The American Commonwealth. Viscount James Bryce

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in all cases with a legislature of two chambers. From the original thirteen states this form has spread over the Union and prevails in every state.

      Lastly. The federal government, modelled after the state governments, with its president chosen, through electors, by the people, its two-chambered legislature, its judges named by the president.⁵

      Out of such small beginnings have great things grown.

      It would be endless to describe the minor differences in the systems of the several states. I will sketch the outlines only, which, as already observed, are in the main the same everywhere.

      Every state has:

      An executive elective head, the governor

      A number of other administrative officers

      A legislature of two houses

      A system of courts of justice

      Various subordinate local self-governing communities, counties, cities, townships, villages, school districts

      The governor and the other chief officials are not now chosen by the legislature, as was the case under most of the older state constitutions, but by the people. They are as far as possible disjoined from the legislature. Neither the governor nor any other state official can sit in a state legislature.⁶ He cannot lead it. It cannot, except of course by passing statutes, restrain him. There can therefore be no question of any government by ministers who link the executive to the legislature according to the system of the free countries of modern Europe and of the British colonies.

      Of these several powers it is best to begin by describing the legislature, because it is by far the strongest and most prominent.

      An American state legislature always consists of two houses, the smaller called the Senate, the larger usually called the House of Representatives, though in six states it is entitled “the Assembly,” and in three “the House of Delegates.” The origin of this very interesting feature is to be sought rather in history than in theory. It is due partly to the fact that in some colonies there had existed a small governor’s council in addition to the popular representative body, partly to a natural disposition to imitate the mother country with its Lords and Commons, a disposition which manifested itself both in colonial days and when the revolting states were giving themselves new constitutions, for up to 1776 some of the colonies had gone on with a legislature of one house only. Now, however, the need for two chambers has become an axiom of political science, being based on the belief that the innate tendency of an assembly to become hasty, tyrannical, and corrupt, needs to be checked by the coexistence of another house of equal authority. The Americans restrain their legislatures by dividing them, just as the Romans restrained their executive by substituting two consuls for one king. The only states that ever tried to do with a single house were Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Vermont, all of whom gave it up: the first after four years’ experience, the second after twelve years, the last after fifty years.⁷ It is with these trifling exceptions the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus of American constitutional doctrine.⁸

      Both houses are chosen by popular vote, generally⁹ in equal electoral districts, and by the same voters, although in a few states there are minor variations as to modes of choice.¹⁰ Illinois by her Constitution of 1870 created a system of proportional representation by means of the cumulative vote; i.e., the elector may cast as many votes for any one candidate as there are representatives to be elected in the district, or may distribute his votes among the candidates. The plan was suggested to the people of Illinois, by the fact that the northern counties (called Canaan) had usually had a Republican, the southern (called Egypt) a Democratic, majority, so that there were special reasons for breaking the party solidity of each section. So far as I have been able to gather, experience has not commended the scheme, and it has not improved the quality of the legislature.

      The following differences between the rules governing the two houses are general:

      1. The senatorial electoral districts are always larger, usually twice or thrice as large as the house districts, and the number of senators is, of course, in the same proportion smaller than that of representatives.

      2. A senator is usually chosen for a longer term than a representative. In twenty-nine states he sits for four years, in one (New Jersey) for three, in thirteen for two, in two (Massachusetts and Rhode Island) for one year only; the usual term of a representative being two years.

      3. In most cases the Senate, instead of being elected all at once like the House, is only partially renewed, half its members going out when their two or four years have been completed, and a new half coming in. This gives it a sense of continuity which the House wants.

      4. In some states the age at which a man is eligible for the Senate is fixed higher than that for the House of Representatives.¹¹ Other restrictions on eligibility, such as the exclusion of clergymen (which still exists in a few states, and is of old standing), that of salaried public officials (which exists everywhere), that of United States officials and members of Congress, and that of persons not resident in the electoral district (frequent by law and practically universal by custom), apply to both houses. In some states this last restriction goes so far that a member who ceases to reside in the district for which he was elected loses his seat ipso facto.

      I have dwelt in an earlier chapter (Chapter 14) on the strength of this local feeling as regards congressional elections, and on the results, to a European eye mostly unfortunate, which it produces. It is certainly no weaker in state elections. Nobody dreams of offering himself as a candidate for a place in which he does not reside, even in new states, where it might be thought that there had not been time for local feeling to spring up. Hence the educated and leisured residents of the greater cities have no chance of entering the state legislature except for the city district wherein they dwell; and as these city districts are those most likely to be in the hands of some noxious and selfish ring of professional politicians, the prospect for such an aspirant is a dark one. Nothing more contributes to make reform difficult than the inveterate habit of choosing residents only as members. Suppose an able and public-spirited man desiring to enter the Assembly or the Senate of his state and shame the offenders who are degrading or plundering it. He may be wholly unable to find a seat, because in his place of residence the party opposed to his own may hold a permanent majority, and he will not be even considered elsewhere. Suppose a group of earnest men who, knowing how little one man can effect, desire to enter the legislature at the same time and work together. Such a group can hardly arise except in or near a great city. It cannot effect an entrance, because the city has at best very few seats to be seized, and the city men cannot offer themselves in any other part of the state. That the restriction often rests on custom, not on law, makes the case more serious. A law can be repealed, but custom has to be unlearned; the one may be done in a moment of happy impulse, the other needs the teaching of long experience applied to receptive minds.

      The fact is, that the Americans have ignored in all their legislative as in many of their administrative arrangements, the differences of capacity between man and man. They underrate the difficulties of government and overrate the capacities of the man of common sense. Great are the blessings of equality; but what follies are committed in its name!

      The unfortunate results of this local sentiment have been aggravated by the tendency to narrow the election areas, allotting one senator or representative to each district. Under the older Constitution of Connecticut, for instance, the twelve senators were elected out of the whole state by a popular vote. Now the thirty-five senators are chosen by districts, and the Senate is today an inferior body, because then the best men of the whole state might be chosen, now it is possible only to get the leading men of the districts. In Massachusetts, under the Constitution of 1780, the senators were chosen by districts, but a district might return as many as СКАЧАТЬ