to the several gentlemen who have assisted me in the work of preparing the Readings. With Dr. S. E. Forman I have been in frequent communication and his comments have been uniformly suggestive and helpful. Dr. W. W. Willoughby of the Johns Hopkins University has materially assisted me in locating appropriate material on many subjects. The list of selections was examined and criticised by Mr. E. E. Hill, Chicago Normal School, Chicago, Illinois; Mr. H. W. Edwards, Berkeley High School, Berkeley, California; Mr. Rex W. Wells, East High School, Toledo, Ohio, and Dr. Wm. G. Wetzel, Principal of High School, Trenton, New Jersey. The manuscript was read by Dr. James Sullivan, Principal of the Boys' High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. I must also here acknowledge my appreciation of the kindness of the several publishers and authors who have generously consented to the use of these extracts and articles. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa. August 1st, 1910. PERCY L. KAYE. READINGS IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT PART I THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT CHAPTER I THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL 1. DEFINITIONS: STATE, GOVERNMENT, NATION. In the study of civil government the terms state, government, and nation will constantly recur. Therefore, it should prove useful to obtain at the outset as clear and definite a conception of the exact meaning of these terms as is possible. Professor Stephen Leacock in his Elements of Political Science makes a good, accurate statement of the sense in which these words are used by writers on this subject: 1 Political science, then, deals with the state; it is, in short, as it is often termed, the "theory of the state." The word "state" is sufficiently familiar to have been used in the preceding discussion without explanation. It is now necessary to make a nearer analysis of the exact meaning to be attached to the term. An examination of the ordinary senses in which the word is used shows at once a considerable latitude in its employment. Thus when we speak of the different "states" of Christendom, or refer to France, Germany, etc., as the leading states of Europe, the word seems roughly to 1 Reprinted by special permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 4 READINGS IN: CIVIL GOVERNMENT correspond with such terms as country, international power, etc. When, on the other hand, we talk of the relations existing between the "church and the state," we have no reference to international affairs; the idea implied is rather that of association or organization. Again, in such uses as "The State and the Individual," or in the title of one of Herbert Spencer's books, "The Man versus the State," the word is plainly used to imply a contrast between the individual citizen and the collective aspect of the community. Finally, in such phrases as "state aid to the poor,' "state control of railroads," etc., what is thought of is not so much the community collectively as the special machinery or organized agency through which the community acts. Out of the different elements here embodied we may construct an exact conception of what is meant by the state in the technical language of political science. It embodies as the factors of which it is composed : I. A territory. II. A population. III. Unity. IV. Organization. Let us briefly examine these in turn. Without a definite territory there can be no state. The Jews, being scattered abroad and dissociated from the occupation and control of any particular territory, do not constitute a state. Professor Holland in the definition given in his "Elements of Jurisprudence," speaks of a "numerous assemblage of human beings generally occupying a certain territory.' But it seems advisable to insist on the idea of land being necessary. Equally necessary is a population. It goes without saying that an uninhabited portion of the earth, taken in itself, cannot form a state. The third requisite is said to be unity. By this is meant that the territory and population in question must form no part of a wider political unit; nor must the territory contain any portion or portions which while forming geographically a part of it, are not a part of it politically. The island of Haiti is a geographical unit, but being divided into |