the court suggest that the section does not affect an existing contract, and that if it could be construed as applicable to such a contract it would be void under the provision of the Federal Constitution which prohibits any law impairing the obligation of a contract. In People v. Hawkins (1898) 157 N. Y. 1, 42 L. R. A. 490, 68 Am. St. Rep. 736, 51 N. E. 257, the court say that this section "does not forbid the sale of any article of property. It deals only with modes of employing convicts and with practices that had formerly existed, under which the labor of convicts had become a subject of bargain and sale. It simply abolished what was known as the contract system of labor in prisons, whereby the profits of the labor of convicts were secured by contractors or private parties." The act of 1896, chap. 931, which required goods made in penal institutions to be labeled "convict made," was unconstitutional.

ARTICLE IV.

[THE EXECUTIVE.]

§ 1. [Governor and lieutenant governor; term of office. ]-The executive power shall be vested in a governor, who shall hold his office for two years; a lieutenant governor shall be chosen at the same time, and for the same term. The governor and lieutenant governor elected next preceding the time when this section shall take effect shall hold office until and including the thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, and their successors shall be chosen at the general election in that year.

[Const. 1777, arts. 17, 20; 1821, art. 3, § 1; 1846, art. 4, § 1; Am. 1874]

GOVERNOR.

The governor, as the representative and embodiment of the executive power of the state, combines the general powers and functions of the colonial governor, of whom

he is the immediate successor, and also of the King in his capacity as the executive head of the English nation. The people of the colony were familiar with the office of governor. The governor, however, was only partially independent, being subordinate to the authority of the Crown, but had been gradually vested with large executive powers, and, so far as home rule prevailed in the colony, was its executive head substantially in the same sense that the governor of the state afterwards became the executive head of the new commonwealth. The chief executive of the colony during the Dutch period was commissioned as the "director," although commonly known as the governor, for the Dutch West India Company, chartered in 1621, was given authority to appoint governors and other officers for the territory under its jurisdiction. After the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, and during the proprietary government under the Duke of York, which terminated on his accession to the throne as James II. in 1685, the chief executive officer of the colony was commissioned as his "lieutenant and governor." After this time, when the colony became a royal province, the governor was commissioned as "captain general and governor in chief;" and at the beginning of the Revolution, which was the close of the colonial period, Governor William Tryon, in addition to these titles, was called "chancellor and vice admiral." The first Constitution continued the office of governor and he was ex officio "general and commander in chief of all the militia, and admiral of the navy." The title of "admiral" was continued until the Constitution of 1846, when it was omitted, and the governor was made commander in chief of the military and naval forces of the state.

The Constitution of 1821 expressly vested the "executive power" of the state in the governor, and this provision has been continued in subsequent Constitutions.

This phrase seems less exact than the phrase used by the framers of the first Constitution, who said that "the supreme executive power and authority" should be vested in the governor, thus leaving room for the application of other elements of executive authority by means of other officers who were, by the Constitution itself, and by subsequent statutes, vested with large executive powers. The governor is the executive head of the state, but he does not possess all "executive power." Other administrative officers are created by the Constitution and vested with specific powers. Some of these officers are appointed by the governor and may be removed by him; others are elected by the people and may be removed by the governor; while others are chosen by the people and may be removed by the legislature. Many officers are beyond the governor's immediate control, for, as to them, he has no power of removal. In the chapter on the Commission of 1872 I have quoted from Governor Hoffman's message of that year numerous suggestions relating to constitutional reform, among them the recommendation that the principal state officers be appointed by the governor instead of being elected by the people. The Commission adopted the Governor's recommendation in substance, and reported a plan which took away from the people the right to elect most of these officers, and vested their appointment in the governor; but the legislature did not accept this change of policy, and the proposed plan was omitted in the amendments submitted to the people in 1874. Governor Hoffman, discussing this question, said that under the existing Constitution, the executive department of the state was "not so organized as to insure the most efficient administration of affairs, and the most complete and direct responsibility," and he urged that the chief executive ought to have a controlling voice "in the selection of the subordinate offi

cers upon whom, within their separate departments, the duty is devolved of executing the laws of the state and administering its affairs." He thought there should be a "single executive." "The governor ought to be held responsible for every branch of the actual administration of the state's affairs. Under our present Constitution, all the important departments are separated from his control." He thought that "all the heads of administrative departments should be subject to the supervision and the correcting power of the governor," to whom they would form a "valuable council." The suggestion of a council was practically applied by Governor Roosevelt, 18991900, who held frequent, and, during certain months, regular, consultations with the principal state officers, who formed what was then known as "the governor's cabinet." These consultations afforded the governor and also the other officers an opportunity to become familiar with the affairs of the state as thus variously administered, and the governor was able to obtain a more comprehensive view of public matters than could have been derived from official reports or occasional separate conferences with the state officers.

The situation as presented by Governor Hoffman emphasizes the suggestion already made that executive power is not all vested in the governor. A reference to other parts of the Constitution, and to numerous statutes, will show that while the governor is, by the Constitution, the general repository of executive power, other officers of a lower rank have been vested with large administrative powers, and are substantially independent of executive control, being amenable either directly to the people or to the legislature, or whose conduct may be subject to inquiry by the court for the trial of impeachments. Governor Hoffman substantially advised a return to the policy which had prevailed under the first Constitution, for it

will be remembered that by that instrument more than by any subsequent Constitution the governor was in fact, as well as in name, the chief executive of the state. The Council of Appointment, of which he was a member, and in which, for the first few years of its existence, he exercised the exclusive power of nomination, possessed the power of appointment and removal of all public officers except the state treasurer and a few local officers who were elected by the people. The phrase "supreme executive power and authority" was significant under that Constitution, for the governor was the real executive head of the state, and the Constitution specifically charged him "to take care that the laws were faithfully executed, to the best of his ability." This made him responsible for the execution of all the laws unless excused from such responsibility by the law itself. That clause has been continued in subsequent Constitutions, and will be considered in a note to § 4.

By the first Constitution the governor's term was fixed at three years; by the second and third at two years; it was again fixed at three years by the amendments of 1874, and once more reduced to two years by the Constitution of 1894.

The governor of New York holds a very exalted position, second only to that of president of the United States. No state has gone farther than New York in vesting in the governor large and sometimes extraordinary powers. He is not only the executive head of the state, but he is an essential element of our legislative system, and by an exercise of executive authority he may wield an extensive and sometimes a dominating influence in respect to the judiciary, manifested by appointments to the highest courts to fill vacancies, by the designation of judges to constitute appellate divisions of the supreme court, and by the appointment of extraordinary trial, special, and