by constitutional changes, the powers of the legislature; and the restrictions affect the frequency of their sessions, the length of time they may sit, and the character of the laws they may pass. The earliest constitutions, as a rule, authorized, apparently as a matter of course, annual sessions; forbore to restrict them in length; and conferred the legislative power in very general terms, the chief limitations to be gathered from most of them being those deducible from bills or declarations of rights. The steady progress has been towards restriction. Only eight States out of the thirty-eight now allow annual sessions. The plan of a session once in two years has thus been adopted in more than three quarters of the States; and an avowed and principal reason for the change has been to diminish the frequency and number of new laws. In old times legislatures might continue their sessions as long as they saw reason; now, in most of the States, they are limited to a term (sixty, ninety, or a hundred days), or sometimes have had their pay limited to a term, leaving them to serve longer without compensation, if the public necessity was sufficiently urgent. Still more important is the change made in imposing restrictions upon the kind of laws a State legislature may pass. Rules that special laws shall not be passed when general ones will answer, that divorces must not be granted, that charters shall not be given or taxes imposed, except in certain ways or subject to given conditions, are frequent in the recent constitutions; and some of them contain a long series of these limitations upon the legislative authority. Thus the progress of development of constitutional law is towards diminution of legislative authority by increased reservations of control to the people. CHAPTER II. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF AMERICAN COURTS. THE purpose of the American people to create a duplex government involved a necessity for a twofold system of courts; and the unanticipated but extensive spread of national sway over new territories has required a third class. Thus it has been necessary to bring into operation national, state, and territorial courts of a variety of powers; each class independent, in great measure, of the others, yet all harmonious. The steadiness, rapidity, and concord with which this has been done, and the complexity, magnitude, and efficiency of the judicial system thus created, may well excite admiration. THE UNITED STATES COURTS. By the constitution itself, the people directly created a Supreme Court of the United States, clothed with power to try, originally, certain controversies of high political importance, and also to review and correct decisions of subordinate courts; and Congress, under authority of the constitution,* has created, for the ordinary administration of justice throughout the States, in controversies coming within the national jurisdiction, a system of Circuit and District courts. These three-the Supreme, Circuit, and District courts-are what are usually (not invariably) meant by the expression "the United States courts." A full enumeration of all courts existing by national authority would include others, such as the local courts of the District of Columbia; also the Court of Claims, established for the deter * No. 9 of the powers of Congress, ante, p. 8, note. mination of claims preferred by individuals against the government of the Union. The controversies intrusted to these United States courts (omitting to mention some of rare recurrence) are of three kinds: cases arising under any law of the United States; cases of admiralty jurisdiction, that is, arising at sea or immediately connected with maritime matters; and cases between citizens of different States. It was consistent with the general plan of confiding to the States all local or separate concerns, and to the Union all general and national affairs, that a controversy depending on the laws of the Union or upon the general maritime law of the commercial world should be referred to the courts of the Union, for they might be expected to determine such questions more uniformly and consistently than could be done by thirty or forty independent State tribunals. Controversies between citizens of different States are referred to the national jurisdiction for other reasons, largely to secure protection against any favor or partiality which courts of one State might bestow upon its own citizens. To carry this system into practical effect, the States have been divided by Congress into judicial districts. Originally each State was a district. Gradually the larger States have been divided into two or three; and the aggregate number of the districts is, at the present day, about sixty, and is liable to be changed at any session of Congress. The districts have been grouped in circuits, of which there are nine; and for each circuit there is a circuit judge. These two classes of judges hold United States Circuit and District courts at designated places throughout the States, systematic provision being made for court-rooms, clerks, marshals, and records; so that, everywhere, individuals concerned in controversies depending on national laws, or arising upon matters of maritime origin, or in which citizens of one State are pitted against those of another, may seek justice in a court of the Union, free, by its creation and surroundings, and by all its precedents and tradi tions, from any undue influence arising from differences among the States. The decisions of the Circuit and District courts may be reviewed, in all proper cases, by the Supreme Court. THE STATE COURTS. The organization of an appropriate system of tribunals in the various States is no less complete and thorough, though less easy to be briefly described. In nearly every State there is a Supreme Court, the judges of which, separately, visit various county seats at stated times to hold jury trials, and afterwards meet and hold court together to review and correct the decisions made by each other in their circuits. In New York, decisions of the Supreme Court may be reviewed in a Court of Appeals, whose only function is to revise what has been done in lower courts; it does not try causes in the first instance at all. Similar appellate courts have been established in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. But usually the Supreme Court of the State is the highest court; and the decisions of the full bench of judges of that court settle the law for the State upon all questions falling within the sphere of State government. If the authority and powers of the national government are involved in the case, there is a mode by which it may be carried to the Supreme Court of the United States for final decision. For each of the counties into which the States are divided there is, as a general rule, a court for the trial of suits, known as the Court of Common Pleas, the County Court, the Circuit Court for the county, or some similar name. These take cognizance of suits of less importance than those allotted to the Supreme Court, according to directions given by the legislature, and which vary in the different States. There is also, generally, in each county, a court for the care of estates of deceased persons, and superintendence of orphans and lunatics, and for other matters involving legal care of property without active lawsuits; which is variously styled Court of Probate, Orphans' Court, Surrogate's Court, or the like, in different States. One town in each county is designated by law as the county seat where these county courts shall be held, and where all the judicial and public records of the law business arising in the county shall be preserved. The counties, again, are, except in some unsettled regions, divided into townships or towns, and throughout these are justices of the peace, who have authority to try lawsuits involving smaller amounts or founded on minor wrongs. In many of the larger cities, where it has been found that the general system is not adequate to the volume of judicial business arising in the place, additional courts for the city are established. Thus in New York, in Buffalo, in Cincinnati, in Indianapolis, there is a "Superior Court;" in Brooklyn there is a "City Court." And, for similar reasons, the justices of the peace are in some cities organized into quite a formal system of courts. For the trial of crimes there is, as a general rule, a similar arrangement to that for civil controversies above described. Petty offences may be tried before a justice of the peace. For offences of a higher but medium grade there is very often a Court of Sessions, or a criminal jurisdiction in a court of the county; or they are tried in a branch of the Supreme Court sometimes bearing the old-fashioned name "Oyer and Terminer." TERRITORIAL COURTS. When new territory, of immense extent, became acquired by the general government and began to be settled by a rapidly increasing population, which at first had not capacity or resources for creating a distinct set of courts for local affairs, the responsibility of providing such fell upon Congress. A system has been created* in which the distinction of national and state authority * Rev. Stat. § 1907. It does not apply to Arizona, or to the unorganized territories (Alaska and Indian Territory). |