This striking difference between the cities and the States may be explained in several ways. One is that cities cannot repudiate, while sovereign States can and do. Another may be found in the later introduction into State constitutions of restrictions on the borrowing powers of municipalities. But the chief cause is to be found in the conditions of the government of great cities, where the wealth of the community is largest, and is also most at the disposal of a multitude of ignorant voters. Several of the greatest cities lie in States which did not till recently, or have not even now, imposed adequate restrictions on the borrowing power of city councils.

1 In some parts of New England the city, town, or other municipal debt is also the personal debt of every inhabitant, and is therefore an excellent security.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE WORKING OF STATE GOVERNMENTS

We have now to inquire how the organs of the government which have been described play into one another in practice. To say that a State is something lower than the nation but greater than a municipality, is to say what is obvious, but not instructive; for the peculiarity of the State in America is that it combines some of the features which are to Europeans characteristic of a nation and a nation only, with others that belong to a municipality.

The State governments, as has been observed already, bear a family likeness to the National or Federal government, a likeness due not only to the fact that the latter was largely modelled after the systems of the old thirteen States, but also to the influence which the Federal Constitution has exerted ever since 1789 on those who have been drafting or amending State constitutions. Thus the Federal Constitution has been both child and parent. Where the State constitutions differ from the Federal, they invariably differ in being more democratic. It still expresses the doctrines of 1787. They express the views of later days, when democratic ideas have been more rampant, and men less cautious than the sages of the Philadelphia Convention have given legal form to popular beliefs. This difference, which appears not only in the mode of appointing judges, but in the shorter terms which the States allow to their officials and senators, comes out most clearly in the relations established between the legislative and the executive powers. The National executive, though disjoined from the legislature in a way strange to Europeans, is nevertheless all of a piece. The President is supreme; his ministers are his subordinates, chosen by him from among his political associates. They act under his orders; he is responsible for their conduct. But in the

States there is nothing even distantly resembling a cabinet. The chief executive officials are directly elected by the people.. They hold by a title independent of the State governor. They are not, except so far as some special statute may provide. subject to his directions, and he is not responsible for their conduct, since he cannot control it. As the governor need not belong to the party for the time being dominant in the legislature, so the other State officials need not be of the same party as the governor. They may even have been elected at

a different time, or for a longer period.

It might be thought that this divergence would give rise to grave practical difficulties. But as a rule the executive basiness of a State is not such as to need any unity of policy, and therefore does not depend upon harmony of view or purpose among those who manage it. Everything in the nature of State policy belongs to the legislature, and to the legislature

alone.

Compare the Federal President with the State governor. The former has foreign policy to deal with, the latter has none. The former has a vast patronage, the latter has scarcely any. The former has the command of the army and navy, the latter has only the militia, insignificant in ordinary times. The former has a post-office, but there is no State postal-service. Little remains to the governor except his veto, which is not so much an executive as a legislative function; the duty of maintaining order, which becomes important only when insurrection or riot breaks out: and the almost mechanical function of representing the State for various matters of routine, such as demanding from other States the extradition of offenders, issuing writs for the election of congressmen or of the State legislature, receiving the reports of the various State officials.

These officials, even the highest of them who correspond to the cabinet ministers in the National government, are either mere clerks, performing work, such as that of receiving and paying out brate moneys, strictly defined by statute, and usually checked by other officials, or else are in the nature of commissioners of inquiry, who may inspect and report, but can take no independent action of importance. Policy does not le

1Thus Massachusetts elected in 1891 (and again in 1892 a Democratic gov ernor, but her other state officials from the Republican party.

within their province; even in executive details their discretion is confined within narrow limits. They have, no doubt, from the governor downwards, opportunities for jobbing and malversation; but even the less scrupulous are restrained from using these opportunities by the fear of some investigating committee of the legislature, with possible impeachment or criminal prosecution as a consequence of its report. Holding for terms which seldom exceed two or three years, they feel the insecurity of their position; but the desire to earn re-election by the able and conscientious discharge of their functions, is a less effective motive than it would be if the practice of reelecting competent men were more frequent. Unfortunately, here, as in Congress, the tradition of many States is, that when a man has enjoyed an office, however well he may have served the public, some one else ought to have the next turn.

The reason, therefore, why the system I have sketched rubs along in the several States is, that the executive has little to do, and comparatively small sums to handle. The further reason why it has so little to do is two-fold. Local government is so fully developed that many functions, which in Europe would devolve on a central authority, are in all American States left to the county, or the city, or the township, or the school district. These minor divisions narrow the province of the State, just as the State narrows the province of the central government. And the other reason is, that legislation has in the several States pushed itself to the farthest limits, and so encroached on subjects which European legislatures would leave to the executive, that executive discretion is extinct, and the officers are the mere hands of the legislative brain, which directs them by statutes drawn with extreme minuteness, carefully specifies the purposes to which each money grant is to be applied, and supervises them by inquisitorial committees.

It is a natural consequence of these arrangements that State office carries little either of dignity or of power. A place is valued chiefly for its salary, or for such opportunities of obliging friends or securing commissions on contracts as it may present, though in the greatest States the post of attorney-general or comptroller is often sought by able men. A State governor, however, is not yet a nonentity. In more than one State a sort of perfume from the old days lingers round the office, as

in Massachusetts, where the traditions of last century were renewed by the eminent man who occupied the chair of the commonwealth during the War of Secession and did much to stimulate and direct the patriotism of its citizens. Though no one would nowadays, like Mr. Jay in 1795, exchange the chiefjusticeship of the United States for the governorship of his State, a cabinet minister will sometimes seek to quit his post in order to obtain the governorship of a great State like New York. In all States, the governor, as the highest official and the depositary of State authority, may at any moment become the pivot on whose action public order turns. In the Pennsylvania riots of 1877 it was the accidental absence of the governor on a tour in the West which enabled the forces of sedition to gather strength. During the more recent disturbances which large strikes, especially among railway employés, have caused in the West, the prompt action of a governor has preserved or restored tranquillity in more than one State; while the indecision of the governor of an adjoining one has emboldened strikers to stop traffic, or to molest workmen who had been hired to replace them. So in a commercial crisis, like that which swept over the Union in 1837, when the citizens are panic-stricken and the legislature hesitates, much may depend on the initiative of the governor, to whom the eyes of the people naturally turn. His right of suggesting legislative remedies, usually neglected, then becomes significant, and may abridge or increase the difficulties of the community.

It is not, however, as an executive magistrate that a State governor usually makes or mars a reputation, but in his quasilegislative capacity of agreeing to or vetoing bills passed by the legislature. The merit of a governor is usually tested by the number and the boldness of his vetoes; and one may see a governor appealing to the people for re-election on the ground that he had defeated in many and important instances the will of their representatives solemnly expressed in the votes of both Houses. That such appeals should be made, and often made successfully, is due not only to the distrust which the people entertain of their legislatures, but also, to their honour be it said, to the respect of the people for courage. They like above all things a strong man.

This view of the governor as a check on the legislature