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

John Fiske

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• Publié par: theyl
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 39
• Langue: English

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in the United States Considered with Some
Reference to Its Origins, by John Fiske
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Title: Civil Government in the United States
Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins
Author: John Fiske
Release Date: February 25, 2004 [EBook #11276]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE U.S. ***
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon,
Bradley Norton and PG Distributed Proofreaders
CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN
THE UNITED STATES
CONSIDERED WITH
SOME REFERENCE TO
ITS ORIGINSBY
JOHN FISKE
[Greek: Aissomai pai Zaevos Heleutheroiu,
Imeran eurnsthene amphipolei, Soteira Tucha tiv
gar en ponto kubernontai thoai naes, en cherso
te laipsaeroi polemoi kagorai boulaphoroi.]
PINDAR, Olymp. xii.
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!…
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
LONGFELLOW.
1890
BY JOHN FISKE.
Dedication
This little book is dedicated, with the author's best
wishes and sincere regard, to the many hundreds
of young friends whom he has found it so pleasant
to meet in years past, and also to those whom he
looks forward to meeting in years to come, in
studies and readings upon the rich and fruitful
history of our beloved country.
PREFACE.
Some time ago, my friends, Messrs. Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., requested me to write a small book
on Civil Government in the United States, which
might be useful as a text-book, and at the same
time serviceable and suggestive to the general
reader interested in American history. In preparingthe book certain points have been kept especially
in view, and deserve some mention here.
It seemed desirable to adopt a historical method of
exposition, not simply describing our political
institutions in their present shape, but pointing out
their origin, indicating some of the processes
through which they have acquired that present
shape, and thus keeping before the student's mind
the fact that government is perpetually undergoing
modifications in adapting itself to new conditions.
Inasmuch as such gradual changes in government
do not make themselves, but are made by men—
and made either for better or for worse—it is
obvious that the history of political institutions has
serious lessons to teach us. The student should as
soon as possible come to understand that every
institution is the outgrowth of experiences. One
probably gets but little benefit from abstract
definitions and axioms concerning the rights of
men and the nature of civil society, such as we
often find at the beginning of books on
government. Metaphysical generalizations are well
enough in their place, but to start with such things
—as the French philosophers of the eighteenth
century were fond of doing—is to get the cart
before the horse. It is better to have our story first,
and thus find out what government in its concrete
reality has been, and is. Then we may finish up
with the metaphysics, or do as I have done—leave
it for somebody else.
I was advised to avoid the extremely systematic,
intrusively symmetrical, style of exposition, which is
sometimes deemed indispensable in a book of this
sort. It was thought that students would be more
likely to become interested in the subject if it were
treated in the same informal manner into which
one naturally falls in giving lectures to young
people. I have endeavoured to bear this in mind
without sacrificing that lucidity in the arrangement
of topics which is always the supreme
consideration. For many years I have been in the
habit of lecturing on history to college students in
different parts of the United States, to young ladies
in private schools, and occasionally to the pupils in
high and normal schools, and in writing this little
book I have imagined an audience of these earnestand intelligent young friends gathered before me.
I was especially advised—by my friend, Mr. James
MacAlister, superintendent of schools in
Philadelphia, for whose judgment I have the
highest respect—to make it a little book, less than
three hundred pages in length, if possible.
Teachers and pupils do not have time enough to
deal properly with large treatises. Brevity,
therefore, is golden. A concise manual is the
desideratum, touching lightly upon the various
points, bringing out their relationships distinctly,
and referring to more elaborate treatises,
monographs, and documents, for the use of those
who wish to pursue the study at greater length.
Within limits thus restricted, it will probably seem
strange to some that so much space is given to the
treatment of local institutions,—comprising the
governments of town, county, and city. It may be
observed, by the way, that some persons
apparently conceive of the state also as a "local
institution." In a recent review of Professor
Howard's admirable "Local Constitutional History of
the United States," we read, the first volume, which
is all that is yet published, treats of the
development of the township, hundred, and shire;
the second volume, we suppose, being designed to
treat of the State Constitutions. The reviewer
forgets that there is such a subject as the
"development of the city and local magistracies"
(which is to be the subject of that second volume),
and lets us see that in his apprehension the
American state is an institution of the same order
as the town and county. We can thus readily
assent when we are told that many youth have
grown to manhood with so little appreciation of the
political importance of the state as to believe it
nothing more than a geographical division.[1] In its
historic genesis, the American state is not an
institution of the same order as the town and
county, nor has it as yet become depressed or
"mediatized" to that degree. The state, while it
does not possess such attributes of sovereignty as
were by our Federal Constitution granted to the
United States, does, nevertheless, possess many
very important and essential characteristics of a
sovereign body, as is here pointed out on pages172-177. The study of our state governments is
inextricably wrapped up with the study of our
national government, in such wise that both are
parts of one subject, which cannot be understood
unless both parts are studied. Whether in the
course of our country's future development we
shall ever arrive at a stage in which this is not the
case, must be left for future events to determine.
But, if we ever do arrive at such a stage,
"American institutions" will present a very different
aspect from those with which we are now familiar,
and which we have always been accustomed
(even, perhaps, without always understanding
them) to admire.
[Footnote 1: Young's Government Class Book, p.
iv.]
The study of local government properly includes
town, county, and city. To this part of the subject I
have devoted about half of my limited space, quite
unheedful of the warning which I find in the preface
of a certain popular text-book, that "to learn the
duties of town, city, and county officers, has
nothing whatever to do with the grand and noble
subject of Civil Government," and that "to attempt
class drill on petty town and county offices, would
be simply burlesque of the whole subject." But,
suppose one were to say, with an air of ineffable
scorn, that petty experiments on terrestrial
gravitation and radiant heat, such as can be made
with commonplace pendulums and tea-kettles,
have nothing whatever to do with the grand and
noble subject of Physical Astronomy! Science
would not have got very far on that plan, I fancy.
The truth is, that science, while it is perpetually
dealing with questions of magnitude, and knows
very well what is large and what is small, knows
nothing whatever of any such distinction as that
between things that are "grand" and things that are
"petty." When we try to study things in a scientific
spirit, to learn their modes of genesis and their
present aspects, in order that we may foresee their
tendencies, and make our volitions count for
something in modifying them, there is nothing
which we may safely disregard as trivial. This is
true of whatever we can study; it is eminently true
of the history of institutions. Government is not aroyal mystery, to be shut off, like old Deiokes,[2] by
a sevenfold wall from the ordinary business of life.
Questions of civil government are practical
business questions, the principles of which are as
often and as forcibly illustrated in a city council or a
county board of supervisors, as in the House of
Representatives at Washingt