er. tive, is probably the governor's most important and considerable power. In thirteen of the states the governor can veto particular items in a bill for the appro4. Veto pow- priation of public money, while at the same time he approves the rest of the bill. This is a most important safeguard against corruption, because where the governor does not have this power it is possible to make appropriations for unworthy or scandalous purposes along with appropriations for matters of absolute necessity, and then to lump them all together in the same bill, so that the governor must either accept the bad along with the good or reject the good along with the bad. It is a great gain when the governor can select the items and veto some while approving others. In such matters the gov ernor is often more honest and discreet than the legislature, if for no other reason, because he is one man, and responsibility can be fixed upon him more clearly than upon two or three hundred. Such, in brief outline, is the framework of the American state governments. But our account would be very incomplete without some mention of three points, all of them especially characteristic of the American state, and likely to be overlooked or misunderstood by Europeans. In building the state, the local First, while we have rapidly built up one of the greatest empires yet seen upon the earth, we have left our self-government substantially unimpaired in the process. This is exemplified in two self-govern- ways: first, in the relationship of the state left unim- to its towns and counties, and, secondly, in its relationship to the federal government. Over the township and county governments the state exercises a general supervision; indeed, it clothes them with their authority. Townships and counties ment was paired. have no sovereignty; the state, on the other hand, has many elements of sovereignty, but it does not use them to obliterate or unduly restrict the control of the townships and counties over their own administrative work. It leaves the local governments to administer themselves. As a rule there is only just enough state supervision to harmonize the working of so many local administrations. Such a system of government comes as near as possible toward making all American citizens participate actively in the management of public affairs. It generates and nourishes a public spirit and a universal acquaintance with matters of public interest such as has probably never before been seen in any great country. Public spirit of equal or greater intensity may have been witnessed in small and highly educated communities, such as ancient Athens or mediæval Florence, but in the United States it is diffused over an area equal to the whole of Europe. Among the leading countries of the world England is the one which comes nearest to the United States in the general diffusion of enlightened public spirit and political capacity throughout all classes of society. A very notable contrast to the self-government which has produced such admirable results is to be seen in France, and as contrasts are often instructive, let me mention one or two features of the French government. There is nothing like the irregularity and spontaneity there that we have observed in our survey of the United States. Everything is symmetrical. France is divided into eighty-nine departments, most Instructive of them larger than the state of Delaware, with some of them nearly as large as Connecticut, France. and the administration of one department is exactly like that of all the others. The chief officer of the department is the prefect, who is appointed by the minister contrast of the interior at Paris. The prefect is treasurer, recruiting officer, school superintendent, all in one, and he appoints nearly all inferior officers. The department has a council, elected by universal suffrage, but it has no power of assessing taxes. The central legislature in Paris decides for it how much money it shall use and how it shall raise it. The department council is not even allowed to express its views on political matters ; it can only attend to purely local details of adminis tration. The smallest civil division in France is the commune, which may be either rural or urban. The commune has a municipal council which elects a mayor; but when once elected the mayor becomes directly responsible to the prefect of the department, and through him to the minister of the interior. If these greater officers do not like what the mayor does, they can overrule his acts or even suspend him from office; or upon their complaint the President of the Republic can remove him. In France, nominally a pire or a re top, there is self-govern Thus in France people do not manage their own affairs, but they are managed for them by a hierarchy of officials with its head at Paris. This syswhether it is tem was devised by the Constituent Assembly despotic em- in 1790 and wrought into completeness by public at the Napoleon in 1800. The men who devised it Scarcely any in 1790 actually supposed that they were inment at the augurating a system of political freedom (!), and unquestionably it was a vast improvement upon the wretched system which it supplanted; but as contrasted with American methods and institutions, it is difficult to call it anything else than a highly centralized des potism. It has gone on without essential change through all the revolutions which have overtaken bottom. Hence government there rests on an insecure foundation. France since 1800. The people have from time to time overthrown an unpopular government at Paris, but they have never assumed the direct control of their own affairs. Hence it is commonly remarked that while the general intelligence of the French people is very high, their intelligence in political matters is, comparatively speaking, very low. Some persons try to explain this by a reference to peculiarities of race. But if we Americans were to set about giving to the state governments things to do that had better be done by counties and towns, and giving the federal government things to do that had better be done by the states, it would not take many generations to dull the keen edge of our political capacity. We should lose it as inevitably as the most consummate of pianists will lose his facility if he stops practising. It is therefore a fact of cardinal importance that in the United States the local governments of township, county, and city are left to administer themselves instead of being administered by a great bureau with its head at the state capital. In a political society thus constituted from the beginning it has proved possible to build up our Federal Union, in which the states, while for certain purposes indissolubly united, at the same time for many other purposes retain their self-government intact. As in the case of other aggregates, the nature of the American political aggregate has been determined by the nature of its political units. Secondly, let us observe how great are the functions retained by our states under the conditions of our Federal Union. The powers granted to our federal government, such as the control over international questions, war and peace, the military forces, Vastness of the func tions retained by the states in the Amer ican Union. the coinage, patents and copyrights, and the regula tion of commerce between the states and with foreign countries, all these are powers relating to matters that affect all the states, but could not be regulated harmoniously by the separate action of the states. In order the more completely to debar the states from meddling with such matters, they are expressly prohibited from entering into agreements with each other or with a foreign power; they cannot engage in war, save in case of actual invasion or such imminent danger as admits of no delay; without consent of Congress they cannot keep a military or naval force in time of peace, or impose custom-house duties. Besides all this they are prohibited from granting titles of nobility, coining money, emitting bills of credit, making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, passing bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, or laws impairing the obligation of contracts. The force of these latter restrictions will be explained hereafter. Such are the limitations of sovereignty imposed upon the states within the Federal Union. 66 Compared with the vast prerogatives of the state legislatures, these limitations seem small enough. Ali the civil and religious rights of our citizens depend upon state legislation; the education of the people is in the care of the states; with them rests the regulation of the suffrage; they prescribe the rules of marriage, the legal relations of husband and wife, of parent and child; they determine the powers of masters over servants and the whole law of principal and agent, which is so vital a matter in all business transactions; they regulate partnership, debt and credit, insurance; they constitute all corporations, both private and municipal, except such as specially fulfill the financial or |