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CHAPTER XLIV

THE WORKING OF STATE GOVERNMENTS

THE difficulty I have already remarked of explaining to Europeans the nature of an American State, viz. that there is in Europe nothing similar to it, recurs when we come to inquire how the organs of 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 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 seems great or small according to the point of view from which one regards it. It is vast if one regards the sphere of its action and the completeness of its control in that sphere, which includes the maintenance of law and order, nearly the whole field of civil and criminal jurisprudence, the supervision of all local governments, an unlimited power of taxation. But if we ask, Who are the persons that manage this great machine of government; how much interest do the citizens take in it; how much reverence do they feel for it? the ample proportions we had admired begin to dwindle, for the persons turn out to be insignificant, and the interest of the people to have steadily declined. The powers of State authorities are powers like those of a European parliament; but they are wielded by men most of whom are less distinguished and less respected by their fellows than are those who fill the city councils of Manchester or Cologne. Several States exceed in area and population some ancient European monarchies. But their annals may not have been illumined by a single striking event or brilliant personality.

A further difficulty in describing how a State government works arises from the endless differences of detail between the

several States. The organic frame of government is similar in all; but its functional activities vary according to the temper and habits, the ideas, education, and traditions of the inhabitants of the State. A European naturally says, "Select a typical State, and describe that to us." But there is no such thing as a typical State. Massachusetts or Connecticut is a fair sample of New England, Minnesota or Iowa of the North-West; Georgia or Alabama shows the evils, accompanied no doubt by great recuperative power, that still vex the South; New York and Illinois the contrast between the tendencies of an ignorant city mob and the steady-going farmers of the rural counties. But to take any one of these States as a type, asking the reader to assume what is said of it to apply equally to the other thirtyseven commonwealths, would land us in inextricable confusions. I must therefore be content to speak quite generally, emphasizing those points in which the colour and tendencies of State governments are much the same over the whole Union, and begging the European reader to remember that illustrations drawn, as they must be drawn, from some particular State, will not necessarily be true of some other State government, because its life may go on under different conditions.

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, as we have seen, is disjoined from the national legislature in a way strange to Europeans. Still, the national executive is 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.

A European, who studies the mechanism of State government -very few Europeans so far having studied it-is at first puzzled by a system which contradicts his preconceived notions. "How," he asks, "can such machinery work? One can understand the scheme under which a legislature rules through officers whom it has, whether legally or practically, chosen and keeps in power. One can even understand a scheme in which the executive, while independent of the legislature, consists of persons acting in unison, under a head directly responsible to the people. But will not a scheme, in which the executive officers are all independent of one another, yet not subject to the legislature, want every condition needed for harmonious and efficient action? They obey nobody. They are responsible to nobody, except a people which only exists in concrete activity for one election day every two or three years, when it is dropping papers into the ballot-box. Such a system seems the negation of a system, and more akin to chaos."

In his attempts to penetrate this mystery, our European receives little help from his usually helpful American friends, simply because they do not understand his difficulty. Light dawns on him when he perceives that the executive business of a State is such as not to need any policy, in the European sense, and therefore no 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 duty 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 State 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 lie 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 re-electing 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 chief justiceship of the United States for the governorship of his State, a Cabinet minister will sometimes, as Mr. Folger did a few years ago, resign his post in order to offer himself for 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 panicstricken 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

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