VII

POLITICAL CONDITIONS AND TENDENCIES

IN the present lecture I shall endeavor to trace some of the consequences of the system of government described in the previous lecture, as bearing on the general subject of the cost of government. The examination will be necessarily incomplete, as the consequences are too voluminous to be reviewed within the bounds of any lecture, or indeed any one treatise; moreover, they permeate every part of the government, extending far beyond our immediate theme. One of the most baleful consequences is the decay of public justice, but that does not fall within the scope of these lectures. The consequences that we shall consider are exhibited both in state and federal government. The reactions of state politics upon the national finances are too important to be ignored.

In one respect, constitutional disease in state government has been advantageous to the development of national sovereignty. At the time the national government was founded its vital prospects were very dubious. Such a sober and circumspect judge of affairs as Benjamin Franklin, while anxious to give the republican form a trial, admitted that he did not have much hope of success, but thought that sooner or later the country would have to resort to kingship.1 1 Madison's Journal, June 2, 4, and July 24, 1787.

At the outset the federal government was feeble as compared with the state governments. Vice-President Breckinridge, in the address referred to in the previous lecture, gave a striking account of the difficulties experienced in providing accommodations for the Federal government after the site had been selected. He says:

"Congress, either from indifference or the want of money, failed to make adequate appropriations for the erection of public buildings, and the commissioners were often reduced to great straits to maintain the progress of the work. Finding it impossible to borrow money in Europe, or obtain it from Congress, Washington, in December, 1796, made a personal appeal to the legislature of Maryland, which was responded to by an advance of $100,000; but in so deplorable a condition was the credit of the federal government that the state required, as a guarantee of payment, the pledge of the private credit of the commissioners."

Vice-President Breckinridge related that after the public buildings were burned by a British army on August 24, 1814, the federal government was again dependent upon charity. Congress met in a brick building known as Blodget's Hotel : —

"But the accommodations in that house being insufficient, a number of public-spirited citizens erected a more commodious building on Capitol Hill, and tendered it to Congress; the offer was accepted, and both houses continued to occupy it until the wings of the new capitol were completed."

The general adoption of the principle of the separation of the powers in the framework of state constitutions soon began the destruction of representative government which is now so marked and which is still rapidly progressing. The separation between the executive and legislative departments perverted the functions

of both so as to make them both odious, and it became the aim of the people to strip each of power so far as possible. Executive authority was disintegrated, and legislative authority was curtailed. A system of particular agency was gradually substituted for representative government, and representative assemblies, debarred from their proper function of control, came to be regarded as nuisances to be abated so far as possible. The perversion of constitutional government that has resulted is curiously illustrated by the written constitution of the very state that was in a position to patronize the federal government when that was just starting out. The constitution of Maryland declares that "the legislature ought to be frequently convened," which is a sound constitutional principle. Then it goes on to provide that the legislature shall not meet oftener than once in two years, and shall not continue in session longer than ninety days. Such manifest constitutional absurdity is common in American state constitutions. The fact is conclusive evidence of constitutional degeneracy, for if the representative assembly did in fact represent the people, to deny it facilities of meeting would deny the people the right to supervise and control the operations of the government. But in the absence of direct connection between the executive and the legislature, representative government is impossible, and only the name remains without the essence. Where systematic connection exists as, for instance, in Switzerland - legislatures meet frequently, with the approval and esteem of the people. The Swiss federal congress meets regularly twice a year, and usually holds an extra session. But

it meets only to consider measures submitted by the administration, and its sessions rarely last more than a few weeks.

Being debarred from efficient and economical government in the states from lack of its essential conditions, the people endeavored to get along with as little government as possible. Popular contempt and distrust of authority are deeply graven upon our existing state constitutions, as well as habitually expressed in the attitude of public opinion. This has had a vast influence in clearing the way for the development of national authority. In the national government executive authority is protected from disintegration. "The executive power shall be vested in a President." All executive agency exists by delegation of his authority subject to recall by his authority. Thus, however complex federal administration may become, it possesses the fundamental unity characteristic of sovereignty.

In the federal government sovereignty has remained intact, although embarrassed in its operations; in the states it has been dissipated. So, as an institutional fact, the sovereignty of the nation has no rivals within its bounds, and the expansion of its functions from weak and precarious beginnings has gone on with a rapidity unprecedented in history. When one considers the centuries of struggle and bloodshed that had to be passed through in accomplishing German national unity, one may form some idea of the important effect of state constitutional decay in promoting the growth of American national unity. If the field had been parcelled among systems of public authority as strong

and as well organized as the states of Germany, the development of national unity would have been a far more difficult process. Since nation-making is the greatest political achievement which any people can perform, constitutional disease in America has entailed some indirect benefits. But these have all been secured, and now the atrophy of local function has pernicious reactions upon the federal government.

Traditional use of terms continues long after their vital content has disappeared, and so we still speak of state sovereignty just as at the time the federal Constitution was framed people still talked of the Holy Roman Empire, as if it were an actuality instead of a mere legal phrase.1 The absurdity of the term "state sovereignty" could not have been more effectually demonstrated than by the proceedings of the federal courts during the extraordinary prevalence of railway enactments by state legislatures, occurring in close sequence to the cessation of supplies of railroad passes to state politicians. Offending states were arrested and taken to court almost as promptly as in police action with an ordinary drunk and disorderly case. At present state sovereignty is a sham, with no more solid content than a dead tree eaten out by white ants so that only the form remains. The actual fact

1 It did not become legally extinct until 1806, although moribund for centuries before.

2 The juristic aspect of the process is considered by Professor W. W. Willoughby in "The American Constitutional System." He concludes that "looking at the matter from a purely legal standpoint, the individual commonwealths constitute simply governmental or administrative districts of the United States," p. 111.

It is sometimes assumed that extension of the jurisdiction of the courts in the field of public policy is a necessary incident of federal