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Modern Democracies, Vol. 2 E-Book

James Bryce

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Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
Sprache: Englisch
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

American political scientists do not need to be told that James Bryce's work is one of the most important ever written on the principles and practice of democratic government. More than a century has passed since his masterly description and appreciation of the American Commonwealth put him at the head of all students of American government and politics. He has served as a member of three British cabinets, he has been the British ambassador to the United States, and he has traveled to all quarters of the globe, always keenly interested in the institutions of the lands he visited. Now he embodies the ripest fruits of these years of travel and study in two stout volumes. After some introductory considerations applicable to democratic government in general, he proceeds to a detailed comparison of the working of democracy in various countries, chiefly France, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and concludes with some general observations and reflections on the present and future of democratic government. This is volume two out of two.

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Modern Democracies

Vol. 2

JAMES BRYCE

Modern Democracies 2, J. Bryce

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849650148

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

UNITED STATES PREFATORY NOTE

The chapters that here follow are not an abridgment of the full description of the constitution and government of the United States presented in my book entitled The American Commonwealth which was first published more than thirty years ago, and has been since enlarged and frequently revised. They have been written as a new and independent study of American institutions, considered as founded on democratic theories and illustrating in their practice the working out of democratic principles and tendencies. Desiring to present a general view of what popular government has achieved and has failed to achieve, I have dealt with those details only which are characteristic of democratic systems, omitting as beyond the scope of this treatise all matters, such as the structure of the Federal Government and its administrative methods, which do not bear directly upon it or illustrate its peculiar features. Neither has it been my aim in these or any other chapters to bring contemporary history up to date. It is safer not to touch, and I have carefully abstained from touching the controversial questions of the moment, questions which indeed change their aspects from month to month. My wish has been throughout the book to give the reader materials for estimating the merits and defects of each form which popular government has taken, and for this purpose events that happened ten or twenty years ago are just as profitable as those of to-day, indeed more profitable, for we can judge them by their consequences

Though the main conclusions to which I was led when writing on the United States in 1888 seem to me to be still true, new phenomena have since appeared which throw further light on the nature of popular government, and these I have endeavoured to set forth and comment upon, studying the facts afresh and unbiassed by the judgments of thirty years ago. Since that year much has been done in America to vivify public interest in political theory and history by many books, excellent in plan and execution. To these, and to the American friends who have aided me by their criticisms and comments, I gratefully acknowledge my obligations.

CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY IN NORTH AMERICA

Of all modern countries the United States supplies the most abundant data for the study of popular government. It has been a democracy for a century and a quarter, and is now by far the largest of the nations that live under self-governing institutions. It shows the working of these institutions, on a great scale in its Federal Government and in the governments of the most populous States, on a smaller scale in the lesser States, as well as in counties, townships, and cities, some of which latter have a frame of government that makes them resemble autonomous republics. It has exerted an immense influence on other countries, for its example fired the French people at the outbreak of the Revolution of 1789, and its constitution has been taken as a model by the new republics of the Western hemisphere. Since Tocqueville published in 1832 his memorable book on American democracy, the United States has stood before the minds of European thinkers and statesmen not only as the land to which the races of the Old World are drawn by hopes of happiness and freedom, but also as the type of what the rule of the people means when the people are left to themselves, and as the pattern of what other peoples are likely to become as they in their turn move along the fateful path to democratic institutions. Whoever in Europe has wished to commend or to disparage those institutions has pointed to the United States, and has found plenty of facts to warrant either praise or blame.

No nation ever embarked on its career with happier auguries for the success of popular government. The friends of liberty in Europe indulged the highest hopes of what Liberty could accomplish in a new land, exempt from the evils which the folly or selfishness of monarchs and nobles had inflicted on the countries of Europe. The Americans themselves, although the Revolutionary War left them impoverished as well as vexed by local jealousies, were full of pride and confidence. There was much to justify this confidence. Their own racial quality and the traditions they inherited, the favouring features of their physical environment and the security from external dangers which isolation promised, made up, taken in conjunction, a body of conditions for a peaceful and prosperous political life such as no other people had ever enjoyed. Those who settled Spanish America had an equally vast and rich territory open before them. Those who settled Australia and New Zealand had an equally noble inheritance of freedom behind them. But in neither of these cases were the gifts of Nature and those of a splendid Past bestowed together in such ample measure on the founders of a State.

Let us pass these gifts in brief review.

Temperate North America was a vast country fit to be the home of a North European race, and a practically unoccupied country, for the aboriginal tribes, though most of them fierce and brave, were too few to constitute an obstacle to settlement. There was land for everybody; and nearly all of it, as far as the Rocky Mountains, available for cultivation. It is only to-day, three centuries after the first English colonists settled in Virginia and on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, nearly a century and a half after the Declaration of Independence, that the unappropriated arable areas have become scarce. Besides the immense stretches of rich soil, there were superb forests and mineral deposits it will take many centuries to exhaust.

In such a country everybody could find means of sustenance. Among the earlier settlers and almost down to our own time there was no economic distress, no pauperism nor ground for apprehending it. Nobody was rich, nobody very poor. Neither were there any class antagonisms. Though the conditions of colonial life had created a kind of equality unknown to old countries, certain distinctions of rank existed, but they were not resented, and caused no friction, either social or political. The people were nearly all of English or (in the Middle States) of Dutch or Scoto-Irish stock, stocks that had already approved themselves industrious in peace, valiant in war, adventurous at sea. All were practically English in their ways of thinking, their beliefs, their social usages, yet with an added adaptability and resourcefulness such as the simple or rougher life in a new country is fitted to implant. In the northern colonies they were well educated, as education was understood in those days, and mentally alert. The habit of independent thinking and a general interest in public affairs had been fostered both by the share which the laity of the northern colonies took in the management of the Congregational churches and by the practice of civil self-government, brought from England, while the principles of the English Common Law, exact yet flexible, had formed the minds of their leading men. Respect for law and order, a recognition both of the rights of the individual and of the authority of the duly appointed magistrate, were to them the foundations of civic duty.

Though there were wide economic and social differences between the Northern colonies, where the farmers and seafaring men constituted the great bulk of the population Ref. 001 and the Southern, in which large plantations were worked by slave labour, these differences did not yet substantially affect the unity of the nation: for the racial distinctions were negligible, and no language but English was spoken, except by some Germans in Pennsylvania. Such divergences in religious doctrine and church government as existed were too slight to be a basis for parties or to create political acrimony. Finally, it was their good fortune to be safe from any external dangers. The power of France had, since 1759, ceased to threaten them on the side of Canada, and on the south neither from Florida nor from Louisiana, both then in the hands of Spain, was there anything to fear.

With conditions so favourable to peace only a small navy and still smaller army were needed, circumstances which promised security against the growth of a military caste or the ascendancy of a successful general. Ref. 002 These fortunate conditions continued to exist for many years. Once, however, the unity of the nation was imperilled. The maintenance of negro slavery, which wise statesmen had hoped to see disappear naturally, and the attempt to extend its area so as to retain for the Slave States an equal power in the government, led to a long struggle between the Free and the Slave States which ended in the War of Secession, a war that retarded the progress of the South and has left behind it a still unsolved internal problem. Nevertheless, the cohesive forces proved strong enough to reassert themselves when the fight was over. The present generation knows no animosities, and honours alike those who, between 1860 and 1865, fought on one or other side. The old Slavery issues belong to a dead past, and need seldom be referred to in the pages that follow, for the tendencies that characterize popular government have developed themselves upon lines with which slavery had little to do, so the phenomena which we have to-day to study would (except as respects the suffrage in, and the political attitude of, the Southern States) have been much the same if no slave-ship had ever brought a negro from Africa.

What were the tendencies of thought and feeling wherewith the nation started on its course and which constituted the main lines of its political character? Some were inherited, some the outcome of colonial conditions.

There was a strong religious sense, present everywhere, but strongest in New England, and there fostering a somewhat stern and almost grim view of duty. This has continued to be a feature which sharply distinguishes native American thought and conduct from all revolutionary and socialistic movements on the European continent. There has never been any anti-Christian or anti-clerical sentiment, such as has embittered politics and disrupted parties in France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico.

There was a vehement passion for liberty, dating, in embryo, from the early Puritan settlements in New England and keen also among the Scoto-Irish of Virginia, the Carolinas and Pennsylvania, who had fled from the oppressions suffered by the Presbyterians of Ulster. Intensified by the long struggle against King George III., this passion ran to excess when it induced the belief that with Liberty in the van all other good things would follow. During the War of Independence the men of conservative opinions, branded as enemies of freedom, had been mostly silenced or expelled. The victory of the People over arbitrary power had glorified both Liberty and the People. It was natural to assume that the one would be always victorious and the other always wise.

With the love of Liberty there went a spirit of individualistic self-reliance and self-help, not indeed excluding associated action, for that they possessed in their town meetings and colonial assemblies, but averse to official control or supervision. In the great majority of the people these tendencies co-existed with a respect for law and a sense of the value of public order. But there were, especially in the wilder districts, restive elements which gave trouble to the Federal Government in its early days and obliged it to use military force to overcome resistance to the enforcement of revenue statutes. Lawlessness has never been extinguished in the mountainous regions of East Kentucky and East Tennessee.

Neither did the respect for constituted authority, general in the older and best-settled parts of the country, prevent a suspicious attitude towards officials, including even members of the legislatures. Here the individualism characteristic of the Puritan and of the settler asserted itself. Any assumption of power was watched with a jealousy which kept strictly within the range of their functions those whom the people had chosen for public service.

Lastly, there was a spirit of localism which showed itself in the desire to retain as much public business as possible under local control and entrust as little as possible to a central authority. The attachment to self-government in each small community was rooted, not in any theory, but rather in instinct and habit. Nobody thought of choosing any one but a neighbour to represent him in an elected body. This showed itself especially in the northern colonies which had grown up out of little rural Towns. The Town was not a mere electoral area but a community, which thought that no one but a member of the community could represent it or deal with its affairs.

These tendencies were fundamentally English, though more fully developed in America, as an orchard tree grown for centuries in one country may, when placed in a new soil under a new sun, put forth more abundant foliage and fruit of richer flavour. The Americans, however, began soon after the Revolution to think of themselves, and the less instructed sections among them have continued so to think, as a new people. They fancied their history to have begun from 1776, or at earliest from 1607 and 1620, forgetting, in the pride of their new nationalism, that both their character and their institutions were due to causes that had been at work centuries before, as far back as Magna Charta and even as the Folk Mots of their primitive ancestors in the days of Ecghbert and Alfred. Rather were they an old people, the heirs of many ages, though under the stimulus of a new nature and an independent life renewing their youth even as the age of an eagle.

Such was the land and such the people in which the greatest of modern democracies began to build up its frame of government. On what foundations of doctrine was the structure made to rest?

The Americans of the Revolution started from two fundamental principles or dogmas. One was Popular Sovereignty. From the People all power came: at their pleasure and under their watchful supervision it was held: for their benefit and theirs alone was it to be exercised. The other principle was Equality. This had from the first covered the whole field of private civil rights with no distinctions of privilege. Equality of political rights was for a time incomplete, voting power being in some States withheld from the poorest as not having a permanent stake in the community, but in course of time all the States placed all their citizens on the same footing.

Along with these two principles certain other doctrines were so generally assumed as true that men did not stop to examine, much less to prove them. Nearly all believed that the possession of political rights, since it gives self-respect and imposes responsibility, does, of itself make men fit to exercise those rights, so that citizens who enjoy liberty will be sure to value it and guard it. Their faith in this power of liberty, coupled with their love of equality, further disposed them to regard the differences between one citizen and another as so slight that almost any public functions may be assigned to any honest man, while fairness requires that such functions should go round and be enjoyed by each in turn. These doctrines, however, did not exclude the belief that in the interest of the people no one chosen to any office must enjoy it long or be allowed much discretion in its exercise, for they held that though the private citizen may be good while he remains the equal of others, power is a corrupting thing, so the temptation to exceed or misuse functions must be as far as possible removed.

CHAPTER XXXIX: THE FRAME OF GOVERNMENT : STATE, LOCAL, AND FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONS

Holding these dogmas and influenced by these assumptions, the people began after they had declared their independence to create frames of government for the colonies they had turned into States, and then in 1787–9, to substitute for the loose Confederation which had held them together, a scheme of Federal Government. To use the terms of our own day, they turned a Nationality into a Nation, and made the Nation a State by giving it a Constitution.

The instruments which we call Constitutions are among the greatest contributions ever made to politics as a practical art; and they are also the most complete and definite concrete expressions ever given to the fundamental principles of democracy. What we call the British Constitution is a general name including all the laws, both statutes and common law doctrines embodied in reported cases, which relate to the management of public affairs. But an American Written or Rigid Constitution is a single legal instrument prescribing the structure, scope, powers, and machinery of a government. It is, moreover, an instrument set in a category by itself, raised above ordinary laws by the fact that it has been enacted and is capable of being changed, not in the same way as statutes are changed by the ordinary modes of legislation, but in some specially prescribed way, so as to ensure for it a greater permanence and stability. This was virtually a new invention, a legitimate offspring of democracy, and an expedient of practical value, because it embodies both the principle of Liberty and the principle of Order. It issues from the doctrine that power comes only from the People, and from it not in respect of the physical force of the numerical majority but because the People is recognized as of right the supreme lawgiving authority. Along with the principle of Liberty, a Constitution embodies also the principle of Self-restraint. The people have resolved to put certain rules out of the reach of temporary impulses springing from passion or caprice, and to make these rules the permanent expression of their calm thought and deliberate purpose. It is a recognition of the truth that majorities are not always right, and need to be protected against themselves by being obliged to recur, at moments of haste or excitement, to maxims they had adopted at times of cool reflection. Like all great achievements in the field of constructive politics, and like nearly all great inventions in the fields of science and the arts, this discovery was the product of many minds and long experience. Yet its appearance in a finished shape, destined to permanence, was sudden, just as a liquid composed of several fluids previously held in solution will under certain conditions crystallize rapidly into a solid form.

THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE STATES

The student of these American instruments must note some features which distinguish the State Constitutions from that of the Federal or National Government, which we shall presently examine. The former came first, and express the mind of the people in the days of the Revolutionary War, when liberty seemed the greatest of all goods. These early constitutions have been from time to time amended, or redrafted and re-enacted, and thus they record the changes that have passed upon public opinion. Those dating from the years between 1820 and 1860 show a movement towards a completer development of popular power, while those from 1865 to our own time present certain new features, some of a highly radical quality, some enlarging the functions of government, some restricting the powers of legislatures.

To describe in detail the variations in these instruments and the changes each underwent might confuse the reader's mind. It will suffice to indicate in outline the principles from which the authors of the first Constitutions set out, and to which the nation has in the main adhered, though the mode of their application has varied according to the particular aims it has from time to time striven to attain and the evils it has sought to cure. Ref. 003

These principles were:

To secure the absolute sovereignty of the People.

To recognize complete equality among the citizens.

To protect the people against usurpation or misuse of authority by their officials.

In particular, with a view to this protection, to keep distinct the three great departments of government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.

What a very high authority Ref. 004 says of the Federal Constitution applies to the State Constitutions also. “The peculiar and essential qualities of the Government established by the Constitution are:

“It is representative.

“It recognizes the liberty of the individual citizen as distinguished from the total mass of citizens, and it protects that liberty by specific limitations upon the power of government.

“It distributes the legislative, executive, and judicial powers into three separate departments and specifically limits the powers of the officers in each department.

“It makes observance of its limitations necessary to the validity of laws, to be judged by the Courts of Law in each concrete case as it arises.”

These leading characteristics of the Constitutions as documents flow from the aforesaid three fundamental principles. Let us now see how these principles were worked out, and in what forms these characteristic features appear in the Constitutions, taking first those of the States, both as elder in date, and as most fully expressing the democratic ideas of the time which saw their birth.

Every State has to-day:

(a) Its Constitution, enacted by the whole body of citizens voting at the polls. Ref. 005

(b) A Legislature of two Houses, both elected by manhood (or universal) suffrage for terms varying from one to four years, but most frequently of two years. The smaller House, which is elected by larger constituencies, is called the Senate. In both the members receive salaries. The powers of both are substantially equal, though in a few States finance bills must originate in the larger House, and in a few the Senate is associated with the Governor in making appointments to office. In a few it sits as a Court to try impeachments.

(c) A Governor, elected usually for two or for four years by the citizens voting at the polls. He is the head of the Executive, and has (except in North Carolina) a veto on bills passed by the legislature, which, however, can be (though it seldom is) overruled by a two-thirds' vote in both Houses. Ref. 006

(d) A number of administrative officials, some acting singly, some in Boards, elected by the citizens at the polls, or in a few cases by the legislature, and usually for short terms. These officials discharge functions prescribed by statute, and are independent of the legislature, though in some cases, directed or supervised by the Governor.

(e) Other minor officials, appointed, for short terms, either by the Governor or by the legislature or by the officials or Boards aforesaid.

(f) Judges, elected either for the whole State by its citizens voting at the polls, or for local areas by the citizens resident in those areas, and for terms of years usually short. In three States, however, the judges of the highest court are appointed for life by the Governor (subject to confirmation by the legislature, or by the Senate alone), and are removable only by impeachment, and in four others they are appointed by him (subject as aforesaid) for a term of years, while in four others they are elected by the legislature for terms, longer or shorter.

The salaries of these officials vary according to the wealth of the State and the importance of the particular post, but are mostly small, averaging about $6000 (£1200).

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Local Government has had such profound importance for democracy in America that the forms it has taken deserve to be described. Though every State has its own system, both for rural and for urban areas, all systems can be referred to one or other of a few predominant types. Those in force for rural areas, while varying from State to State, are the three following:

The New England type has its basis in the Town, a rural circumscription, dating from the first settlement of the country, which was originally small in population as well as in area. The Town, corresponding roughly to the English Parish, is governed by a general meeting of all the resident citizens, held at least once a year, in which the accounts of town expenses and receipts are presented, the general affairs of the community are discussed, the Selectmen (a small locally elected administrative council) are interrogated, and the officials for the ensuing year are elected. This Town meeting corresponds to the general meeting of the inhabitants of the Commune (Gemeinde) in Switzerland, and is the child of the old English Vestry, which was already decadent when the first settlers came to New England. No American institution has drawn more praise from foreign as well as American observers, and deservedly, for it has furnished a means of political training and an example of civic co-operation to every class of citizens, all deliberating together on the same level. It has been both the school and the pattern of democracy. It still flourishes in the agricultural parts of the six New England States, but works less well where a large industrial population has sprung up, especially if that population consists of recent immigrants. Above the Town stands the County which exists chiefly for the purposes of highways and as a judicial district, and which (in most States) elects its judges. It is governed by officials elected by the citizens for short terms, each official (or Board) having specific statutory functions. There is not, as in Great Britain, a County Council.

In the Southern States there are (broadly speaking) no Towns or Townships, and the County has always been the unit of local government. It has no council, but a number of officials elected by the citizens, each with his own prescribed functions. The most important of the smaller local authorities are the elected School Committees.

In the Middle and Western States both the Townships (for this is the name here given to the small local areas) and the Counties are important. In the latter single officials or small administrative Boards are elected for short terms. As their respective duties are prescribed by statute it has not been deemed necessary to have a council to supervise them. In those States which have been settled from New England, a Township has its Town meeting working on the old New England lines, but enlisting to a less extent the active interest of the people. The many different forms of local government that belong to this third type need not detain us. It is enough to say that in all the Northern, Middle, and Western States, though in varying degrees, the management of local affairs is entirely in the hands of the inhabitants, and thus receives more attention, and stimulates more sense of public duty, than it does in most of the free countries of Europe.

In Towns and Townships elections are generally conducted without reference to political parties, but County offices are frequently contested, this being due not so much to zeal for the public interest as to the influence of party spirit desiring to reward party services. The salient feature of rural local government is that everywhere local affairs are in the hands of persons locally elected, not, as in many parts of the European continent, of officials appointed by the Central Government. The citizens looking to no central authority for guidance, nor desiring (except for special purposes, such as education) the supervision which the central government gives in England, are content with such directions as general statutes give to the officials.

The principles of popular government are applied with unswerving consistency to the political arrangements of cities both large and small. Ref. 007 There are two forms of municipal government. One, which till very recently was almost everywhere the same in its general lines, follows in most respects the model of a State Government.

There is a Mayor, but he is elected not by the City Council but by the whole body of citizens at the polls, and for a period nowhere exceeding four years.

There is a Legislature consisting in some cities of one Chamber, in others of two, elected in wards for a period which nowhere exceeds four years, and receiving salaries.

There are, in the larger cities, or many of them, officials, or Boards, also directly elected by the citizens for a period nowhere exceeding four years, as well as other inferior officials appointed either by the Mayor or by the Legislature.

There are judges and police magistrates elected by the citizens for terms of years, generally short.

All these elections are on the basis of manhood, or universal, suffrage. The Mayor, being directly chosen by the people, enjoys large powers, and has in many cities a veto on acts of the city legislature. He receives a salary which in the greater cities is large.

The other form of municipal government was introduced in 1901 in the city of Galveston in Texas, and having worked well there has spread widely, especially in the form of City Manager government into which it has recently developed. As it was adopted in order to cure evils conspicuous under the pre-existing system, and is an offspring of the new reforming movement, I reserve the account of it till these evils have been described (see Chapter XLV.).

THE FRAME OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

The Federal or National Constitution was drafted in 1787 when the country was depressed by economic troubles and the State legislatures had shown signs of feebleness and unwisdom, was enacted in 1788, and took effect in 1789. It resembles in its general lines the Constitutions of the thirteen original States (as they existed in 1787), subject to those variations which the nature of the case prescribed. The Convention which prepared it was not only under the influence of a reaction from the over-sanguine temper of war time, but contained many men of larger experience and more cautious minds than those who had led the States in the work of constitution making. Thus the National Constitution is not only a more scientifically elaborated but also a more “conservative” document, in the American sense of the word, than the State Constitutions. Moreover, some of the more “radical” or “democratic” provisions which were suitable to small communities, such as the States then were — only one had a population exceeding 500,000 — were ill suited to a country so large as the whole Union, and were therefore omitted. Ten amendments were made in 1791 in order to satisfy those who disliked some features of the instrument, two others in 1798 and 1804 respectively, and three others just after the War of Secession in the years 1865–70. Four others have been made between 1911 and 1920, Ref. 008 yet none of these materially affects the structure of the National Government. Under this Constitution there exist in the United States —

(a) A Legislature, called Congress, of two Houses. One, the House of Representatives, is elected, for a two years' term, by large districts approximately equal in population. The electoral franchise was that fixed by the law of the particular State from which the representative comes, viz. manhood suffrage in some States, universal suffrage in those which gave the vote to women, but now the right of voting in Federal elections has been extended to all women. Nearly all the Southern States have passed enactments which, without directly contravening the constitutional amendment of 1870 designed to enfranchise all the coloured population, have succeeded in practically excluding from the franchise the large majority of that population, although it is, in some States, nearly one half of the whole. Ref. 009 There are at present 435 members, and the number is periodically increased, according to population, after every decennial census. The other House, called the Senate, consists of two persons from each State, large or small, elected for six years. One-third of the number retire every two years. Formerly the Senators were chosen in each State by its legislature, but now, by an amendment to the Federal Constitution adopted in 1913, they are elected by the citizens of each State on a “general ticket,” i.e. a vote not by districts but over the whole State. The Senate has the right of considering and, if so advised, confirming nominations to office made by the President, and also of approving, by a two-thirds' majority, treaties negotiated by him. It also sits as a Court of Justice to try impeachments preferred by the House of Representatives against civil officials (including the President or his Ministers, or Federal judges), a two-thirds' majority being required for conviction. The salaries of members are large in proportion to those paid in Europe or in the British colonies, being at present fixed at $7500 (£1500), as also in proportion to the salaries of Federal officials.

(b) A President, head of the Executive, elected for four years by persons specially chosen by the people in each State for that purpose. Ref. 010 As these persons have been, in and since the election of 1796, always elected merely for the purpose of casting their votes for the particular candidate whom the voting citizen wishes to see chosen, this election by electors has become in practice a vote By the whole people. Each State chooses a number of Presidential Electors proportioned to its representatives in Congress, i. e. in effect proportioned to its population, but as all the votes belonging to a State are counted for the same candidate, irrespective of the number of votes cast by the citizens within that State for one or other set of the electors pledged to elect him, it may happen that the total vote given by the Presidential electors gives a different result from the total popular vote cast; i. e. a candidate may be elected (and has been more than once elected) who had not received a majority of the total number voting. The President frequently uses his right of vetoing a Bill passed by Congress, but his veto may be overriden if both Houses repass the Bill, each by a two-thirds' majority.

(c) Executive heads of departments, and a large number of other officials, the more important of whom (including those popularly called “the Cabinet"), are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, as aforesaid. Minor officials are appointed, some by the President, some by higher officials or Boards, as the law may prescribe, but none either by Congress or directly by the people. The Cabinet Officers are responsible to the President, not to Congress, and, like all other Federal officials, are incapable of sitting in either House.

(d) A Judiciary, consisting of a Supreme Court and such inferior Courts as may be created by law. The judges, appointed for life by the President with the consent of the Senate, are removable only by impeachment. Several have been so removed. Inferior Federal Courts have been created all over the country, and from them an appeal lies to the Supreme Court, which also enjoys original jurisdiction in some kinds of cases.

This Frame of Government is less democratic than that of the States in respect of the length of the Senatorial term, of the life-tenure of the judges, and of the provision that both administrative officials and judges are appointed, instead of being directly elected by the people, but is equally democratic in respect of its placing the source of executive as well as legislative power in direct popular election, and of the shortness of the term of service allowed to Representatives.

Let us note how consistently the general principles have been followed, both in the State Governments and in that of the nation.

In the States the principle of Popular Sovereignty is carried out (a) by entrusting as many offices as possible, even (in most States) judgeships, to direct popular election, so that the official may feel himself immediately responsible to the people, holding office by no pleasure but theirs; (b) by making terms of office short, in order that he may not forget his dependence, but shall, if he desires a renewal of his commission, be required to seek it afresh; and (c) by limiting as far as possible the functions of each official to one particular kind of work. Similarly the doctrine of Equality is respected in the wide extension of the electoral franchise, in the absence of any kind of privilege, in the prohibition of all public titles of honour, and practically also in the usage which, taking little account of special fitness, deems everybody fit for any office he can persuade the people to bestow. Both in the States and in the National Government the apprehension felt regarding the possible abuse of power by holders of office, found expression (a) in the division of the Legislature into two Houses, (6) in the granting of a veto on legislation, in the State to the Governor and in the nation to the President, (c) in requiring the consent of the Federal Senate, and (in some States) of the State Senate, to appointments made by the Executive, (d) in the provisions for the removal of officials by impeachment, (e) by the Constitutional restrictions placed upon legislative and executive action. In these points we are reminded of the desire of the Athenian democracy to retain all power in the hands of the Assembly, and to watch with suspicious vigilance the conduct of all its officials, short as were the terms of office allowed to them.

Note also how the same principles run through the schemes of Local Government. Officials are all chosen by the direct election of the people, except those (a now increasing number) whose functions are of a technical character, such as surveyors or city engineers or public health officers. Many matters which would in Europe be assigned to elective county or city councils are left to the elected officials, who, uncontrolled by the supervision of a representative body, are simply required to act under statutes prescribing minutely to them their respective duties. This is supposed to guard the rights of the people, though in fact it makes the due discharge of those duties depend on whatever vigilance, often far too slight, some one in the people may display in instituting a prosecution for neglect or misfeasance.

The fact that the United States is a Federation in which there are everywhere two authorities, the National Government and the State Government, each supreme in its own sphere, concerns us here only in so far as it emphasizes and illustrates the American practice of limiting all elected authorities, whether persons or bodies. The powers of the National Government are defined and limited by the National Constitution, just as the powers of each State Government are defined and limited both by the National Constitution, which has taken from them some of the attributes of sovereignty, and by the Constitution of the particular State. Ref. 011 Furthermore each branch of the Government, executive and legislative, both in Nation and in State, is limited. Congress has no such range of power as belongs to the legislature of Great Britain or of a British self-governing Dominion, but is debarred by the Constitution from interfering with the functions allotted to the executive and to the judiciary. So in each State the legislature, executive, and judiciary are each confined by the State Constitution to a particular field of action, which is further narrowed, as respects the legislature, by the exclusion of a long list of subjects from legislative competence. This fundamental principle of American public law needs to be constantly remembered, because it has not only restrained popular impulses, delayed changes, and protected vested rights, but also created a strongly marked legal spirit in the people and accustomed them to look at all questions in a legal way. It has, moreover, by placing many matters outside the scope of legislative action, compelled the direct intervention of the people as the ultimate power capable of dealing with such matters. Whatever powers cannot be exercised by an elected authority have been reserved to the people, who exert them by amending the Constitution. That stability in great things coexistent with changefulness in small things, which is characteristic of the United States, is largely due to this doctrine and practice of limited powers, a feature foreign to the French scheme of government, and less marked in some other Federal Governments with Rigid constitutions, such as those of Switzerland, Canada, and Australia.

Other points in which the observance of democratic principles appears are the following:

All members of legislatures receive salaries, so that no one shall be debarred by want of independent means from entering them.

Elections are frequent, so that no one shall ever forget his constant dependence on the people.

No official of the Federal Government is eligible to sit in Congress, no official of the Government of a State to sit in its legislature. This provision, a tribute to the famous doctrine of the Separation of Powers, was meant to prevent the Executive from controlling the Legislature. Its effect has been to make the two powers legally independent of one another; but (as will be seen presently) it has not prevented the exercise of extra-legal influence, for just as Congress may hamper a President (or a State Legislature its Governor) by legislation narrowly restricting the sphere of his action, so a President may put pressure on Congress, or a Governor on his State Legislature, by appealing to the people against them; while a President may act upon the minds of individual legislators by granting, or refusing, requests made to him by them for the exercise of his patronage in the way they desire.

SUPERVENIENT CHANGES

We have now seen (1) what were the favouring physical and economic conditions under which the United States began its course as a nation; (2) what were the doctrines and beliefs, the hopes and apprehensions with which the schemes of government — State and Local and Federal — were framed; and (3) how these ideas and sentiments found expression in the institutions of which the frames consist. To test the soundness of the doctrines we must examine their results as seen in the actual working of the American government. But before considering these let us regard another factor, viz. the economic and social changes which have passed upon the United States during one hundred and thirty years of national life. The machinery has worked under conditions unforeseen when it was created. Never, perhaps, has any nation been so profoundly affected by new economic and racial phenomena, while retaining most of its institutions and nearly all its original political ideas.

The first of these changes was territorial extension. In 1789 the United States stretched westward only to the Mississippi, and did not reach the Gulf of Mexico, the coasts of which then belonged to France. The area of the thirteen States was then about 335,000 square miles, and the present area of the forty-eight States is now nearly 3,000,000 square miles. Its (free) population was then about 3,000,000, and is now (1920) over 110,000,000.

As the settlers moved into the interior, amazing natural resources were disclosed, an immense expanse of extremely fertile soil, vast deposits of coal, iron, silver, copper, and other minerals, forests such as had never been known to the Old World. The native free population grew swiftly, and had by 1840 risen to nearly 15,000,000. Soon afterwards a flood of immigrants began to come from Europe. Ref. 012 They and their descendants now form a majority of the American people. But as they came from many countries, and much the larger number from well-educated countries, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Scandinavian kingdoms, and as those who settled on the land were quickly intermingled with and assimilated to the native population, the general standard of intelligence and conduct did not suffer in the rural districts. It was otherwise in the cities and mining regions. The growth of manufacturing industries, with the volume of trade that poured outward and inward from the great seaports, created enormous aggregations of labouring people fresh from the more backward parts of Europe, who being herded together were but slowly diffused into the pre-existing population. The gift of American citizenship, hastily conferred, found them unfit for its responsibilities. Another new factor was introduced by the Civil War, when slavery was first practically and then legally extinguished. The States were in 1870 forbidden to withhold the electoral suffrage from any citizen on the ground of “race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.” This amendment to the Constitution placed under Federal sanction the right of voting conferred by Acts of Congress and State constitutions previously enacted upon a large mass of coloured citizens, the vast majority of whom were unfitted to exercise political rights with advantage either to the State or to themselves.

Meanwhile the material progress of the country had produced other not less significant changes. The development of agriculture, mining, and manufactures, the growth of commerce, foreign and domestic, which the use of steam for navigation and the construction of railroads had raised to gigantic proportions, created immense wealth, and concentrated a large share of it in the hands of comparatively few men. Ref. 013 Three results followed. The old equality of fortunes disappeared, and though such distinction of ranks as had existed in colonial days melted away, the social relations of different classes lost their simplicity and familiarity when the rich lived in one quarter of great cities and the poorer were crowded together in others. That personal knowledge which made the feeling of a common interest a bond between the citizens was weakened. The power which money inevitably carries with it went on growing as the means of using it multiplied. Railroads and other business enterprises came to be worked on so vast a scale that it was worth while to obtain facilities for starting or conducting them by the illegitimate expenditure of large sums. The number of persons rich enough to corrupt legislators or officials increased, and as the tempters could raise their offers higher, those who succumbed to temptation were more numerous. Thus the power of money, negligible during the first two generations, became a formidable factor in politics.

As material interests grew more prominent and the passion for money-making more intense, policies and projects were more and more judged by the pecuniary prospects they opened up. That this did not exclude the influence of moral or humanitarian ideals is shown by the history of the Slavery controversy, for America, like England, is a country in which two currents of feeling have been wont to run side by side, sometimes apart, sometimes each checking or disturbing the course of the other. While the economic aspect of every question came more insistently into view, and tinged men's opinions on public issues, so also business enterprises had a greater attraction for men of ability and energy, diverting into other careers talents and ambitions which would in earlier days have been given to the service of the State. Men absorbed in business did not cease to vote, but were apt to leave their votes at the disposal of their political leaders. None of these changes could have been foreseen by the framers of the early Constitutions, for although Jefferson and some of his contemporaries predicted for America a boundless growth of wealth, population and prosperity, they did not envisage the social and political consequences to follow.

The results of these geographical and economic changes may be summarized in a brief comparison:

The political institutions of the United States were created —

For a territory of which only about 100,000 square miles were inhabited.

For a free white population of little over 2,000,000.

For a population five-sixths of which dwelt in rural tracts or small towns. For a people almost wholly of British stock. Ref. 014

For a people in which there were practically no rich, and hardly any poor.

For a people mainly engaged in agriculture, in fishing, and in trading on a small scale.

These institutions are now being applied —

To a territory of 2,974,000 square miles, three-fourths of which is pretty thickly inhabited.

To a nation of over 110,000,000.

To a population fully one-third of which dwells in cities with more than 25,000 inhabitants.

To a people less than half of whose blood is of British origin and about one-tenth of whom are of African descent.

To a people which includes more men of enormous wealth than are to be found in all Europe.

To a people more than half of whom are engaged in manufacturing, mining, or commerce, including transportation.

It would not be strange if these institutions should bear signs of the unforeseen strain to which they have been subjected. The wonder is, not that the machinery creaks and warps, but that it has stood the strain at all. But before examining the results of the changes referred to we must take note of a phenomenon of supreme importance which has affected in many ways the development of the institutions aforesaid. This is the growth of Party, and in particular of Party Organizations the most complete and most powerful that the world has seen. They constitute a sort of second non-legal government which has gained control of the legal government.

CHAPTER XL: THE PARTY SYSTEM

The three chief contributions which the United States has made to political science regarded as an Applied Science or Practical Art have been:

Rigid or so-called Written Constitutions, which, as being the expressions of the supreme will of the people, limit the powers of the different branches of government.

The use of Courts of Law to interpret Rigid Constitutions and secure their authority by placing their provisions out of the reach of legislative or executive action.

The organization of political parties.

Of these the first two are precautions against, or mitigations of, faults to which democracy is liable; while the third has proved to be an aggravation of those faults, undoing part of the good which the two former were doing, and impairing popular sovereignty itself. Yet party organization is a natural and probably an inevitable incident of democratic government. It has in itself nothing pernicious. Its evils have sprung from its abuses. We can now perceive that these evils are an outgrowth of the system likely to appear wherever it attains full development. But are they inevitable evils? Could they have been prevented if foreseen? Can they now be cut away without impairing such utility as the system possesses? This is a problem the American people have been trying to solve; and their efforts deserve to be studied.

Before describing the structure of the Organizations, let us enquire how Party came to cover the field and affect the working of politics more widely in America than elsewhere.

The political issues on which parties formed themselves after the establishment of the Federal Constitution were Rational issues. The first of these arose between those who sought to give full scope to Federal power and those who sought to limit it in the interest of the rights of the States. This issue presently became entangled with that of the tariff; some groups desiring to use import duties for the protection of home industries, others preferring a tariff for revenue only. The question of the extension of slavery into the States which were from time to time formed out of the unorganized territories of the Union induced that bitter antagonism which ultimately led to the war of Secession. These issues overtopped and practically superseded all State and other local issues, and marked the lines of division between parties over the whole country. The fact that the Federal senators were chosen by the legislatures of the States made it the interest of each National party to fight every election of a State legislature on party lines, in order to obtain in that body a majority which would secure the choice of senators of its own persuasion, so State legislatures came to be divided on strict party lines, i.e. the lines of the National parties, though nearly all the questions which these legislatures dealt with had nothing to do with National issues. From the States the same habit spread into local elections, so that contests in cities and counties were also fought on party lines, though the work of these local bodies lay even more apart than did that of the States from the questions which divided the nation. It became a principle to maintain the power of the National parties in all elected bodies and by all means available, for the more the party was kept together in every place and on every occasion for voting, so much the stronger would it be for national purposes. Ref. 015

Thus the partisan spirit extended itself to the choice of those administrative officials who were directly elected by the citizens, such as the State Governor and State Treasurer, the mayor of a city, the county commissioners. These elections also were fought on party lines, for a victory redounded to the credit and strength of the National party. Personal character and capacity were' little regarded. The candidate was selected, in manner to be presently described, by the Primary or the Nominating Convention (as the case might be), as a party man, entitled to party recognition; and the party machinery worked for him as zealously as it did for the candidate seeking election to Congress.

A further downward step was to require any official who had to appoint subordinate officers, or even to employ persons for some humble public service, to prefer members of his party for selection to the office or work. The official, himself chosen as a party man, was expected to serve the party by filling every place he could with men bound to vote for party candidates and otherwise serve the party. Even a labourer paid by weekly wages got employment on the condition of his voting and working for the party. Thus politics came to mean party politics and little else. People thought of party success as an end in itself, irrespective of the effect it would have upon the administration of many matters into which no party principle could enter. These evils were aggravated by the fact that the public service was not permanent. As the elected officials served for short terms, posts became frequently vacant. The tenure of those who were not directly elected but appointed lasted no longer than that of the authority who had appointed them, so when power passed from one party to another after an election, the employees appointed by the outgoing party had, however efficient they might be, no claim to be continued. They were dismissed, and their places given to successors appointed by the incoming party, which thus rewarded its friends and strengthened its influence. This practice, known as the Spoils System, Ref. 016 began in the State of New York early in the nineteenth century, and thence spread not only to other States but into the National Government also, so that the President, who by this time had an enormous number of posts at his disposal, was expected to use them as rewards for party services.

The Frame of Government, the outlines of which have been already described, was constructed in the belief that the people, desiring, and knowing how to secure, their own good, would easily effect their purposes by choosing honest legislators, and also by choosing officials who would be trustworthy agents, administering public affairs in accordance with the people's wishes. In a New England township, and even in the far larger county area of Virginia, the men of the eighteenth century knew personally the fellow-citizens whom they trusted, and could select those whose opinions they approved and whom they deemed capable; so, though the existence of parties was recognized, as were also the dangers of party spirit, the choice of legislators and officials seems to have been regarded as a simple matter, and it was not perceived that when population increased and offices became more important the old simple methods would not suffice, since elections must involve more and more work, and the selection of candidates be more difficult. Party organizations grew up unnoticed because unforeseen. There had been none in England, the only country where popular elections were known and party spirit had sometimes been furious. Thus it befell that in the United States, though parties appeared from the early days of the National Government, and their antagonisms were already fierce when the fourth presidential election was held in 1800, party organizations grew slowly, and attracted little attention. Tocqueville, writing in 1832, never mentions them, yet they were already strong in his day, and had covered the whole country before the Civil War broke out in 1861.

Some sort of associated action is incidental to every representative government, for wherever power is given to elected persons, those citizens who desire their particular views to prevail must band themselves together to secure the choice of the persons best fitted both to express their own views and to attract the votes of other citizens. Whether they devise a method for selecting a candidate or simply accept the man who presents himself, they must work in unison to recommend him to the voters generally, canvassing for him and bringing up their friends to the poll. Without concerted action there will be confusion, disorder, loss of voting power. An Election Committee formed to help a candidate pledged to its cause is the simplest form of party organization, legitimate and possibly inexpensive. Beyond this form party organization in England did not advance till our own time.

In the United States it was found necessary to go further. Under the constitutions of the several States elections were frequent, because many administrative as well as all legislative posts, both State and municipal, were filled by popular vote, and because these posts were held for short terms. As the population of cities and electoral areas generally grew larger, so that most citizens ceased to have personal knowledge of the candidates, it became more needful to inform them of the merits of those who sought their suffrages; more needful also to have lists of the voters and to provide for “getting out the vote.” The selection of candidates also became important In England, so long as the structure of rural society retained an old-fashioned semi-feudal character, some one belonging to an important land-owning family was usually accepted, while in the towns (after pocket boroughs had vanished) a wealthy merchant or manufacturer, especially if he had filled some municipal office, was likely to find favour. But in America, where Equality prevailed, neither wealth nor rank gave a claim to any post. The principle of Popular Sovereignty suggested that it was for the citizens not only to choose members or officials by their votes, but to say for what persons votes should be cast. Hence where any post was to be filled by local election, the local adherents of the party were deemed entitled to select the man on whom their voting force was to be concentrated. This was a logical development of the principle. Instead of letting a clique of influential men thrust a candidate upon them, or allowing a number of candidates to start in rivalry and so divide their votes, the party met before the election to choose the man they preferred to be their local standard-bearer, and it was understood that the votes of all would be given to whomsoever the majority chose. A meeting of this kind was called a Party Primary, and it became the duty of the party committee which managed elections to make the arrangements for summoning, and naturally also for advising, the Primary.

These being the two aims which called party organization into being, I pass to its main features, substantially, though not in minor details, the same over the whole country, and will describe it as it stood in 1888, before recent changes which cannot be understood till an account has been given of the system as it existed before their adoption. Though it has been almost everywhere altered, it may revert to type, and in any case it has been a product of democracy too remarkable to be ignored, for it showed how organizations essentially oligarchic in structure, though professing to be democratic, can become tyrannical under democratic forms.

The work of every Party Organization is twofold, corresponding to the two aims aforesaid. One branch of it was to select party candidates by the process called Nomination, as practised before the recent changes. The other is to promote the general interests of the party in every electoral area. Each party has, in most States, a party Committee in every city ward, in every city, in every township and State Assembly district and Congressional district, in every county, in every State, and at the head of all a National Committee for the whole United States, appointed to fight the approaching Presidential Election. Ref. 017 Each of these Committees is elected either by those who are enrolled as members of the party in its meeting in a Primary (to be presently described) or else by a Convention composed of delegates from the Primaries. The Committees are appointed annually, the same persons, and especially the Chairman, being usually continued from year to year. They have plenty to do, for the winning of elections is a toilsome and costly business. Funds have to be raised, meetings organized, immigrants recruited for the party and enrolled as its members, lists of voters and their residences prepared, literature produced and diffused, and other forms of party propaganda attended to, and when the day of election arrives party tickets must be provided and distributed, Ref. 018 canvassers and other election workers organized and paid, voters brought up to the polls. Each Committee keeps touch with the Committee next above it in a larger electoral area, and with that below it in a smaller, so that, taken together, these bodies constitute a network, strong. and flexible, stretching over the whole Union. They are an army kept on a war footing, always ready for action when each election comes round; and everything except the nomination of candidates and formulation of party programmes is within their competence.