Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 1

Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins.

by John Fiske.

PREFACE.

Some time ago, my friends, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., requested me to write a small book on Civil Government in the United States, which might be useful as a text-book, and at the same time serviceable and suggestive to the general reader interested in American history.

In preparing the book certain points have been kept especially in view, and deserve some mention here.

It seemed desirable to adopt a historical method of exposition, not simply describing our political inst.i.tutions in their present shape, but pointing out their origin, indicating some of the processes through which they have acquired that present shape, and thus keeping before the student's mind the fact that government is perpetually undergoing modifications in adapting itself to new conditions.

Inasmuch as such gradual changes in government do not make themselves, but are made by men--and made either for better or for worse--it is obvious that the history of political inst.i.tutions has serious lessons to teach us. The student should as soon as possible come to understand that every inst.i.tution is the outgrowth of experiences. One probably gets but little benefit from abstract definitions and axioms concerning the rights of men and the nature of civil society, such as we often find at the beginning of books on government. Metaphysical generalizations are well enough in their place, but to start with such things--as the French philosophers of the eighteenth century were fond of doing--is to get the cart before the horse. It is better to have our story first, and thus find out what government in its concrete reality has been, and is. Then we may finish up with the metaphysics, or do as I have done--leave it for somebody else.

I was advised to avoid the extremely systematic, intrusively symmetrical, style of exposition, which is sometimes deemed indispensable in a book of this sort. It was thought that students would be more likely to become interested in the subject if it were treated in the same informal manner into which one naturally falls in giving lectures to young people. I have endeavoured to bear this in mind without sacrificing that lucidity in the arrangement of topics which is always the supreme consideration. For many years I have been in the habit of lecturing on history to college students in different parts of the United States, to young ladies in private schools, and occasionally to the pupils in high and normal schools, and in writing this little book I have imagined an audience of these earnest and intelligent young friends gathered before me.

I was especially advised--by my friend, Mr. James MacAlister, superintendent of schools in Philadelphia, for whose judgment I have the highest respect--to make it a _little_ book, less than three hundred pages in length, if possible. Teachers and pupils do not have time enough to deal properly with large treatises. Brevity, therefore, is golden. A concise manual is the desideratum, touching lightly upon the various points, bringing out their relations.h.i.+ps distinctly, and referring to more elaborate treatises, monographs, and doc.u.ments, for the use of those who wish to pursue the study at greater length.

Within limits thus restricted, it will probably seem strange to some that so much s.p.a.ce is given to the treatment of local inst.i.tutions,--comprising the governments of town, county, and city.

It may be observed, by the way, that some persons apparently conceive of the state also as a "local inst.i.tution." In a recent review of Professor Howard's admirable "Local Const.i.tutional History of the United States," we read, the first volume, which is all that is yet published, treats of the development of the towns.h.i.+p, hundred, and s.h.i.+re; the second volume, we suppose, being designed to treat of the State Const.i.tutions. The reviewer forgets that there is such a subject as the "development of the city and local magistracies" (which is to be the subject of that second volume), and lets us see that in his apprehension the American state is an inst.i.tution of the same order as the town and county. We can thus readily a.s.sent when we are told that many youth have grown to manhood with so little appreciation of the political importance of the state as to believe it nothing more than a geographical division.[1] In its historic genesis, the American state is not an inst.i.tution of the same order as the town and county, nor has it as yet become depressed or "mediatized" to that degree. The state, while it does not possess such attributes of sovereignty as were by our Federal Const.i.tution granted to the United States, does, nevertheless, possess many very important and essential characteristics of a sovereign body, as is here pointed out on pages 172-177. The study of our state governments is inextricably wrapped up with the study of our national government, in such wise that both are parts of one subject, which cannot be understood unless both parts are studied. Whether in the course of our country's future development we shall ever arrive at a stage in which this is not the case, must be left for future events to determine.

But, if we ever do arrive at such a stage, "American inst.i.tutions"

will present a very different aspect from those with which we are now familiar, and which we have always been accustomed (even, perhaps, without always understanding them) to admire.

[Footnote 1: Young's _Government Cla.s.s Book_, p. iv.]

The study of local government properly includes town, county, and city. To this part of the subject I have devoted about half of my limited s.p.a.ce, quite unheedful of the warning which I find in the preface of a certain popular text-book, that "to learn the duties of town, city, and county officers, has nothing whatever to do with the grand and n.o.ble subject of Civil Government," and that "to attempt cla.s.s drill on petty town and county offices, would be simply burlesque of the whole subject." But, suppose one were to say, with an air of ineffable scorn, that petty experiments on terrestrial gravitation and radiant heat, such as can be made with commonplace pendulums and tea-kettles, have nothing whatever to do with the grand and n.o.ble subject of Physical Astronomy! Science would not have got very far on that plan, I fancy. The truth is, that science, while it is perpetually dealing with questions of magnitude, and knows very well what is large and what is small, knows nothing whatever of any such distinction as that between things that are "grand" and things that are "petty." When we try to study things in a scientific spirit, to learn their modes of genesis and their present aspects, in order that we may foresee their tendencies, and make our volitions count for something in modifying them, there is nothing which we may safely disregard as trivial. This is true of whatever we can study; it is eminently true of the history of inst.i.tutions. Government is not a royal mystery, to be shut off, like old Deiokes,[2] by a sevenfold wall from the ordinary business of life. Questions of civil government are practical business questions, the principles of which are as often and as forcibly ill.u.s.trated in a city council or a county board of supervisors, as in the House of Representatives at Was.h.i.+ngton. It is partly because too many of our citizens fail to realize that local government is a worthy study, that we find it making so much trouble for us. The "b.u.mmers" and "boodlers" do not find the subject beneath their notice; the Master who inspires them is wide awake and--for a creature that divides the hoof--extremely intelligent.

[Footnote 2: Herodotus, i. 98.]

It is, moreover, the mental training gained through contact with local government that enables the people of a community to conduct successfully, through their representatives, the government of the state and the nation. And so it makes a great deal of difference whether the government of a town or county is of one sort or another.

If the average character of our local governments for the past quarter of a century had been _quite_ as high as that of the Boston town-meeting or the Virginia boards of county magistrates, in the days of Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, who can doubt that many an airy demagogue, who, through session after session, has played his pranks at the national capital, would long ago have been abruptly recalled to his native heath, a sadder if not a wiser man? We cannot expect the nature of the aggregate to be much better than the average natures of its units. One may hear people gravely discussing the difference between Frenchmen and Englishmen in political efficiency, and resorting to a.s.sumed ethnological causes to explain it, when, very likely, to save their lives they could not describe the difference between a French commune and an English parish. To comprehend the interesting contrasts between Gambetta in the Chamber of Deputies, and Gladstone in the House of Commons, one should begin with a historical inquiry into the causes, operating through forty generations, which have frittered away self-government in the rural districts and small towns of France, until there is very little left. If things in America ever come to such a pa.s.s that the city council of Cambridge must ask Congress each year how much money it can be allowed to spend for munic.i.p.al purposes, while the mayor of Cambridge holds his office subject to removal by the President of the United States, we may safely predict further extensive changes in the character of the American people and their government. It was not for nothing that our profoundest political thinker, Thomas Jefferson, attached so much importance to the study of the towns.h.i.+p.

In determining the order of exposition, I have placed local government first, beginning with the towns.h.i.+p as the simplest unit. It is well to try to understand what is near and simple, before dealing with what is remote and complex. In teaching geography with maps, it is wise to get the pupil interested in the streets of his own town, the country roads running out of it, and the neighbouring hills and streams, before burdening his attention with the topographical details of Borrioboola Gha. To study grand generalizations about government, before attending to such of its features as come most directly before us, is to run the risk of achieving a result like that attained by the New Hamps.h.i.+re school-boy, who had studied geology in a text-book, but was not aware that he had ever set eyes upon an igneous rock.

After the towns.h.i.+p, naturally comes the county. The city, as is here shown, is not simply a larger town, but is much more complex in organization. Historically, many cities have been, or still are, equivalent to counties; and the development of the county must be studied before we can understand that of the city. It has been briefly indicated how these forms of local government grew up in England, and how they have become variously modified in adapting themselves to different social conditions in different parts of the United States.

Next in order come the general governments, those which possess and exert, in one way or another, attributes of sovereignty. First, the various colonial governments have been considered, and some features of their metamorphosis into our modern state governments have been described. In the course of this study, our attention is called to the most original and striking feature of the development of civil government upon American soil,--the written const.i.tution, with the accompanying power of the courts in certain cases to annul the acts of the legislature. This is not only the most original feature of our government, but it is in some respects the most important. Without the Supreme Court, it is not likely that the Federal Union could have been held together, since Congress has now and then pa.s.sed an act which the people in some of the states have regarded as unconst.i.tutional and tyrannical; and in the absence of a judicial method of settling such questions, the only available remedy would have been nullification. I have devoted a brief chapter to the origin and development of written const.i.tutions, and the connection of our colonial charters therewith.

Lastly, we come to the completed structure, the Federal Union; and by this time we have examined so many points in the general theory of American government, that our Federal Const.i.tution can be more concisely described, and (I believe) more quickly understood, than if we had made it the subject of the first chapter instead of the last.

In conclusion, there have been added a few brief hints and suggestions with reference to our political history. These remarks have been intentionally limited. It is no part of the purpose of this book to give an account of the doings of political parties under the Const.i.tution. But its study may fitly be supplemented by that of Professor Alexander Johnston's "History of American Politics."

This arrangement not only proceeds from the simpler forms of government to the more complex, but it follows the historical order of development. From time immemorial, and down into the lowest strata of savagery that have come within our ken, there have been clans and tribes; and, as is here shown, a towns.h.i.+p was originally a stationary clan, and a county was originally a stationary tribe. There were towns.h.i.+ps and counties (or equivalent forms of organization) before there were cities. In like manner there were towns.h.i.+ps, counties, and cities long before there was anything in the world that could properly be called a state. I have remarked below upon the way in which English s.h.i.+res coalesced into little states, and in course of time the English nation was formed by the union of such little states, which lost their statehood (_i.e._, their functions of sovereignty, though not their self-government within certain limits) in the process. Finally, in America, we see an enormous nationality formed by the federation of states which partially retain their statehood; and some of these states are themselves of national dimensions, as, for example, New York, which is nearly equal in area, quite equal in population, and far superior in wealth, to Shakespeare's England.

In studying the local inst.i.tutions of our different states, I have been greatly helped by the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Politics," of which the eighth annual series is now in course of publication. In the course of the pages below I have frequent occasion to acknowledge my indebtedness to these learned and sometimes profoundly suggestive monographs; but I cannot leave the subject without a special word of grat.i.tude to my friend, Dr. Herbert Adams, the editor of the series, for the n.o.ble work which he is doing in promoting the study of American history. It had always seemed to me that the mere existence of printed questions in text-books proves that the publishers must have rather a poor opinion of the average intelligence of teachers; and it also seemed as if the practical effect of such questions must often be to make the exercise of recitation more mechanical for both teachers and pupils, and to encourage the besetting sin of "learning by heart."

Nevertheless, there are usually two sides to a case; and, in deference to the prevailing custom, for which, no doubt, there is much to be said, full sets of questions have been appended to each chapter and section.

It seemed desirable that such questions should be prepared by some one especially familiar with the use of school-books; and for these I have to thank Mr. F.A. Hill, Head Master of the Cambridge English High School. I confess that Mr. Hill's questions have considerably modified my opinion as to the merits of such apparatus. They seem to add very materially to the usefulness of the book.

It will be observed that there are two sets of these questions, entirely distinct in character and purpose. The first set--"Questions on the Text"--is appended to each _section_, so as to be as near the text as possible. These questions furnish an excellent topical a.n.a.lysis of the text.[3] In a certain sense they ask "what the book says," but the teacher is advised emphatically to discourage any such thing as committing the text to memory. The tendency to rote-learning is very strong. I had to contend with it in teaching history to seniors at Harvard twenty years ago, but much has since been done to check it through the development of the modern German seminary methods. (For an explanation of these methods, see Dr. Herbert Adams on "Seminary Libraries and University Extension," _J.H.U.

Studies_, V., xi.) With younger students the tendency is of course stronger. It is only through much exercise that the mind learns how to let itself--as Matthew Arnold used to say--"play freely about the facts."

[Footnote 3: "This," says Mr. Hill, "will please those who prefer the topical method, while it does not forbid the easy transformation of topics to questions, which others may demand." In the table of contents I have made a pretty full topical a.n.a.lysis of the book, which may prove useful for comparison with Mr. Hill's.]

In order to supply the pupil with some wholesome exercise of this sort, Mr. Hill has added, at the end of each _chapter_, a set of "Suggestive Questions and Directions." Here he has thoroughly divined the purpose of the book and done much to further it.

Problems or cases are suggested for the student to consider, and questions are asked which cannot be disposed of by a direct appeal to the text. Sometimes the questions go quite outside of the text, and relate to topics concerning which it provides no information whatever.

This has been done with a purpose. The pupil should learn how to go outside of the book and gather from scattered sources information concerning questions that the book suggests. In other words, he should begin to learn _how to make researches_, for that is coming to be one of the useful arts, not merely for scholars, but for men and women in many sorts of avocations. It is always useful, as well as enn.o.bling, to be able to trace knowledge to its sources. Work of this sort involves more or less conference and discussion among cla.s.smates, and calls for active aid from the teacher; and if the teacher does not at first feel at home in these methods, practice will nevertheless bring familiarity, and will prove most wholesome training. For the aid of teachers and pupils, as well as of the general reader who wishes to pursue the subject, I have added a bibliographical note at the end of each chapter, immediately after Mr. Hill's "Suggestive Questions and Directions."

This particular purpose in my book must be carefully borne in mind.

It explains the omission of many details which some text-books on the same subject would be sure to include. To make a manual complete and self-sufficing is precisely what I have not intended. The book is designed to be suggestive and stimulating, to leave the reader with scant information on some points, to make him (as Mr. Samuel Weller says) "vish there wos more," and to show him how to go on by himself.

I am well aware that, in making an experiment in this somewhat new direction, nothing is easier than to fall into errors of judgment. I can hardly suppose that this book is free from such errors; but if in spite thereof it shall turn out to be in any way helpful in bringing the knowledge and use of the German seminary method into our higher schools, I shall be more than satisfied.

Just here, let me say to young people in all parts of our country:--If you have not already done so, it would be well worth while for you to organize a debating society in your town or village, for the discussion of such historical and practical questions relating to the government of the United States as are suggested in the course of this book. Once started, there need be no end of interesting and profitable subjects for discussion. As a further guide to the books you need in studying such subjects, use Mr. W.E. Foster's "References to the Const.i.tution of the United States," the invaluable pamphlet mentioned below on page 277. If you cannot afford to buy the books, get the public library of your town or village to buy them; or, perhaps, organize a small special library for your society or club. Librarians will naturally feel interested in such a matter, and will often be able to help with advice. A few hours every week spent in such wholesome studies cannot fail to do much toward the political education of the local community, and thus toward the general improvement of the American people. For the amelioration of things will doubtless continue to be effected in the future, as it has been effected in the past, not by ambitious schemes of sudden and universal reform (which the sagacious man always suspects, just as he suspects all schemes for returning a fabulously large interest upon investments), but by the gradual and c.u.mulative efforts of innumerable individuals, each doing something to help or instruct those to whom his influence extends. He who makes two clear ideas grow where there was only one hazy one before, is the true benefactor of his species.

In conclusion, I must express my sincere thanks to Mr. Thomas Emerson, superintendent of schools in Newton, for the very kind interest he has shown in my work, in discussing its plan with me at the outset, in reading the completed ma.n.u.script, and in offering valuable criticisms.

CAMBRIDGE, _August_ 5, 1890.

CHAPTER I.

TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT.

In that strangely beautiful story, "The Cloister and the Hearth," in which Charles Reade has drawn such a vivid picture of human life at the close of the Middle Ages, there is a good description of the siege of a revolted town by the army of the Duke of Burgundy. Arrows whiz, catapults hurl their ponderous stones, wooden towers are built, secret mines are exploded. The st.u.r.dy citizens, led by a tall knight who seems to bear a charmed life, baffle every device of the besiegers. At length the citizens capture the brother of the duke's general, and the besiegers capture the tall knight, who turns out to be no knight after all, but just a plebeian hosier. The duke's general is on the point of ordering the tradesman who has made so much trouble to be shot, but the latter still remains master of the situation; for, as he dryly observes, if any harm comes to him, the enraged citizens will hang the general's brother. Some parley ensues, in which the shrewd hosier promises for the townsfolk to set free their prisoner and pay a round sum of money if the besieging army will depart and leave them in peace. The offer is accepted, and so the matter is amicably settled. As the worthy citizen is about to take his leave, the general ventures a word of inquiry as to the cause of the town's revolt. "What, then, is your grievance, my good friend?" Our hosier knight, though deft with needle and keen with lance, has a stammering tongue. He answers: "Tuta--tuta--tuta--tuta--too much taxes!"

[Sidenote: "Too much taxes."]

"Too much taxes:" those three little words furnish us with a clue wherewith to understand and explain a great deal of history. A great many sieges of towns, so horrid to have endured though so picturesque to read about, hundreds of weary marches and deadly battles, thousands of romantic plots that have led their inventors to the scaffold, have owed their origin to questions of taxation. The issue between the ducal commander and the warlike tradesman has been tried over and over again in every country and in every age, and not always has the oppressor been so speedily thwarted and got rid of. The questions as to how much the taxes shall be, and who is to decide how much they shall be, are always and in every stage of society questions of most fundamental importance. And ever since men began to make history, a very large part of what they have done, in the way of making history, has been the attempt to settle these questions, whether by discussion or by blows, whether in council chambers or on the battlefield. The French Revolution of 1789, the most terrible political convulsion of modern times, was caused chiefly by "too much taxes," and by the fact that the people who paid the taxes were not the people who decided what the taxes were to be. Our own Revolution, which made the United States a nation independent of Great Britain, was brought on by the disputed question as to who was to decide what taxes American citizens must pay.

[Sidenote: What is taxation?]

What, then, are taxes? The question is one which is apt to come up, sooner or later, to puzzle children. They find no difficulty in understanding the butcher's bill for so many pounds of meat, or the tailor's bill for so many suits of clothes, where the value received is something that can be seen and handled. But the tax bill, though it comes as inevitably as the autumnal frosts, bears no such obvious relation to the incidents of domestic life; it is not quite so clear what the money goes for; and hence it is apt to be paid by the head of the household with more or less grumbling, while for the younger members of the family it requires some explanation.

It only needs to be pointed out, however, that in every town some things are done for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town, things which concern one person just as much as another. Thus roads are made and kept in repair, school-houses are built and salaries paid to school-teachers, there are constables who take criminals to jail, there are engines for putting out fires, there are public libraries, town cemeteries, and poor-houses. Money raised for these purposes, which are supposed to concern all the inhabitants, is supposed to be paid by all the inhabitants, each one furnis.h.i.+ng his share; and the share which each one pays is his town tax.

[Sidenote: Taxation and eminent domain.]

From this ill.u.s.tration it would appear that taxes are private property taken for public purposes; and in making this statement we come very near the truth. Taxes are portions of private property which a government takes for its public purposes. Before going farther, let us pause to observe that there is one other way, besides taxation, in which government sometimes takes private property for public purposes.

Roads and streets are of great importance to the general public; and the government of the town or city in which you live may see fit, in opening a new street, to run it across your garden, or to make you move your house or shop out of the way for it. In so doing, the government either takes away or damages some of your property. It exercises rights over your property without asking your permission.

This power of government over private property is called "the right of eminent domain." It means that a man's private interests must not be allowed to obstruct the interests of the whole community in which he lives. But in two ways the exercise of eminent domain is unlike taxation. In the first place, it is only occasional, and affects only certain persons here or there, whereas taxation goes on perpetually and affects all persons who own property. In the second place, when the government takes away a piece of your land to make a road, it pays you money in return for it; perhaps not quite so much as you believe the piece of land was worth in the market; the average human nature is doubtless such that men seldom give fair measure for measure unless they feel compelled to, and it is not easy to put a government under compulsion. Still it gives you something; it does not ask you to part with your property for nothing. Now in the case of taxation, the government takes your money and seems to make no return to you individually; but it is supposed to return to you the value of it in the shape of well-paved streets, good schools, efficient protection against criminals, and so forth.

[Sidenote: What is government?]

In giving this brief preliminary definition of taxes and taxation, we have already begun to speak of "the government" of the town or city in which you live. We shall presently have to speak of other "governments,"--as the government of your state and the government of the United States; and we shall now and then have occasion to allude to the governments of other countries in which the people are free, as, for example, England; and of some countries in which the people are not free, as, for example, Russia. It is desirable, therefore, that we should here at the start make sure what we mean by "government," in order that we may have a clear idea of what we are talking about.

[Sidenote: The "s.h.i.+p of state."]

Our verb "to govern" is an Old French word, one of the great host of French words which became a part of the English language between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, when so much French was spoken in England. The French word was _gouverner_, and its oldest form was the Latin _gubernare_, a word which the Romans borrowed from the Greek, and meant originally "to steer the s.h.i.+p." Hence it very naturally came to mean "to guide," "to direct," "to command." The comparison between governing and steering was a happy one. To govern is not to command as a master commands a slave, but it is to issue orders and give directions for the common good; for the interests of the man at the helm are the same as those of the people in the s.h.i.+p.

All must float or sink together. Hence we sometimes speak of the "s.h.i.+p of state," and we often call the state a "commonwealth," or something in the weal or welfare of which all the people are alike interested.

Government, then, is the directing or managing of such affairs as concern all the people alike,--as, for example, the punishment of criminals, the enforcement of contracts, the defence against foreign enemies, the maintenance of roads and bridges, and so on. To the directing or managing of such affairs all the people are expected to contribute, each according to his ability, in the shape of taxes.

Government is something which is supported by the people and kept alive by taxation. There is no other way of keeping it alive.

[Sidenote: "The government."]