XXXIII Every state has a single chief executive called the governor, CHAP. who in all states except one is elected by direct popular vote; in Mississippi he is chosen by popular vote supplemented by action 4. A single of the legislature. The state governorship has descended directly executive from the office of governor in the colonial period. chief resentative ture Every state has a representative law-making body made up of 5. A reppersons chosen by direct vote of the electorate. This legislative legisla body is usually called the general assembly. In New Hampshire and Massachusetts, however, it is known as the "general court, a name inherited from the time when the meeting of the general membership of the Massachusetts Bay Company, called the general court, was the only law-making body in the colony. The legislature in every state is a two-chambered, or bicameral, body, consisting of what are generally called a house of representatives and a senate. In the case of the original thirteen states, the bicameral legislature developed naturally out of usages which were prevalent in the colonial period. In the earliest colonial assemblies the governor and his council, both appointed in almost all of the colonies by the crown or by the proprietor, and therefore in no sense politically responsible to the colonists, sat with elected local representatives in the enacting of laws. Sooner or later, friction arose between the aristocratic and monarchical elements in the colony, represented by the governor and his council, and the more democratic elements comprising the mass of the inhabitants; and in every colony except Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Georgia, this resulted in a separation of the two groups of members. Each group continued to have a voice in the making of laws, but 'they henceforth sat apart. The assembly, or popular branch, became the prototype of our present house of representatives; the governor and council, acting in a legislative capacity, became the prototype of the modern state senate. With little or no real consideration of the relative merits of single-chambered and double-chambered legislative bodies, practically all of the states which have come into. existence since the Revolution have adopted the bicameral plan. The utility of the bicameral legislature as an instrument of democratic government is, however, now being vigorously challenged, and the question will be discussed in some detail in a later chapter.1 In every state there is an elaborate system of courts for the administration of justice in civil and criminal cases, and for administering the estates of deceased persons. Everywhere the highest 1See Chap. XXXV. 6. A bi cameral legisla ture 7. Civil and criminal courts CHAP. 8. Separation of powers of these state courts, usually called the supreme court, exercises the right to declare null and void any act passed by the legislature of the state or any ordinance passed by a city council which contravenes a provision of the state constitution, the national constitution, an act of Congress, or a treaty of the United States. Like the national government, all of our state governments are organized upon the theory that the powers of government fall into three great classes, executive, legislative and judicial; that each of these groups of powers should be assigned to, and exercised by, a single branch or department of the government; and that no department of government should exercise any of the powers which have been assigned to either of the other departments. The idea is, in other words, that executive, legislative, and judicial functions should, so far as possible, be confined in mutually exclusive compartments. Hence it is that we find all of our state constitutions specifically recognizing the doctrine of separation of powers. The Illinois constitution of 1870, for example, declares that "the powers of the government of this state are divided into three distinct departments the legislative, executive, and judicial; and no person or collection of persons, being one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except as hereinafter expressly directed or permitted."1 As might be inferred from the final clause of this article, it has not been found practicable in any of the states to make a strict application of the doctrine; by constitutional provision and by judicial construction, numerous specific exceptions to it have been made .from time to time. Unlike most of the other governmental features common to the several states, deliberate observance of the separation of powers first appeared in our political system in the period of the Revolution; and from the end of the eighteenth century to the opening years of the twentieth, the principle was almost universally acclaimed as the corner-stone of American democracy, as the chief reason for the success of our national government, and as an absolutely indispensable feature of all our state governments and of all our municipal governments as well. At the present time, however, both political scientists and men of long experience in the practical affairs of state and city administration are vigorously 1 Art. III. XXXIII challenging the doctrine as a mere shibboleth; and the adoption CHAP. of the commission form of government in more than five hundred cities since 1900 attests the widespread belief today that separation of powers, while making for a certain negative kind of safety, is nevertheless unsound. The main reason why it is unsound, according to people who feel this way, is that it assumes that there are three primary or fundamental functions of government, whereas in fact there are only two, namely, the formulation of public policy by the legislative body and the execution of that policy by the executive and judicial branches. The theory is criticized, furthermore, for its failure to give due consideration to the natural and inevitable interdependence of departments of government and the necessity that they work in close coöperation. and Intimately connected with the principle of separation of 9. Checks powers is the system of checks and balances, which is also found balances in every state government. Each of the three branches is provided with certain means of defense against encroachments upon its proper sphere by either of the other two branches. Thus the executive department may check legislative encroachment through the exercise of the veto power by the governor; the judiciary has a check upon the legislature through its power to declare the acts of that body unconstitutional; and in turn the legislature, through its power to impeach and remove both administrative and judicial officers, and in some instances abolish courts, has a check upon the executive and judicial departments. The right of the senate to confirm many of the governor's appointments is a farther check upon the executive; and the latter has a certain check upon the courts through its power of pardon and reprieve. Finally, each branch of the legislature is balanced against the other, each having a veto upon the legislative acts of the other. Lastly, every state is divided into local government areas called counties, except in Louisiana, where the name parish is used instead. These counties or parishes, in turn, contain towns, or townships, villages, boroughs, cities, and a great variety of special districts. Thus it comes about that a vast majority of people live under at least four different governments, namely, the national government, a state government, a county government, and the government of one or more subdivisions of a county, such as a city, 'H. J. Ford, "The Cause of Political Corruption,'' Scribner's Magazine, XLIX, 54 (Jan., 1911). 10. Subdipurposes of visions for local gov ernment СНАР. township, village, or borough; and it is with one or another of these varied subdivisions of a county that the native-born citizen, consciously or unconsciously, first comes into contact.1 All of these local government areas (or political subdivisions, as they are called collectively) are created and endowed with powers by the state exclusively. Every state has complete authority to devise its own scheme of local government and may modify it at will from time to time; the national government has nothing to do with such matters. The inhabitants of all of these subdivisions enjoy more or less extensive rights of local self-government. None the less, the subdivisions are themselves creatures of the state constitution or state statutes, and, subject to a steadily increasing number of constitutional restrictions, the legislature may exercise almost unlimited authority over them, altering or abolishing their existing forms of government, and, if it chooses, depriving the inhabitants of practically all voice in their local affairs without consulting them. On the other hand, the legislature may grant them almost complete local self-government, or what is commonly called "home rule." REFERENCES A. C. McLaughlin and A. B. Hart, Cyclopedia of American Government (New J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth (4th ed., New York, 1910), I, Chap. XXXVI. E. Kimball, State and Municipal Government in the United States (Boston, 1922), Chap. I. H. G. James, Local Government in the United States (New York, 1921), Chap. II. A. N. Holcombe, "The States as Agents of the Nation," Southwestern Polit. E. McClain, Constitutional Law in the United States (New York, 1905), Chaps. (For other references see pp. 178-179.) The governments of these various local divisions will be described in Part V. CHAPTER XXXIV STATE CONSTITUTIONS Every state has a written constitution which forms the legal basis of its government precisely as the constitution made at Philadelphia in 1787 forms the legal basis of the national government. Most of these forty-eight organic laws-even those in effect in the older states date from comparatively recent times. But some of them have lasted through two or three generations, and a few are, to all intents and purposes, of Revolutionary origin. One of the signal contributions of the authors of American independence to political progress was, indeed, the drafting of written constitutions to serve as the basis for the new state governments. tions Beginning with New Hampshire, eight colonies-in process of The first becoming states-adopted their first constitutions in 1776; and constitu three others joined the list in the following year.1 Connecticut and Rhode Island made only a few formal changes in their corporate charters, which thereafter served as state constitutions until 1818 and 1842, respectively. The people of Massachusetts went along under a provisional government until 1780, when their first and only state constitution was adopted. This instrument alone of the original series was submitted to a popular vote. Furthermore, it alone was framed by a convention of delegates specially chosen for the purpose; the others were made by legislatures or irregular revolutionary assemblages. Constitution-making by bodies brought into existence for that sole purpose, however, soon became the rule; and every state constitution in force to-day originated in this manner. 2 When, therefore, the national government was set up, first under the Articles of Confederation and later under the constitution of 1787, every state had a written constitution; and, although 'See p. 111. W. C. Morey, "The First State Constitutions," Annals Amer. Acad. Polit. and Soc. Sci., IV, 201-232 (Sept., 1893); W. C. Webster, Comparative Study of the State Constitutions of the American Revolution," ibid., IX, 380-420 (May, 1897). W. F. Dodd, "The First State Constitutional Conventions, 1776-1783," Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev., II, 545-561 (Nov., 1908). |