Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 24

6. Early suggestions of written const.i.tutions in America:--

a. The compact on the Mayflower.

b. Wherein the compact fell short of a written const.i.tution.

c. The "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut."

7. The development of the colonial charter into a written const.i.tution:--

a. The limitation of the powers of colonial a.s.semblies.

b. The decision of questions relating to the transgression of a charter by a colonial legislature.

c. The colonial a.s.sembly as contrasted with the House of Commons.

d. The difference between the written const.i.tution and the charter for which it was subst.i.tuted.

e. The readiness of the people to adopt written const.i.tutions.

8. The extensive development of the written const.i.tution in some states:--

a. The simplicity of the earlier const.i.tutions.

b. Ill.u.s.trations of the legislative tendencies of later const.i.tutions.

c. The motive for such extension of a const.i.tution.

d. The difficulty of amending a const.i.tution.

e. The legislative method of amendment.

f. The convention method of amendment.

g. The presumed advantage of embodying laws in the const.i.tution.

h. A comparison with the Swiss Referendum.

i. Objections to the Swiss Referendum.

j. Other objections to the practice of putting laws into the const.i.tution.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.

1. Do you belong to any society that has a const.i.tution? Has the society rules apart from the const.i.tution? Which may be changed the more readily? Why not put all the rules into the const.i.tution?

2. Read the const.i.tution of your state in part or in full. Give some account of its princ.i.p.al divisions, of the topics it deals with, and its magnitude or fullness. Are there any amendments? If so, mention two or three, and give the reasons for their adoption. Is there any declaration of rights in it? If so, what are some of the rights declared, and whose are they said to be?

3. Where is the original of your state const.i.tution kept? What sort of looking doc.u.ment do you suppose it to be? Where would you look for a copy of it? If a question arises in any court about the interpretation of the const.i.tution, must the original be produced to settle the wording of the doc.u.ment?

4. Has any effort been made in your state to put into the const.i.tution matters that have previously been subjects of legislative action? If so, give an account of the effort, and the public att.i.tude towards it.

5. Which is preferable,--a const.i.tution that commands the approval of the people as a whole or that which has the support of a dominant political party only?

6. Suppose it is your personal conviction that a law is unconst.i.tutional, may you disregard it? What consequences might ensue from such disregard?

7. May people honestly and amicably differ about the interpretation of the const.i.tution or of a law, in a particular case? If important interests are dependent on the interpretation, how can the true one be found out? Does a lawyer's opinion settle the interpretation? What value has such an opinion? Where must people go for authoritative and final interpretations of the laws? Can they get such interpretations by simply asking for them?

8. The const.i.tution of New Hamps.h.i.+re provides that when the governor cannot discharge the duties of his office, the president of the senate shall a.s.sume them. During the severe sickness of a governor recently, the president of the senate hesitated to act in his stead; it was not clear that the situation was grave enough to warrant such a course.

Accordingly the attorney-general of the state brought an action against the president of the senate for not doing his duty; the court considered the situation, decided against the president of the senate, and ordered him to become acting governor. Why was this suit necessary? Was it conducted in a hostile spirit? Wherein did the decision help the state?

Wherein did it help the defendant? Wherein may it possibly prove helpful in the future history of the state?

9. Mention particular things that the governor, the legislature, and the judiciary of your state have done or may do. Then find the section or clause or wording in your state const.i.tution that gives authority for each of these things. For example, read the particular part that authorizes your legislature:--

a. To incorporate a city.

b. To compel children to attend school.

c. To buy uniforms for a regiment of soldiers.

d. To establish a death penalty.

e. To send a committee abroad to study a system of waterworks.

10. Trace the authority of a school-teacher, a policeman, a selectman, a mayor, or of any public officer, back to some part of your const.i.tution.

11. Mention any parts of your const.i.tution that seem general and somewhat indefinite, and that admit, therefore, of much freedom in interpretation.

12. Show how the people are, in one aspect, subordinate to the const.i.tution; in another, superior to it.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

Written Const.i.tutions.--Very little has been written or published with reference to the history of the development of the idea of a written const.i.tution. The student will find some suggestive hints in Hannis Taylor's _Origin and Growth of the English Const.i.tution_, vol. i, Boston, 1889. See Henry Hitchc.o.c.k's _American State Const.i.tutions; a Study of their Growth_, N.Y., 1887, a learned and valuable essay. See also _J.H.U. Studies_, I., xi., Alexander Johnston, _The Genesis of a New England State (Connecticut)_; III., ix.-x., Horace Davis, _American Const.i.tutions_; also Preston's _Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trative of American History_, 1606-1863, N.Y., 1886; Stubbs, _Select Charters and other Ill.u.s.trations of English Const.i.tutional History_, Oxford, 1870; Gardiner's _Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments of the Puritan Revolution_, Oxford, 1888.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FEDERAL UNION.

Section 1. _Origin of the Federal Union._

Having now sketched the origin and nature of written const.i.tutions, we are prepared to understand how by means of such a doc.u.ment the government of our Federal Union was called into existence. We have already described so much of the civil government in operation in the United States that this account can be made much more concise than if we had started at the top instead of the bottom and begun to portray our national government before saying a word about states and counties and towns. Bit by bit the general theory of American self-government has already been set before the reader. We have now to observe, in conclusion, what a magnificent piece of constructive work has been performed in accordance with that general theory. We have to observe the building up of a vast empire out of strictly self-governing elements.

[Sidenote: English inst.i.tutions in all the colonies.]

There was always one important circ.u.mstance in favour of the union of the thirteen American colonies into a federal nation. The inhabitants were all substantially one people. It is true that in some of the colonies there were a good many persons not of English ancestry, but the English type absorbed and a.s.similated everything else.

All spoke the English language, all had English inst.i.tutions. Except the development of the written const.i.tution, every bit of civil government described in the preceding pages came to America directly from England, and not a bit of it from any other country, unless by being first filtered through England. Our inst.i.tutions were as English as our speech. It was therefore comparatively easy for people in one colony to understand people in another, not only as to their words but as to their political ideas. Moreover, during the first half of the eighteenth century, the common danger from the aggressive French enemy on the north and west went far toward awakening in the thirteen colonies a common interest. And after the French enemy had been removed, the a.s.sertion by parliament of its alleged right to tax the Americans threatened all the thirteen legislatures at once, and thus in fact drove the colonies into a kind of federal union.

[Sidenote: The New England confederacy (1643-84).]

[Sidenote: Albany Congress(1754).]

[Sidenote: Stamp Act Congress (1765).]

Confederations among states have generally owed their origin, in the first instance, to military necessities. The earliest league in America, among white people at least, was the confederacy of New England colonies formed in 1643, chiefly for defence against the Indians. It was finally dissolved amid the troubles of 1684, when the first government of Ma.s.sachusetts was overthrown. Along the Atlantic coast the northern and the southern colonies were for some time distinct groups, separated by the unsettled portion of the central zone. The settlement of Pennsylvania, beginning in 1681, filled this gap and made the colonies continuous from the French frontier of Canada to the Spanish frontier of Florida. The danger from France began to be clearly apprehended after 1689, and in 1698 one of the earliest plans of union was proposed by William Penn. In 1754, just as the final struggle with France was about to begin, there came Franklin's famous plan for a permanent federal union; and this plan was laid before a congress a.s.sembled at Albany for renewing the alliances with the Six Nations.[1] Only seven colonies were represented in this congress. Observe the word "congress." If it had been a legislative body it would more likely have been called a "parliament." But of course it was nothing of the sort. It was a diplomatic body, composed of delegates representing state governments, like European congresses,--like the Congress of Berlin, for example, which tried to adjust the Eastern Question in 1878. Eleven years after the Albany Congress, upon the news that parliament had pa.s.sed the Stamp Act, a congress of nine colonies a.s.sembled at New York in October, 1765, to take action thereon.

[Footnote 1: Franklin's plan was afterward submitted to the several legislatures of the colonies, and was everywhere rejected because the need for union was nowhere strongly felt by the people.]

[Sidenote: Committees of Correspondence (1772-75).]

Nine years elapsed without another congress. Meanwhile the political excitement, with occasional lulls, went on increasing, and some sort of cooperation between the colonial governments became habitual. In 1768, after parliament had pa.s.sed the Townshend revenue acts, there was no congress, but Ma.s.sachusetts sent a circular letter to the other colonies, inviting them to cooperate in measures of resistance, and the other colonies responded favourably. In 1772, as we have seen, committees of correspondence between the towns of Ma.s.sachusetts acted as a sort of provisional government for the commonwealth. In 1773 Dabney Carr, of Virginia, enlarged upon this idea, and committees of correspondence were forthwith inst.i.tuted between the several colonies.

Thus the habit of acting in concert began to be formed. In 1774, after parliament had pa.s.sed an act overthrowing the government of Ma.s.sachusetts, along with other offensive measures, a congress a.s.sembled in September at Philadelphia, the city most centrally situated as well as the largest. If the remonstrances adopted at this congress had been heeded by the British government, and peace had followed, this congress would probably have been as temporary an affair as its predecessors; people would probably have waited until overtaken by some other emergency. But inasmuch as war followed, the congress a.s.sembled again in May, 1775, and thereafter became practically a permanent inst.i.tution until it died of old age with the year 1788.

[Sidenote: Continental Congress (1774-1789).]

This congress was called "continental" to distinguish it from the "provincial congresses" held in several of the colonies at about the same time. The thirteen colonies were indeed but a narrow strip on the edge of a vast and in large part unexplored continent, but the word "continental" was convenient for distinguis.h.i.+ng between the whole confederacy and its several members.