School Civics: An Outline Study of the Origin and Development of Government and the Development ...

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Foreword

The constitution of the United States, **and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof ; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support " the constitution of the United States. Thus the framers of the federal government made it clear that the government which they were organizing was paramount.

It is sometimes stated that the federal government is so remote from the individual in his daily round of duties that a knowledge of his relation to it is less important than a knowledge of his relation to state, county, and local governments. Such statements are misleading. Through tariff laws the federal government may and does place a tax upon almost every article of food, clothing, and shelter, thus taking a daily toll from the wage of the most obscure individual in the remotest cottage. It may place and has placed a tax upon bank checks, express receipts, telegrams, and all forms of legal paper. The federal government controls the postal system, which is the foundation of all business, and it may declare any street, road, railroad,, trolley line, or steamship vi SCHOOL CIVICS

line a post road. Its power over interstate commerce gives it practical control over our great railroads and water routes, and the present tendency is to materially increase this power. It coins our money and establishes our weights and measures, thus entering into the most minute details of our business routine. It may send and has sent troops into a state to enforce federal laws. It may enter any home in any state and forcibly take the father, son, brother, or husband to serve in the army or navy against the country's enemies ; and this right has been exercised. No one of these powers may be exercised by state, county, or local government While I was writing this paragraph a uniformed officer of the federal government visited my home. He comes twice daily. There are over thirty of these officials permanently located in my city, upon federal property costing many thousands of dollars. My state rarely sends an officer to my home, and it owns no property in my city. In a study of the lesser units of government, — each important as a part of the great general whole, — do not forget the far-reaching and fundamental power of the federal government, and our duty to it, lest we lend our study to a further development of a kind of *' bucket-shop " statesmanship which looks after the welfare of the district or the ward even at the sacrifice of the country or the state.

'' School Civics " tells the story of our government in such a manner as to make the subject interesting to the average grammar-school or high-school pupil. The story is told, as it was made, historically. It begins back far enough to show clearly the relations of our government to earlier forms, and follows the various steps through which our government has passed in its evolution from a few unassociated bands of colonists to its present dignity as the world's greatest republic.

FOREWORD vii

The text of this book is intended to be sufficiently full to prepare pupils for college-entrance, regents*, and teachers' examinations. In the larger schools, where libraries are accessible, it is recommended that pupils be required to look up some of the library references on each chapter, in order that they may become acquainted with various views and thus gain a broader knowledge than any one book can give. The questions have been selected with care from all available sources; they should be studied, and many of them should be debated. The bibliography is merely suggestive. It might be much larger, but it will be found a reliable guide to the pupil and to schools desiring to enrich their libraries upon this subject.

The chapter on Politics and Political Parties, while somewhat of a departure in a textbook on civics, is fully warranted by the growing importance of these matters in the management of our government.

This edition retains those features of the first edition which have made the book popular in many states. In addition may be found discussions of the initiative and referendum, commission government and the city manager, the importance of the county- as a unit of local government, the direct election of United States senators, the Federal Judiciary Act of 191 1, Federal Trade Commission, federal reserve banks, reorganization of cabinet departments, army reorganization, welfare legislation, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth amendments, a comparison of national governments, a revision of the chapter questions, the introduction of present-day problems as matters for debate, the placing of emphasis upon the action as well as upon the form of government, a study of the tendencies that make for further orderly changes in our form of government, copious illustrations of government in action, and many other features not to be found in the first edition.

viii SCHOOL CIVICS

In the preparation of this edition, the author has made use of suggestions from teachers in nearly every state of the Union who used the first edition, and in addition has had associated with him three teachers of civics who have read and criticized the manuscript.

The author wishes it to be understood, however, that he beUeves in government by law and not by shifting popular opinion ; by laws made by our representatives, as the result of careful study and debate, to safeguard the interests of the whole people ; by laws which can be changed by orderly and well-defined methods to meet changing conditions, but which are sufficiently fixed and definite to deal at any time with any given case. And he believes that representative government is very far from being a failure,

THE AUTHOR

Contents

PAGE

Bibliography xix

CHAPTER

Chapter I Government: Its Origin, Necessity, Object, And

FUNCTION

Definition. If you look in the dictionary for a definition of ** civics," you will find that it means ** the science of civil government ; the principles of government in their application to society." Further you will find that ** civil " means " pertaining to the state in general." But after you have studied these definitions will you be much the wiser.? ** Society," **the state," "government," are all themselves terms requiring explanation before the student can boast much enlightenment.

Origin of the State : Primitive Man already Social. First of all, then, what is society ? Aristotle, the greatest of the Greek philosophers, declared that man is naturally a political animal. Whether he is so by nature or whether — as a later philosopher, Hobbes, maintained — his natural state is a state of war in which every man's hand is against his fellow, certain it is that though we follow him back through the dimmest vistas of history into prehistoric times, we find him always in association with his kind, never solitary. If he is not by nature social, certainly he had already begun to grow so even in hoariest antiquity. We find him always a member of some sort of society, however rude and poorly organized ; that is, we find him always associated with other persons for their mutual advantage or for the furtherance of some common purpose. It should not be understood, however, that this purpose is always definitely present to the minds of the members of the society. As a matter of fact, civil society is not a voluntary association, like a debating club, for instance ; on the contrary, the members are simply born into it and have no choice as to whether or not they will be members.

Primitive Societies: our Knowledge Imperfect. Doubtless in the earliest and most primitive societies this common object was to secure a more abundant supply of food. Man, in some respects the weakest and most defenseless of the larger animals, must have learned very early in the course of his evolution that by association with his fellows he could cope much more easily with the lower animals upon which he was dependent for subsistence. Just how these rude, almost wholly unorganized hunting bands developed into the complex organizations now known as states is one of the problems about which science, in the absence of a complete array of facts, is obliged as yet to theorize in part. In dealing with the question of the origin of the state we must be content if science evolves for us a consistent and reasonable theory.

Definition of " State." But first let us guard against a possible misapprehension. Here in the United States we use the term '* state " in a local sense as applying to any one of the commonwealths into which the nation is divided, each of which, while regulating its own local affairs and possessing a considerable degree of political independence, is still subject to the federal constitution. The word ** state" has, however, a wider application. It is used primarily to designate any community having an independent existence and possessing a permanent administrative machinery called a government. The extent of the power to be exercised through

GOVERNMENT: ITS ORIGIN 3

this government and the exact method of employing it are matters fixed by rules that have been established by custom or have been committed to writing. Germany, France, and the United States are examples of states.

Original-Lawgiver Theory. Returning to the question as to the origin of the state, we find a number of theories that have been more or less widely accepted at different times. Men very early began to wonder how they came to have laws and governments, and we find among the traditions of all the great races stories about some remarkable lawgiver who organized their state and originated the laws under which his people were to live. Thus Solon for the Athenians, Lycurgus for the Spartans, Numa for the Romans, played this r61e of original lawgiver.

Divine-Right Theory. A second and later theory, supposed by those who held it to be much more reasonable than the belief in an original lawgiver, might be called the *' divine-right " theory, that is, the theory of the divine origin of the state. According to this belief, the state was formed by direct mandate of the Creator; a sort of **Let there be states, and there were states." In some way government was simply given to man from the beginning. It is this theory that lies back of the once widely cherished belief in the divine right of kings, for those who saw in the state a divine institution were very likely also to see in the particular human ruler God's vicegerent. His agent for carrying on this institution.

Contract Theory. More important than either of these theories, because at one time more widely believed and discussed, is what is known as the " contract " or " social-compact" theory. This explains the existence of states by supposing that at some remote time men deliberately agreed together to form a single community and have a political organization. The motive that prompted them to this action was the desire to secure a better observance of the so-called "law of nature," a law supposed to exist outside of and independently of all states, of which all men had intuitive knowledge, and whose teaching can perhaps be best summed up in the golden rule.

Later Theories Historical. It will be noticed that none of these theories relies much for support upon known facts of history or upon observations of primitive peoples. They are only more or less plausible speculations as to how states might have come into existence. It is only in quite modern times that men have begun to piece together slowly and with much difficulty, out of fragmentary bits of history and out of a great mass of observations on the customs of primitive peoples, a theory that can be called in any true sense historical.

Force Theory. The beginnings of modem states like France or Germany show beyond a doubt that the main influence at work in shaping certain portions of Europe into states was war. Increase of population ; increase of wealth or desire therefor ; improvement in weapons, tempting men to battle with their fellows for the good things that seemed attainable in no other way — these things from time to time caused the more or less organized hordes to burst their ancient boundaries and seek new homes. Thus some warrior renowned for his prowess was hailed as leader ; he secured a following of the bravest of the clan or tribe to which he belonged ; and when he, with his chosen band, got permanent control of a definite territory of considerable size, a state came into existence. Such phenomena as these, clearly traceable in the history of existing states, have sometimes been pointed to as indicating the origin of the state, but it is clear that in this force theory we are dealing not

GOVERNMENT: ITS ORIGIN 5

with the beginnings of government but with political bodies possessing already a considerable degree of organization. The terms "horde,** **clan," "tribe," which were used in speaking of these phenomena, point to some sort of organization already existing before the element of force shaped a particular people into a France or a Germany.

Kinship Theory. Careful investigation along a great variety of lines has tended more and more to show that the state has its origin primarily in the bonds of kinship. The state is a gradual evolution from the family. This development of political organization out of the family has been most carefully traced in the history of what have been called the " great central nations " of the world — the Aryan peoples, including the peoples of Hindu and Iranian blood in the East, and those of Greek, Italian, Celtic, Slavic, and Teutonic blood in the West. Now these peoples either possessed originally the patriarchal form of the family, or had already advanced to it in the remotest age to which the light of history has been able to penetrate ; that is, the family was ruled over by the father, whose word was the only law known to his children and dependants, and who, from the dignity of his position and his supposed nearness to the unseen spirit world, was likewise the medium of communication with the inhabitants of that world — in other words, the priest.^ As the family increased in number and the ties of religion and blood became more remote, it became a clan, still bound together by blood relationship,

1 It should be borne in mind, however, that the patriarchal family is not the only form of family known to history. Many evidences point to the matriarchal family, in which kinship is traced through the mother only and in which the rule belongs to her, as a probably earlier form of family organization ; and the clan and the tribe, that is, the elements out of which states are built, have grown up among peoples who give no clear evidence of ever having known the patriarchal family.

looking to a single person as its common ancestor, sharing in a common worship, and presided over by the chief kinsman instead of the father. It is in the clan, in this union of family groups, that we find the beginnings of true political organization. As the population increased several clans were formed, and these again united to form tribes. One tribe or several of them then developed into the state.

Summary. To sum up, then, we may say that later investigation has tended to show that in its origin the state rests not on the work of some great lawgiver, not on the direct mandate of the Creator, not on a deliberate contract between individuals, not on force, but on kinship. Unquestionably most, if not all, of these first-named elements have aided in the development of particular states at later periods of their history, but they should not be mistaken for explanations of the origin of the state.

Government. What is it ? In the foregoing pages we have several times used the word " government *' as if its meaning were quite clear ; yet how many students could formulate a good definition offhand ? We are constantly feeling all about us the restraints of government. If I own property, I must repair at stated intervals to the tax collector and pay over to him for the use of the government a certain sum proportionate to the value of it; and if I persistently refuse to do this, he may sell my property and appropriate such portion as the government has asked for. Even when I have paid my taxes I am not free to do exactly as I choose with my property. I am not allowed to maintain there anything that the law considers a public nuisance, that is, anything that endangers health or comfort. I am not free to conduct my business in any way I may choose. Certain businesses, like gambling and lotteries, are generally forbidden altogether, because the government

GOVERNMENT: ITS ORIGIN 7

considers them fraudulent. Certain others, like the liquor business, are permitted only on payment to the government of a heavy tax called a license, and are even then subject to rigid restrictions. Certain others, like the milk business^ are subject at any moment to inspection by government officials, who are authorized to destroy my goods if they fall short of the standard fixed by government. The United States government makes and issues great quantities of money, paper and coin ; yet if I should make a single piece and attempt to buy anything with it, I should be most severely punished. What, then, is this ** government " that hedges me about on every hand, and by what right does it say to me " thou shalt " or ** thou shalt not " ?

Definitions. When we were talking about society and the state we found that primitive men, or, to speak more accurately, primitive family groups, must very early in the course of development have found it advantageous to live and work together. Men found themselves better able to survive and make progress in society than out of it. In order, however, that survival and progress may be possible, it is necessary that society should secure to its individual members as great a degree of justice as conditions permit, and the instrument that it uses for this purpose is government. The word is used in two senses : First, government may be said to consist of customs, rules, or laws commanding what society or, to use a somewhat narrower and more definite term, what the state wishes to have done and forbidding what it does not wish to have done ; secJbnd, it consists of the rulers or officers whose business it is to have these rules enforced. In other words, government is the instrument or agent which the state uses to secure the end for which it exists.

Anarchy Impracticable. But what need is there, it may be asked, for the restraints and commands imposed by government? Could we not get along as well without them ? In almost every community there are a few persons, generally regarded by their neighbors as somewhat visionary, who have dreamed a beautiful dream that the day is at hand when ** the lion shall lie down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them." One hesitates to call them by the somewhat ominous name of anarchists ; yet such they are, for they believe that the only good government is no gov-, ernment. They do not, however, advocate bomb throwing as a means of putting an end to government ; and so, to distinguish them from anarchists of the violent type, they are called theoretical anarchists. If every individual always did exactly the right thing at the right time ; if he always attended strictly to his own affairs, never trespassing upon the feelings, rights, or property of others ; if there were no thieves, liars, or otherwise dishonest persons ; if all persons were always pure in thought and deed — then every individual could indeed obtain his personal rights without the aid of government, and the dream of the anarchist would be realized.

Government Necessary. Unfortunately this condition of affairs has never yet been even approximately reached. Even the youngest of us has lived long enough to know that there are many persons unwilling to grant to others the rights and privileges they demand for themselves. The only way to secure from such persons a due consideration for the rights of others is through the exercise of some power that they at least fear and obey. So long as men are selfish, ambitious, and greedy, government must remain. If each individual is to secure the largest possible personal liberty and at the same time grant to every other individual the privileges which he himself enjoys, rules or laws must be established as the standard of action for all. This, of course, does not mean that such rules once established

GOVERNMENT: ITS OBJECT 9

must remain forever binding upon all who may, by birth or otherwise, become members of the society. Many of the rules by which our Puritan ancestors held themselves rigidly bound seem to us now only curious and amusing, as doubtless many of ours will seem to future generations. Every government that is to be in any sense permanent must provide for the possibility of orderly change. All that is meant is that, no matter how frequently subject to change, there must be, at any particular moment, established rules to which the actions of all conform.

Government: its Object. What the true object of government is — the ideal it strives to attain — may be very easily gathered from the foregoing paragraphs. In the first place, it should be borne in mind that government in the United States, as in other enlightened nations, is not intended as a restriction upon personal freedom and should not be so understood. Moreover, it rarely so acts except upon those who interpret personal liberty in such a way as wholly to ignore or seriously to infringe upon the rights of others, while they maintain similar rights for themselves. The object of government is to secure the individual rights and liberties of all — to give the widest possible freedom to the individual for his self-development, and yet to guard that freedom against the competition that kills, and to reduce to a minimum the antagonism between self-development and social development. In other words, the ideal toward which government strives is to secure to every individual of society the largest possible liberty compatible with the general welfare. If at any time it becomes obvious that the ends of government have become perverted, that it no longer strives to promote the general welfare but exists only for the private advantage of some individual or of some group of individuals, and if all efforts have failed lO SCHOOL CIVICS

to remedy this state of affairs by the means legally provided — then the people may justifiably have recourse to revolution in order to free themselves from oppression and establish or reestablish a just government.

Govemmeiit and Individual Rights. Now this largest possible liberty of the individual can be secured only by bringing it about that all other individuals shall pay strict regard to what the society in which he lives has recognized as his rights. It is only in organized society that rights can be said to exist at all, and as society grows more complex, new distributions and clearer definitions of rights must take place ; in other words, as society develops, government, which originated with the society itself, has constantly before it the progressive task of securing the greatest possible liberty of the individual compatible with the general welfare. During the long struggle up from savagery to the modern civilized state, this question of the distribution and maintenance of individual rights has played, indeed, is still playing, a most important role. Individual rights are not something fixed and unchangeable from the beginning and destined to remain fixed to the end. They are undergoing a constant but very gradual change, a change so gradual as not to interfere in the least with a very clear understanding of what they are at any particular moment.

Classification of Rights. Political Rights, In the United States the rights of the individual are divisible into two main classes, political and civiL Political rights are those which individuals possess in the matter of government. The right of the individuals of a state to establish a government has already been referred to (p. 9). This is an extralegal right; that is, it exists independently of law. In addition there is the legal right of certain classes of individuals to share in government by voting or by holding office. It should be

GOVERNMENT: ITS FUNCTIONS 1 1

noted that not even in the United States are full political rights accorded to all individuals, while under some governments political rights of the second kind do not exist at all.

Civil Rights. Important as are political rights, it is to the much more numerous and diversified class of civil rights that those of fundamental importance belong. Civil rights are all those that are not political, all those possessed by the individual in his ordinary relations with the commonwealth and with his fellow citizens. Among them are the rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence as "unalienable," because we cannot be justly deprived of them except by our own acts ; for example, the right of personal security (the right to be safe from injury to life, body, health, or reputation), the right of personal liberty (the right to pass freely, think freely, speak or write freely, wherever and whenever we please, provided we do not infringe upon the rights of others), the right of private property (the right to enjoy the results of our own labor and saving), and the right of religious liberty or freedom of conscience (the right to worship God as we see fit). Under civil rights also are included all rights which belong to individuals in their relations to other persons ; for example, the rights involved in the relations between husband and wife, parent and child, employer and employed.

Government : its Functions. The functions performed by government are not always and everywhere the same. They vary in different states and even in the same state at different stages of its development. There are, however, certain functions which in some form or other all civilized states have undertaken. For purposes of study these have been divided into two classes — constituent functions and ministrant functions.^ By constituent functions are meant those

"that are necessary to the civic organization of society/* those which government must perform if the state is to continue to exist. Constituent functions are those which have for their object the protection of life, liberty, and property, such as the keeping of order and the furnishing of protection against violence and robbery ; the fixing of the legal relations between husband and wife and between parents and children ; the regulation of the holding, transmission, and interchange of property ; the determination of contract rights ; the determination of the political duties, privileges, and relations of citizens ; and the dealings of the state with foreign powers for the purpose of preserving it from external danger. By ministrant functions are meant those undertaken for the purpose of advancing the interests of the state — those which it has been thought convenient or expedient to have performed by government, though not actually necessary to the existence of the state. Such are, for instance, the regulation of trade and industry by such means as the coinage of money, the establishment of standard weights and measures, and the passing of tariff and navigation laws ; the regulation of labor ; the execution of internal improvements ; the maintenance of postal and telegraph systems ; the maintenance of waterworks, lighting plants, etc. ; sanitation ; education ; care of the poor and incapable ; care of forests and like matters ; and sumptuary laws, such as prohibition laws.

Taxing Power. For the performance of these functions government must have money or the means of obtaining it. The men who have left the regular businesses of life for a time in order to devote themselves to the performance of public work (soldiers, sailors, policemen, judges, legislators, clerks, consuls, ministers, teachers, governors, etc.) must be paid for their services. Moreover, material means must

GOVERNMENT: ITS FUNCTIONS 13

be provided for the successful carrying out of the purposes of government. Buildings and ships must be constructed, munitions of war must be provided, books must be printed, and all must be paid for. Governments have therefore been given the right to demand of the citizens the payment to the state of a portion of their wealth for the purpose of public expenditure ; that is, governments have been given the right to levy and collect taxes.