BOOKS.
STATE GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA.*
[FIRST NOTICE.]
Mn. BRYCE'S book is too big. It is an admirable book in many ways, full of the nutriment of fact, and of just observa- tions often eloquently and always lucidly put; but it is too big. Human nature revolts at two thousand large-octavo pages about anything, even though it be the American Republic. The subject is vast, the knowledge of the author is immense, in every page those who wish to know America obtain fresh nourishment for their thoughts ; but still, human life is short, and much occupied with other topics than the method in which the younger branch of the great English family chooses to govern and comport itself. There are entire chapters which might have been omitted without loss to any reader not seeking for special information—for example, the chapters on the Federal Courts—and other chapters which might have been compressed into pages—for instance, those on "Rings and Bosses "—and the whole book, if condensed into two volumes, would have found ten readers where it will now find two. We do not deny that those readers would have lost much. The exhaustiveness of the book, its wealth of knowledge, its conspicuous and sometimes almost harassing impartiality, are marvels ; but still, in this generation, and among the flood of interests which press on every man com- petent to study such a work, time has to be considered. With that reserve, however, we have nothing but praise for The American Commonwealth. We have not found a point of interest which is not thoroughly discussed, or an opinion which is not supported by full illustrations, or a judgment which is visibly tinctured in the slightest degree either by prejudice or rancour. Occasionally, perhaps, the author avoids a decided judgment a little too carefully ; but that, we take it, was part of his plan, which is to describe the framework of American life, the system under which the vast Republic is administered, without so much of either praise or blame as should give the reader any definite bias. He is enabled to see the huge, and, indeed, most cumbrous machine, exactly as it is; and then, if an Englishman, he will compare its working with that of the similar but lighter machine in his own country, without help from any book.
Broadly speaking—very broadly, for entire chapters are left uncovered by the description—the first volume is devoted to the National Government, the second to the State Govern- ments, and the third to the effects of both upon the life of the people in every department, including such elements in that life as Public Opinion—the real and most Philistine sovereign of America—Religion, and even Thought and Literature. To our mind, the second volume is the most interesting, because to us the information it contains is altogether new, as we fancy it will also be to most readers. It is, too, most im- portant. There are probably no communities on earth so well worth studying, either by the politician or the his- torian, as the thirty-eight States bound together into the American Republic. Shielded by the gigantic strength of the Union from all external dangers, occupied by a race not only civilised, but accustomed to self-government, and with all the great questions of Europe already settled, these States are trying, under the most favourable circumstances, to solve the great problem of democracy. They are of all sizes, from Texas, which is bigger than the German Empire, to Rhode Island, which is smaller than Warwickshire ; with peoples varying from 5,022,000 in New York, to 62,266 in Nevada; and with almost all densities of population, from 221 to the square mile in Massachusetts, to 1.8 to the square mile in Oregon. In all, the people are "sovereign,"—that is, they can make any internal Constitution they please, subject to the reserves that it must be Republican, and that upon one or two points, the principal of which is that they cannot abolish or impair an existing contract, their Legislatures are limited by the Federal Pact. An American State, for example, might create an absolute Parliament, or restrict it to making Road Bills; might delegate all executive power to one man for life, oreabolieh an Executive altogether. It might pass any laws it pleases, say, for example, the whole Levitical Law, including—what is to us entirely new—laws of
* The American Commonwealth. Its James Bryce. London: Macmillan and Co. MM.
treason, making it a capital offence to rebel or wage war against itself, a power which, though never exercised, has had, says Mr. Bryce, a definite effect in creating loyalty to the State as against the Federation. The States are situated in all
climates, and in every variety of geographical circumstance, =d- are occasionally under most exceptional conditions, the black population, for instance—which Mr. Bryce throughout his book pronounces uncivilised, and, as yet, incapable of full civilisa- tion—being in South Carolina 604,000, against 391,000 whites, and having equal power of voting. In other words, South Carolina is, in one sense, governed by an African people.
There is nothing whatever to prevent a female suffrage, or a child suffrage; or, on the other hand, to forbid the limitation of the franchise to the wealthy, or to persons who have gained some high university degree. One would imagine that in such communities, so numerous, so varied, and so free,. originality would have run riot, that every possible experiment would have been tried, and that we should have seen democracy solidify itself in at least nineteen different forms. Nothing of the kind has happened. In practice, the Southern States are governed by a close oligarchy of influential whites, who guide the inferior whites, and persuade, coerce, or bribe the Negroes ; but in form, the thirty-eight States are all substantially alike. The terms for which officials are elected may differ, and so may the powers of the officials, though they are seldom great ; but in larger matters there is the tamest uniformity.
In all, the people create two Chambers to make laws, and appoint a Governor, usually for two years, to execute them. In all, manhood suffrage prevails—for the restrictions put on it here and there are not observed—and in all, the only link between the Legislature and the Executive is the veto. There are no Ministers, or anything corresponding to them, and neither power can dismiss or interfere with the other, or is, indeed, in any way responsible to the other. In almost all States, the Judges are elective for limited periods, and in all are so badly paid and so little considered, that except by accident, they are third-rate men, and but for the influence of the Bar, who dislike pleading before absolutely incapable or corrupt Judges, they would be tenth-rate. In all States, the members of the Legislature are paid, in all they are dismissed very often, and in all they must be, by a custom having more than the force of law, elected by the districts in which they re- side. A drier, tamer, or more democratic system could not be imagined, and the total result is deplorable. Mr. Bryce is, we need not say, a Home-ruler and. a democrat ; but he is absolutely impartial, and the total effect of his description, to our utter amazement, is that State government in America has failed in the most important respect of all. It has not attracted the confidence of the people. They do not, it is true, rebel against it, they do not loudly denounce it, and they do not try to supersede it by national action. They regard it, indeed, much as average Englishmen regard government by King, Lords, and Commons, as an institution of Nature, something which came of itself, and is independent of will. They distrust and dislike it, nevertheless ; limit the powers of their own Legislatures by constantly, in some States, making new Constitutions to forbid their doing this, that, and the other—for example, to forbid them to grant charters to great cities except in the form of general laws, particular laws being too often sold—or in other States by showing most decidedly the Swiss tendency to adopt the Referendum. You cannot bribe the whole people to injure itself, nor can lobbyists "get at" the population of a State as big as a Kingdom. So deep, indeed, is the distrust of the Legislatures and their mischief-making, that in thirty-two States out of thirty-eight, they are only permitted to sit once in two years. That, the people think, halves the mischief, and the expense too. Twenty-two States, moreover have fixed the number of days beyond which their Legislatures may not sit. These statements, to us at least absolutely new, are so extraordinary that we subjoin the author's ipsissinut verba. After mentioning the limit of time, he says :—
" Many recent Constitutions have tried another and probably a better expedient than that of limiting the length of sessions. They have made sessions less frequent. At one time every legislature met once a year. Now in all the States but six (all of these six belonging to the original thirteen) it is permitted to meet only once in two years. Within the last ten years, at least six States have changed their annual sessions to biennial. It does not appear that the interests of the commonwealths suffer by this suspension of the action of their chief organ of government. On the contrary, they get on so much better without a legislature that certain bold spirits ask whether the principle might not with advantage be pushed farther. As Mr. Butler says : —` For a people claiming pre-eminence in the sphere of popular govern- ment, it seems hardly creditable that in their seeming despair of a cure for the chronic evils of legislation, they should be able to mitigate them only by making them intermittent. Under the biennial system the relief enjoyed in what are called the "off- years," seems to have reconciled the body politic of the several States which have adopted it to the risk of an aggravation of the malady when the legislative year comes round and the old symptoms recur. The secretaries of State (of the several States) with whom I have communicated concur in certifying that no public inconvenience is caused by the biennial system ; and one of them, of the State of Nebraska, in answer to my query if biennial sessions occasion any public inconvenience, writes: "None whatever. The public interests would be better subserved by having legislative sessions held only once in four years." ' "
We cannot conceive of a reasonable doubt as to the deduc- tion to be made from that extract, if only it is true, which we do not question. One grand object of the organisation of a democratic State being to create a popular Legislature, if • the people, after years of experiment, so hate and dread their Legislatures that they would rather be without them, the organisation has failed. This is evidently Mr. Bryce's opinion. He repeats again and again that the State system does not produce great men—though it may, and sometimes does, pro- duce strong Governors—that the Members are, on the whole, inferior to the best intelligence of the community, and that the best men will not try to obtain seats. Indeed, it is of no use their trying. Suppose a band of reformers to arise, say, in Pennsylvania, and to become exceedingly popular. They pro- bablyall live in Philadelphia, and therefore, under an immutable etiquette, they can only sit for Philadelphia, and, indeed, for the wards of it in which they live. But perhaps Philadelphia is the one place in Pennsylvania ruled by an interested Ring ! Their only course, therefore, is by stumping the State to create an opinion so strong that the people may send up reforming Deputies, among whom the original reformers may not sit. These reforming Deputies, therefore, hardly know how to reform, and usually seek to do it by limiting their own powers, or referring everything, as we have said, direct to the people :—
"Instead of being stimulated by this distrust to mend their ways and recover their former powers, the State legislatures fell in with the tendency, and promoted their own supersession. The chief interest of their members, as will be explained later, is in the passing of special or local Acts, not of general public legisla- tion. They are extremely timid, easily swayed by any active section of opinion, and afraid to stir when placed between the opposite fires of two such sections, as for instance, between the Prohibitionists and the liquor-sellers. Hence they welcomed the direct intervention of the people as relieving them of embarrassing problems. They began to refer to the deciaion of a popular vote matters clearly within their own proper competence, such as the question of liquor traffic, or the creation of a system of gratuitous schools. This happened as far back as thirty years ago. And in New York, the legislature having been long distracted and perplexed by the question whether articles made by convicts in the State prisons should be allowed to be sold, and so to compete with articles made by private manufacturers, recently resolved to invite the opinion of the multitude, and accordingly passed an Act under which the question was voted on over the whole State It is, however, chiefly in the form of an amend- ment to the Constitution that we find the American voters exercising direct legislative power. And this method comes very near to the Swiss referendum, because the amendment is first discussed and approved by the legislature, a majority greater than a simple majority being required in some States, and then goes before the citizens voting at the polls. Sometimes the State Constitution provides that a particular question shall be submitted by the legislature to the voters ; thus creating a referendum for that particular case. Thus Wisconsin refers it to the voters to decide whether or no banks shall be chartered. Minnesota declares that a certain class of railway laws shall not take effect unless submitted to and ratified by a majority of the electors. And she provides, by a later amendment to her Consti- tution, that the moneys belonging to the internal improvement land fund shall never be appropriated for any purpose till the enactment for that purpose shall have been approved by a majority of the electors of the State, voting at the annual general election fellowing the passage of the Act. In this last instance the referendum goes the length of constituting the voters the financial authority for the State, withdrawing from the legislature what might seem the oldest and most essential of its functions."
The great corporations, such as the railways, are driven nearly crazy by the Legislatures. The Members distrust these corporations as in some sort grandees, and dishonest men, taking advantage of this feeling, so persecute them in hope of black-mail, that the railways are compelled to keep standing counsel in the legislative capitals, which are often villages, and in some States declare that they must bribe merely to avoid ruin. The cities are even more exposed to attack than the railways, and have to exercise incessant watchful-
ness against the State Legislatures. A little while a go, the great city of Brooklyn, with 750,000 people, sick of corrup- tion and high taxes, decided to concentrate all executive power upon a single man, the Mayor. It got its charter, and found its King Honestus, and then he was compelled to declare in a public document that that which harassed him most was the efforts made by the State Legislature, acting, of course, at the instigation of Rings, to interfere with and ruin his work ! Why do the people bear such things ? Partly because they do not know them, the little legislative capitals being practically invisible, and Committee work—which is all work—being unreported ; partly because they are optimists incurably hopeful that all will go right ; partly because, under the system of qualification by residence, reforming leaders are paralysed ; but chiefly because they are so full of their own ultimate sovereignty and power of putting things right, that they tolerate even the evils they see, too long. They mend them every now and then by a spasmodic effort, but not till millions have been wasted, stolen, or diverted to unintended purposes. We have no further space for this branch of Mr. Bryce's book ; but we entreat all who believe that a free Legislature is the better for the absence of national pressure, to read Mr. Bryce's second volume, and see, under the most favourable circumstances, and when described by an avowed friend, what is the result of "State Government," which is Home-rule.
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