would like to see embodied in
legislation. 2. He is commander-in-chief of the state militia, and as
such can assist the sheriff of a county in putting down a riot, or
the President of the United States, in the event of a war. On such
occasions the governor may become a personage of immense importance,
as, for example, in our Civil War, when President Lincoln's demands
for troops met with such prompt response from the men who will be
known to history as the great "war governors." 3. The governor is
invested with the royal prerogative of pardoning criminals, or
commuting the sentences pronounced upon them by the courts. This power
belongs to kings in accordance with the old feudal notion that the
king was the source or fountain of justice. When properly used it
affords an opportunity for rectifying some injustice for which the
ordinary machinery of the law could not provide, or for making such
allowances for extraordinary circumstances as the court could not
properly consider. In our country it is too often improperly used to
enable the worst criminals to escape due punishment, just because
it is a disagreeable duty to hang them. Such misplaced clemency is
pleasant for the murderers, but it makes life less secure for honest
men and women, and in the less civilized regions of our country it
encourages lynch law. 4. In all the states except Rhode Island,
Delaware, Ohio, and North Carolina, the governor has a veto upon the
acts of the legislature, as above explained; and in ordinary times
this power, which is not executive but legislative, is probably the
governor's most important and considerable power. In thirteen of
the states the governor can veto particular items in a bill for the
appropriation of public money, while at the same time he approves
the rest of the bill. This is a most important safeguard against
corruption, because where the governor does not have this power it is
possible to make appropriations for unworthy or scandalous purposes
along with appropriations for matters of absolute necessity, and then
to lump them all together in the same bill, so that the governor must
either accept the bad along with the good or reject the good along
with the bad. It is a great gain when the governor can select the
items and veto some while approving others. In such matters the
governor is often more honest and discreet than the legislature, if
for no other reason, because he is one man, and responsibility can be
fixed upon him more clearly than upon two or three hundred.

Such, in brief outline, is the framework of the American state
governments. But our account would be very incomplete without some
mention of three points, all of them especially characteristic of
the American state, and likely to be overlooked or misunderstood by
Europeans.

[Sidenote: In building the state, the local self-government was left
unimpaired.]
_First_, while we have rapidly built up one of the greatest
empires yet seen upon the earth, we have left our self-government
substantially unimpaired in the process. This is exemplified in
two ways: first, in the relationship of the state to its towns
and counties, and, secondly, in its relationship to the federal
government. Over the township and county governments the state
exercises a general supervision; indeed, it clothes them with their
authority. Townships and counties have no sovereignty; the state, on
the other hand, has many elements of sovereignty, but it does not use
them to obliterate or unduly restrict the control of the townships
and counties over their own administrative work. It leaves the local
governments to administer themselves. As a rule there is only just
enough state supervision to harmonize the working of so many local
administrations. Such a system of government comes as near as possible
toward making all American citizens participate actively in the
management of public affairs. It generates and nourishes a public
spirit and a universal acquaintance with matters of public interest
such as has probably never before been seen in any great country.
Public spirit of equal or greater intensity may have been witnessed
in small and highly educated communities, such as ancient Athens or
mediaeval Florence, but in the United States it is diffused over an
area equal to the whole of Europe. Among the leading countries of the
world England is the one which comes nearest to the United States
in the general diffusion of enlightened public spirit and political
capacity throughout all classes of society.

[Sidenote: Instructive contrast with France.]
A very notable contrast to the self-government which has produced such
admirable results is to be seen in France, and as contrasts are
often instructive, let me mention one or two features of the French
government. There is nothing like the irregularity and spontaneity
there that we have observed in our survey of the United States.
Everything is symmetrical. France is divided into eighty-nine
_departments_, most of them larger than the state of Delaware,
some of them nearly as large as Connecticut, and the administration
of one department is exactly like that of all the others. The chief
officer of the department is the prefect, who is appointed by
the minister of the interior at Paris. The prefect is treasurer,
recruiting officer, school superintendent, all in one, and he appoints
nearly all inferior officers. The department has a council, elected
by universal suffrage, but it has no power of assessing taxes. The
central legislature in Paris decides for it how much money it shall
use and how it shall raise it. The department council is not even
allowed to express its views on political matters; it can only attend
to purely local details of administration.

The smallest civil division in France is the _commune_, which may
be either rural or urban. The commune has a municipal council which
elects a mayor; but when once elected the mayor becomes directly
responsible to the prefect of the department, and through him to the
minister of the interior. If these greater officers do not like what
the mayor does, they can overrule his acts or even suspend him from
office; or upon their complaint the President of the Republic can
remove him.

[Sidenote: In France whether it is nominally a despotic empire or a
republic at the top, there is scarcely any self-government at the
bottom. Hence government there rests on an insecure foundation.]
Thus in France people do not manage their own affairs, but they are
managed for them by a hierarchy of officials with its head at Paris.
This system was devised by the Constituent Assembly in 1790 and
wrought into completeness by Napoleon in 1800. The men who devised
it in 1790 actually supposed that they were inaugurating a system or
political freedom(!), and unquestionably it was a vast improvement
upon the wretched system which it supplanted; but as contrasted with
American methods and institutions, it is difficult to call it anything
else than a highly centralized despotism. It has gone on without
essential change through all the revolutions which have overtaken
France since 1800. The people have from time to time overthrown an
unpopular government at Paris, but they have never assumed the direct
control of their own affairs.

Hence it is commonly remarked that while the general intelligence
of the French people is very high, their intelligence in political
matters is, comparatively speaking, very low. Some persons try to
explain this by a reference to peculiarities of race. But if we
Americans were to set about giving to the state governments things
to do that had better be done by counties and towns, and giving the
federal government things to do that had better be done by the states,
it would not take many generations to dull the keen edge of our
political capacity. We should lose it as inevitably as the most
consummate of pianists will lose his facility if he stops practising.
It is therefore a fact of cardinal importance that in the United
States the local governments of township, county, and city are left to
administer themselves instead of being administered by a great bureau
with its head at the state capital. In a political society thus
constituted from the beginning it has proved possible to build up
our Federal Union, in which the states, while for certain purposes
indissolubly united, at the same time for many other purposes retain
their self-government intact. As in the case of other aggregates, the
nature of the American political aggregate has been determined by the
nature of its political units.

[Sidenote: Vastness of the functions retained by the states in the
American Union.]
_Secondly_, let us observe how great are the functions retained
by our states under the conditions of our Federal Union. The
powers granted to our federal government, such as the control over
international questions, war and peace, the military forces, the
coinage, patents and copyrights, and the regulation of commerce
between the states and with foreign countries,--all these are powers
relating to matters that affect all the states, but could not be
regulated harmoniously by the separate action of the states. In order
the more completely to debar the states from meddling with such
matters, they are expressly prohibited from entering into agreements
with each other or with a foreign power; they cannot engage in war,
save in case of actual invasion or such imminent danger as admits of
no delay; without consent of Congress they cannot keep a military or
naval force in time of peace, or impose custom-house duties. Besides
all this they are prohibited from granting titles of nobility, coining
money, emitting bills of credit, making anything but gold and silver
coin a tender in payment of debts, passing bills of attainder, _ex
post facto_ laws, or laws impairing the obligation of contracts.
The force of these latter restrictions will be explained hereafter.
Such are the limitations of sovereignty imposed upon the states within
the Federal Union.

Compared with the vast prerogatives of the state legislatures, these
limitations seem small enough. All the civil and religious rights
of our citizens depend upon state legislation; the education of the
people is in the care of the states; with them rests the regulation
of the suffrage; they prescribe the rules of marriage, the legal
relations of husband and wife, of parent and child; they determine the
powers of masters over servants and the whole law of principal and
agent, which is so vital a matter in all business transactions; they
regulate partnership, debt and credit, insurance; they constitute all
corporations, both private and municipal, except such as specially
fulfill the financial or other specific functions of the federal
government; they control the possession, distribution, and use of
property, the exercise of trades, and all contract relations; and they
formulate and administer all criminal law, except only that which
concerns crimes committed against the United States, on the high seas,
or against the law of nations. Space would fail in which to enumerate
the particulars of this vast range of power; to detail its parts would
be to catalogue all social and business relationships, to examine all
the foundations of law and order.[13]

[Footnote 13: Woodrow Wilson, _The State: Elements of Historical and
Practical Politics_, p. 437.]

This enumeration, by Mr. Woodrow Wilson, is so much to the point that I
content myself with transcribing it. A very remarkable illustration of
the preponderant part played by state law in America is given by Mr.
Wilson, in pursuance of the suggestion of Mr. Franklin Jameson.[14]
Consider the most important subjects of legislation in England during
the present century, the subjects which make up almost the entire
constitutional history of England for eighty years. These subjects are
Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, the abolition of slavery,
the amendment of the poor-laws, the reform of municipal corporations,
the repeal of the corn laws, the admission of Jews to parliament, the
disestablishment of the Irish church, the alteration of the Irish land
laws, the establishment of national education, the introduction of the
ballot, and the reform of the criminal law. In the United States only
two of these twelve great subjects could be dealt with by the federal
government: the repeal of the corn laws, as being a question of national
revenue and custom-house duties, and the abolition of slavery, by virtue
of a constitutional amendment embodying some of the results of our Civil
War. All the other questions enumerated would have to be dealt with by
our state governments; and before the war that was the case with the
slavery question also. A more vivid illustration could not be asked for.

[Footnote 14: Jameson, "The Study of the Constitutional
History of the States" _J.H.U. Studies_, IV., v.]

How complete is the circle of points in which the state touches the
life of the American citizen, we may see in the fact that our
state courts make a complete judiciary system, from top to bottom
independent of the federal courts.[15] An appeal may be carried from
a state court to a federal court in cases which are found to involve
points of federal law, or in suits arising between citizens of
different states, or where foreign ambassadors are concerned. Except
for such cases the state courts make up a complete judiciary world of
their own, quite outside the sphere of the United States courts.

[Footnote 15: Independence of the state courts.]

[Sidenote: Constitution of the state courts.]
We have already had something to say about courts in connection with
those primitive areas for the administration of justice, the hundred
and the county. In our states there are generally four grades of
courts. There are, first, the _justices of the peace _, with
jurisdiction over "petty police offences and civil suits for trifling
sums." They also conduct preliminary hearings in cases where persons
are accused of serious crimes, and when the evidence seems to warrant
it they may commit the accused person for trial before a higher court.
The mayor's court in a city usually has jurisdiction similar to that
of justices of the peace. Secondly, there are _county_ and
_municipal courts_, which hear appeals from justices of the peace
and from mayor's courts, and have original jurisdiction over a more
important grade of civil and criminal cases. Thirdly, there are
_superior courts_, having original jurisdiction over the most
important cases and over wider of the state areas of country, so that
they do not confine their sessions to one place, but move about from
place to place, like the English _justices in eyre_. Cases are
carried up, on appeal, from the lower to the superior court. Fourthly,
there is in every state a _supreme court_, which generally has no
original jurisdiction, but only hears appeals from the decisions of
the other courts. In New York there is a "supremest" court, styled
the _court of appeals_, which has the power of revising sundry
judgments of the supreme court; and there is something similar in New
Jersey, Illinois, Kentucky, and Louisiana.[16]

[Footnote 16: Wilson. The State, pp. 509-513.]

[Sidenote: Elective and appointive judges.]
In the thirteen colonies the judges were appointed by the governor,
with or without the consent of the council, and they held office
during life or good behaviour. Among the changes made in our state
constitutions since the Revolution, there have been few more important
than those which have affected the position of the judges. In most of
the states they are now elected by the people for a term of years,
sometimes as short as two years. There is a growing feeling that this
change was a mistake. It seems to have lowered the general character
of the judiciary. The change was made by reasoning from analogy: it
was supposed that in a free country all offices ought to be elective
and for short terms. But the case of a judge is not really analogous
to that of executive officers, like mayors and governors and
presidents. The history of popular liberty is much older than the
history of the United States, and it would be difficult to point to
an instance in which popular liberty has ever suffered from the
life tenure of judges. On the contrary, the judge ought to be as
independent as possible of all transient phases of popular sentiment,
and American experience during the past century seems to teach us that
in the few states where the appointing of judges during life or good
behaviour has prevailed, the administration of justice has been better
than in the states where the judges have been elected for specified
terms. Since 1869 there has been a marked tendency toward lengthening
the terms of elected judges, and in several states there has been a
return to the old method of appointing judges by the governor, subject
to confirmation by the senate.[17] It is one of the excellent features
of our system of federal government, that the several states can thus
try experiments each for itself and learn by comparison of results.
When things are all trimmed down to a dead level of uniformity by the
central power, as in France, a prolific source of valuable experiences
is cut off and shut up.

[Footnote 17: For details, see the admirable monograph of Henry Hitchcock,
_American State Constitutions_, p. 53.]

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. Modifications of state government during the present century:--

a. Property qualifications for office.
b. The distinction between the upper and the lower house.
c. The advantage in retaining a two-chambered legislature.

2. The suffrage:--

a. The persons to whom it is granted.
b. The qualifications established.
c. The persons excluded from its exercise.

3. The separation of the executive and legislative departments:--

a. The relation of the great executive officers to legislation in
Europe.
b. The work of legislation in the United States.
c. The most serious of the dangers that beset democratic
government.
d. Important safeguards against such a danger.

4. The state executive:--

a. The governor as a part of the legislature.
b. Officers always belonging to executive departments.
c. Officers frequently belonging to executive departments.
d. The relation of the governor to other elected executive
officers.

5. The ordinary functions of the governor:--

a. Advising the legislature.
b. Commanding the militia.
c. Pardoning criminals or commuting their sentences.
d. Vetoing acts of the legislature.

6. Why is the power to veto particular items in a bill appropriating
public money an important safeguard against corruption?

7. Local self-government in the United States left unimpaired:--

a. The extent of state supervision of towns and counties.
b. The spirit thus developed in American citizens.

8. A lesson from the symmetry of the French government:--

a. The departments and their administration.
b. The prefect and his duties.
c. The department council and its sphere of action.
d. The commune.
e. The French system contrasted with the American.
f. A common view of the political intelligence of the French.
g. The probable effect of excessive state control upon the
political intelligence of Americans.

9. The greatness of the functions retained by the states under
the federal government:--

a. Powers granted to the government of the United States.
b. The reason for granting such powers,
c. The powers denied to the states.
d. The reason for such prohibitions.
e. The vast range of powers exercised by the states.
f. The most important subjects of legislation in England for the past
eighty years.
g. The governments, state or national, to which these twelve
subjects would have fallen in the United States.

10. Speak of the independence of the state courts.

11. In what cases only may matters be transferred from them to
a federal court?

12. The constitution of the state courts:--

a. Justices of the peace; the mayor's court.
b. County and municipal courts.
c. The superior courts.
d. The supreme court.
e. Still higher courts in certain states.

13. The selection of judges and their terms of service:--

a. In the thirteen colonies.
b. In most of the states since the Revolution.
c. The reasons for a life tenure.
d. The tendency since 1869.

14. Mention a conspicuous advantage of our system of government over the
French.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.

1. Was there ever a charter government in your state? If so, where is
the charter at the present time? What is its present value? Try to see
it, if possible. Pupils of Boston and vicinity, for example, may
examine in the office of the secretary of state, at the state house, the
charter of King Charles (1629) and that of William and Mary (1692).

2. When was your state organized under its present government? If it is
not one of the original thirteen, what was its history previous to
organization; that is, who owned it and controlled it, and how came it
to become a state?

3. What are the qualifications for voting in your state?

4. What are the arguments in favour of an educational qualification for
voters (as, for example, the ability to read the Constitution of the
United States)? What reasons might be urged against such qualifications?

5. Who is the governor of your state? What political party supported him
for the position? For what ability or eminent service was he selected?

6. Give illustrations of the governor's exercise of the four functions
of advising, vetoing, pardoning, and commanding (consult the newspapers
while the legislature is in session).

7. Mention some things done by the governor that are not included
in the enumeration of his functions in the text.

8. Visit, if practicable, the State House. Observe the various offices,
and consider the general nature of the business done there. Attend a
session of the Senate or the House of Representatives. Obtain some
"orders of the day."

9. If the legislature is in session, follow its proceedings in the
newspapers. What important measures are under discussion? On what sort
of questions are party lines pretty sharply drawn? On what sort of
questions are party distinctions ignored?

10. Consult the book of general or public statutes, and report on
the following points:--

a. The magnitude of the volume.
b. Does it contain all the laws? If not, what are omitted?
c. Give some of the topics dealt with.
d. Where are the laws to be found that have been made since the printing
of the volume?
e. Are the originals of the laws in the volume? If not, where are they
and in what shape?

11. Is everybody expected to know all the laws?

12. Does ignorance of the law excuse one for violating it?

13. Suppose people desire the legislature to pass some law, as, for
example, a law requiring towns and cities to provide flags for
school-houses, how is the attention of the legislature secured? What are
the various stages through which the bill must pass before it can become
a law? Why should there be so many stages?

14. Give illustrations of the exercise of federal government, state
government, and local government, in your own town or city. Of which
government do you observe the most signs? Of which do you observe the
fewest signs? Of which government do the officers seem most sensitive to
local opinion?

15. Are the sessions of the legislature in your state annual or
biennial? What is the argument for each system?

For answers to numbers 16, 17, 18, and 19, consult the public statutes,
a lawyer, or some intelligent business man. A fair idea of the
successive steps in the courts may be obtained from a good unabridged
dictionary by looking up the technical terms employed in these
questions.

16. What is the difference between a civil action and a criminal?

a. In respect to the object to be gained in each?
b. In respect to the party that is the plaintiff?
c. In respect to the consequences to the defendant if the case goes
against him?

17. Give an outline of the procedure in a minor criminal action that is
tried without a jury in a lower court. Consider
(1) the complaint, (2) the warrant, (3) the return, (4) the recognizance,
(5) the subpoena, (6) the arraignment, (7) the plea, (8) the testimony,
(9) the arguments,(10) the judgment and sentence, and (11) the penalty and
its enforcement.

What is an appeal?--This procedure seems cumbrous, but it
is founded in common sense. What one of the foregoing steps, for
example, would you omit? Why?

18. Give an outline of the procedure in a criminal action that is tried
with a jury in a higher court. The action is begun in a lower court
where the first five stages are the same as in number 17. Then follow
(6) the examination of witnesses, (7) the binding over of the accused to
appear before the higher court for trial, (8) the sending of the
complaint and the proceedings thereon to the district or county
attorney, (9) the indictment, (10) the action of the grand jury upon the
indictment, (11) the challenging of jurors before the trial, (12) the
arraignment, (13) the plea, (14) the testimony, (15) the arguments, (16)
the charge to the jury, (17) the verdict, and (18) the sentence, with
its penalty and the enforcement of it. What are "exceptions?"--Why
should there be a jury in the higher court when there is none in the
lower? What is the objection to dispensing with any one of the foregoing
steps? Does this machinery make it difficult to punish crime? Why should
an accused person receive so much consideration?

19. Give an outline of the procedure in a minor civil action. Consider
(1) the writ, (2) the attachment, (3) the summons to the defendant, (4)
the return, (5) the pleading, (6) the testimony, (7) the arguments, (8)
the judgment or decision of the judge, and (9) the execution.--If the
action is conducted in a higher court, then a jury decides the question
at issue, the judge instructing the jurors in points of law.

20. Suppose an innocent man is tried for an alleged crime and
acquitted, has he any redress?

21. Is the enforcement of law complete and satisfactory in your
community?

22. What is your opinion of the general security of person and property
in your community?

23. Is there any connection between public sentiment about a law and the
enforcement of that law? If so, what is it?

24. Any one of the twelve subjects of legislation cited on page 177 may
be taken as a special topic. Consult any modern history of England.

25. Which do you regard as the more important possession for the
citizen,--an acquaintance with the principles and details of government
and law, or a law-abiding and law-supporting spirit? What reasons have
you for your opinion? Where is your sympathy in times of disorder, with,
those who defy the law or with those who seek to enforce it? (Suppose a
case in which you do not approve the law, and then answer.)

26. May you ever become an officer of the law? Would you as a citizen be
justified in withholding from an officer that obedience and moral
support which you as an officer might justly demand from every citizen?


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

The State.--For the founding of the several colonies, their charters,
etc., the student may profitably consult the learned monographs in
Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_, 8 vols.,
Boston, 1886-89. A popular account, quite full in details, is given in
Lodge's _Short History of the English Colonies in America_,
N. Y., 1881. There is a fairly good account of the revision and
transformation of the colonial governments in Bancroft's _History of
the United States_, final edition, N.Y., 1886, vol. v. pp. 111-125.

The series of "American Commonwealths," edited by H.E. Scudder, and
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., will be found helpful. The
following have been published: Johnston, _Connecticut: a Study
of a Commonwealth-Democracy_, 1887; Roberts, _New York: the
Planting and Growth of the Empire State_, 2 vols., 1887; Browne,
_Maryland: the History of a Palatinate_, 2d ed., 1884; Cooke,
_Virginia: a History of the People_, 1883; Shaler, _Kentucky:
a Pioneer Commonwealth_, 1884; King, _Ohio: First Fruits of
the Ordinance of 1787_,1888; Dunn, _Indiana: a Redemption from
Slavery_, 1888; Cooley, _Michigan: a History of Governments_,
1885; Carr, _Missouri: a Bone of Contention_, 1888; Spring,
_Kansas: the Prelude to the War for the Union_, 1885; Royce,
_California: a Study of American Character_, 1886; Barrows,
_Oregon: the Struggle for Possession_, 1883.

In connection with the questions on page 183, the student is advised
to consult Dole's _Talks about Law: a Popular Statement of What
our Law is and How it is Administered_, Boston, 1887. This book
deserves high praise. In a very easy and attractive way it gives an
account of such facts and principles of law as ought to be familiarly
understood by every man and woman.




CHAPTER VII.

WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS.


[Sidenote: In the American state there is a power above the
legislature.]
Toward the close of the preceding chapter[1] I spoke of three points
especially characteristic of the American state, and I went on to
mention two of them. The third point which I had in mind is so
remarkable and important as to require a chapter all to itself. In the
American state the legislature is not supreme, but has limits to its
authority prescribed by a written document, known as the Constitution;
and if the legislature happens to pass a law which violates the
constitution, then whenever a specific case happens to arise in which
this statute is involved, it can be brought before the courts, and
the decision of the court, if adverse to the statute, annuls it and
renders it of no effect. The importance of this feature of civil
government in the United States can hardly be overrated. It marks a
momentous advance in civilization, and it is especially interesting as
being peculiarly American. Almost everything else in our fundamental
institutions was brought by our forefathers in a more or less highly
developed condition from England; but the development of the written
constitution, with the consequent relation of the courts to the
law-making power, has gone on entirely upon American soil.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 172.]

[Sidenote: Germs of the idea of a written constitution.]
[Sidenote: Our indebtedness to the Romans.]
[Sidenote: Mediaeval charters.]
The germs of the written constitution existed a great while ago.
Perhaps it would not be easy to say just when they began to exist.
It was formerly supposed by such profound thinkers as Locke and such
persuasive writers as Rousseau, that when the first men came together
to live in civil society, they made a sort of contract with one
another as to what laws they would have, what beliefs they would
entertain, what customs they would sanction, and so forth. This
theory of the Social Contract was once famous, and exerted a notable
influence on political history, and it is still interesting in the
same way that spinning-wheels and wooden frigates and powdered wigs
are interesting; but we now know that men lived in civil society,
with complicated laws and customs and creeds, for many thousand years