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. Separation islature and the executive. A peculiar feature of American governments, and something which it is hard for Europeans between leg 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 now flow from want of leadership in our legislatures.1 1 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 state executive. 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. 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, bureaux 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. ernor's func tions: 1. Advisor of leg 2. Commander of state 3. Royal pre pardon. The ordinary functions of the governor are four in number. 1. He sends a message to the legislature, at the beginning of each session, recommend- The gov ing such measures as he would like to see embodied in legislation. 2. He is com- islature. mander-in-chief of the state militia, and as such can assist the sheriff of a county in militia. 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 rogative of 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 legisla er. tive, 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 appro4. Veto pow- priation 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. In building the state, the local ment was 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 self-govern- ways: first, in the relationship of the state left unim- 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 paired. |