IN passing from the federal to the State governments there are three things to be noted at the outset : 1. The much greater importance of the State government to its inhabitants. 2. The general uniformity of the State governments throughout the Union. 3. The proportionally very small amount of public attention which is given to those governments.

As to the first point, Mr. Bryce says, writing before 1888:

An American may, through a long life, never be reminded of the federal government except when he votes at presidential and congressional elections, lodges a complaint against the post-office, and opens his trunks for a custom-house officer on the pier at New York when he returns from a tour in Europe. His direct taxes are paid to officials acting under State laws. The State, or a local authority constituted by State statutes, registers his birth, appoints his guardian, pays for his schooling, gives him a share in the estate of his father deceased, licenses him when he enters a trade (if it be one needing a license), marries him, divorces him, entertains civil actions against him, declares him a bankrupt, hangs him for murder. The police that guard his house, the local boards which look after the poor, control highways, impose water-rates, manage schools, all these derive their legal powers from his State alone. Looking at this immense compass of State functions, Jefferson would seem to have been

not far wrong when he said that the federal government was nothing more than the American Department of Foreign Affairs.1

The State of Massachusetts spends twelve millions of dollars annually upon its public schools alone, perhaps more than the proportionate share of that State in the whole federal expenditure, at least as it was a few years since. The annual budget of the city of Boston amounts to forty-two millions, that of the state to more than twenty millions. It is probably within bounds to place the total expenditure, general, municipal, and local, in the State at nearly one hundred millions, say one-fifth part of the total federal expenditure up to the end of 1897. Evidently, from a financial point of view, State affairs are in no way second for its inhabitants to those of the

nation.

Again, perhaps the most important question now before the people of the United States is the government of cities. In the State of Massachusetts alone there are thirty-three cities, containing nearly two-thirds of the whole population of the State; and if the proportion is not as large throughout the Union, it is still great and rapidly increasing. The great number of these cities, their fast-growing population, and the vast accumulation of wealth, render their government the most vital of all problems for the future welfare and even safety of the whole country. Now the organization and control of city government belong absolutely to that of the State. Hon. Seth Low, president of Columbia University and the former honored mayor of Brooklyn, said in an article in the Century Magazine of September, 1891 :

Nothing is better settled in every State in the Union than that the legislature of the State, unless it be limited by the State constitution, has absolute and arbitrary control over a city's charter. The State may grant a city charter or revoke it. The State may enlarge the

1 "American Commonwealth," Vol. I., Chap. XXXVI., p. 412.

powers granted to the city or it may diminish them; it may assign duties under the city charter to officers elected by the people, or to officers named by the governor, or to officers designated by itself.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in a decision relating to the subway in Boston, in 1896, said:

The two principal grounds upon which the plaintiffs contend that the statute as a whole is invalid are that it imposes a heavy debt upon the city, and to a certain extent takes away from the city the control of its streets. The plaintiffs deny the power of the legislature to do either of these things without the authority of the council or the tax-paying citizens of the city. It has, however, been established by a vast weight of usage and authority that the legislature may impose such a duty and burden upon towns and cities without their own consent. (Prince v. Crocker, 166 Mass.)

So in another case relating to the Boston police commission:

It is also suggested that the statute is unconstitutional because it takes from the city the power of self-government in matters of internal police. We find no provision of the constitution with which it conflicts, and we cannot declare an act of the legislature invalid because it abridges the exercise of the privilege of local self-government in a particular in regard to which such privilege is not guaranteed by any provision of the constitution. The powers and duties of all the towns and cities, except so far as they are specifically provided for in the constitution, are created and defined by the legislature, and we have no doubt that it has the right in its discretion to change the powers and duties created by itself and to vest such powers and duties in officers appointed by the governor, if in its judgment the public good requires this, instead of leaving such officers to be elected by the people or appointed by the municipal authorities.1 (Commonwealth v. Plaisted, 148 Mass.)

Many other illustrations might be given, but these are sufficient to show why the affairs of their State have the first and largest claim upon the attention of its inhabitants.

2. The constitutions of the original States were the continuations and representatives of the old colonial

1 Note how the word 'legislature' is used here as the equivalent of the State government.

charters, and these again of the trading company charters of still earlier times. The charters of Massachusetts and Virginia were substantially like that granted by Queen Elizabeth to the East India Company in 1599.1

Of course after the Revolution the source of authority was changed from the English Crown to the people of the State, but the organization and structure of the government in its main elements remained the same. The constitutions of the original States were again copied by the thirty-two other new States with changes only of detail. And this is all the more true as the federal government does not prescribe any form of constitution, but accepts it as agreed upon by the people, who have no other guide than the existing State constitutions with such minor modifications as may occur to them.

All the States place their executive power, at least nominally, in the hands of a governor elected by the people, to whom in most a lieutenant-governor is added. In all the States there are two branches of the legislature also elected by the people and practically with universal manhood suffrage. In all there is a written constitution regularly adopted by the people and supposed to be superior to either legislature or executive. In nearly all the governor has a veto, more or less restricted, upon legislation. In all the judiciary has much the same organization, and in all but one or two is filled by popular election.

If it can be made to appear that the defective working of the governments is owing to one common cause, a step will be made towards pointing out a common remedy. If, indeed, this common cause lies in the failure of universal suffrage and of democracy there may be no remedy possible. But if the cause shall be found to be in defects of organization and of practical operation; if it can be shown that the same cause has produced the repeated failures

1 Bryce, "American Commonwealth," Vol. I., Chap. XXXVII.

of popular government in France and has paralyzed the numerous developments of it in this country, namely, the absorption of the whole power of government by the legislature and the weakness and want of responsibility in the executive, then it is within the compass of imagination that an effective remedy may be found to restore us to the path leading to success.

3. The degree of public interest and consideration given to State affairs is in an inverse ratio to their relative importance. A natural presumption is that a people would be most absorbed in the circumstances immediately about them and most directly personal to themselves. A large part of the history of Europe consists of a struggle, often involving the use of force, to make the peoples give up their local prejudices and privileges for the sake of national requirements. Mr. Madison says in the Federalist (No. XLVI.): —

Many considerations seem to place it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States. . . . If, therefore, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration as will overcome all their antecedent propensities.

Not only are the State governments of greater material interest but quite as much so from the point of view of political science. Mr. Bryce says:

It was observed in the last chapter that the State constitutions furnish invaluable materials for history. Their interest is all the greater because the succession of constitutions and amendments to constitutions from 1776 till to-day enables the annals of legislation and political sentiment to be read in these documents more easily and succinctly than in any similar series of laws in any other country. They are a mine of instruction for the natural history of democratic communities. Their fulness and minuteness make them, so to speak, more pictorial than the Federal Constitution. They tell us more about the actual methods and conduct of the government than it does. If