HKB
take care of their special interests: the state governs, but it does not interfere with their administration. Exceptions to this rule may be met with, but not a contrary principle.
The first consequence of this doctrine has been to cause all the magistrates to be chosen either by, or at least from among the citizens. As the officers are everywhere elected or appointed for a certain period, it has been impossible to establish the rules of a dependent series of authorities; there are almost as many independent functionaries as there are functions, and the executive power is disseminated in a multitude of hands. Hence arose the indispensable necessity of introducing the control of the courts of justice over the administration, and the system of pecuniary penalties, by which the secondary bodies and their representatives are constrained to obey the laws. The system obtains from one end of the Union to the other. The power of punishing the misconduct of public officers, or of performing the part of the executive, in urgent cases, has not, however, been bestowed on the same judges in all the states. The Anglo-Americans derived the institution of justices of the peace from a common source; but although it exists in all the states, it is not always turned to the same use. The justices of the peace everywhere participate in the administration of the townships and the counties,[99] either as public officers or as the judges of public misdemeanors, but in most of the states the more important classes of public offences come under the cognisance of the ordinary tribunals.
The election of public officers, or the inalienability of their functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the introduction of a judicial control over the secondary branches of the administration, are the universal characteristics of the American system from Maine to the Floridas. In some states (and that of New York has advanced most in this direction) traces of a centralised administration begin to be discernible. In the state of New York the officers of the central government exercise, in certain cases, a sort of inspection of control over the secondary bodies.[100] At other times they constitute a court of appeal for the decision of affairs.[101] In the state of New York judicial penalties are less used than in other parts as a means of administration; and the right of prosecuting the offences of public officers is vested in fewer hands.[102] The same tendency is faintly observable in some other states;[103] but in general the prominent feature of the administration in the United States is its excessive local independence.
OF THE STATE.
I have described the townships and the administration: it now remains for me to speak of the state and government. This is ground I may pass over rapidly, without fear of being misunderstood; for all I have to say is to be found in written forms of the various constitutions, which are easily to be procured.[104] These constitutions rest upon a simple and rational theory; their forms have been adopted by all constitutional nations, and are become familiar to us.
In this place, therefore, it is only necessary for me to give a short analysis; I shall endeavor afterward to pass judgment upon what I now describe.
LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATE.
Division of the Legislative Body into two Houses.--Senate.--House of Representatives.--Different functions of these two Bodies.
The legislative power of the state is vested in two assemblies, the first of which generally bears the name of the senate.