CHAPTER II.

DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

It has been shown already how the tribal form of government originated, and that it is the earliest form of government known to man. It is true that the clan preceded the tribe and the family preceded the clan, but family government, as it exists to-day, cannot properly be considered in a work of this kind. Our study will deal only with the government which controls every citizen in common with his fellow-citizens with reference to public matters; in other words, the civil government under which we live.

In this chapter, attention will be directed to the various forms of civil government, both ancient and modern, that the difference between our own government and others may be more clearly understood.

The Tribal Form of Government.-This form of government still exists in some parts of the world, but it is to be found only among uncivilized and uneducated people. The American Indians, except in cases where they have adopted the habits of civilized life, still live under a tribal form of government, but a better illustration is to be found among the savage inhabitants of some parts of Asia and Africa and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Little need be said concerning this form of government, as it has no written laws and the supreme power is vested in the chief. His authority is shown principally by his leadership in time of war and his selfish exactions in time of peace. No doubt

the government of some tribes has been beneficial to the people composing them, in cases where the chief has been a man of unusual wisdom and actuated by benevolent motives, but such instances have been few and governments of this kind now exist only among people so rude and barbaric that they are incapable of instituting any better system. A general knowledge of the tribal form of government is necessary principally to enable the student to comprehend more clearly the part which it has taken in the development of the science of government, and not because it will directly aid him in performing the duties of citizenship.

It was the first step taken toward the construction of a civil system. It marked an era in the evolution and growth of governmental institutions. It fulfilled the purpose for which it existed until it came to be replaced by more efficient systems. For this reason the tribal form of government deserves a place in our study, and as we progress attention will be given to those features of our own system in the growth of which tribal government has played a part. The Absolute Monarchy. This term designates the form of government in which the absolute power of making and enforcing laws controlling the liberty, property and welfare of the mass of the people is vested in the monarch, who is called by different names. He is called the Emperor in China, the Shah in Persia, the Sultan in Turkey, and the Czar in Russia, but, by whatever name he is known, he is the absolute ruler of his people. The government has no legislature chosen by the people to make laws for their own good, but the only laws consist of imperial decrees or edicts, which must be obeyed strictly or the severest punishment will follow. The laws are not enforced by officers chosen by the people, but by officers appointed directly or indirectly by the ruler, whose aims are to administer the law as

the monarch dictates, regardless of reason or justice toward the individuals whose interests are at stake.

Under such a government a person who is accused of violation of the laws does not have the benefit of a full, fair and open trial, but his case is decided summarily by a magistrate who has no object in view except to carry out the personal wishes of his ruler, or in many cases the offender is given no trial, but is hurried away to imprisonment, banishment or death, without even knowing of what he is accused.

Such a form of government, no matter what may be the personal merits of the ruler, can exist only in countries where the people are kept in subjection by ignorance and superstition, and are made to believe that their ruler is rightfully entitled to everything which he sees fit to demand. With the spread of education and intelligence among the people, such a form of government is bound to lose its powers and be overthrown, to be replaced by some other system recognizing the rights of man and the equality of the individual before the law.

The Oligarchy. It sometimes happened in ancient times that the government of a people, instead of being committed to a single hereditary chief, was given to a number of persons of equal power, constituting a governmental council having supreme control over the lives and property of the people. Such a form of government is called an oligarchy-that is to say, government by a few, according to the etymological meaning of the word.

Such governments were generally of comparatively brief duration, because jealousies arose and ambitions were developed among the persons composing the oligarchy and the strife thus engendered usually led to civil war and the

overthrow of the government, resulting in the triumph of the strongest and a despotic form of government.

Any government in which the civil power is vested in a limited number of persons, as in a republic where the right of suffrage is narrowly restricted, may properly be called an oligarchy, although the term, as originally used, is applied to such a form of government as at one time existed in Rome, in some of the states of Greece, and in Venice.

The Ancient Republic. The impression prevails with many that the republican form of government is of purely modern origin. But many centuries before this continent was discovered, the people of Ancient Rome were accustomed to meet in their forum, or public meeting place, and there enact laws and perform all of the governmental functions. These meetings were called comitia. At a different period, the Greeks carried on their government in similar public meetings, called ecclesia, which were held out of doors in the agora, or market place, and at a later period many of the Anglo-Saxon tribes decided questions of peace. and war, levied taxes and punished criminals at public meetings in which citizens took part.

All of these governments were republics, because in them the source of power was recognized as existing in the body of the people. They were essentially different, however, from our own republic, because the rights of citizenship and property were restricted to particular classes of the population, and the equality of all individuals before the law was not recognized.

The principles which lie at the foundation of our own republic were unknown in Ancient Greece and Rome; these republics were, in fact, but little better than the form of government which has been described as an oligarchy.

The Constitutional or Limited Monarchy. The origin, development and growth of the constitutional or limited monarchy, as it exists in the enlightened European nations of to-day, such as England, Holland, Norway and Sweden, has much in common with our own governmental history. Many political institutions which we highly prize, as the town meeting, and some features of representative government to be described hereafter, had their origin in the customs of the Teutonic tribes which formerly inhabited the shores of the North and Baltic seas, and the valley of the Elbe, and many of these institutions exist to-day in the monarchical governments just mentioned.

To attempt to enumerate and discuss in this connection all of these points of resemblance between the constitutional monarchy of England and the government of our own republic would interfere with the orderly arrangement of our work, and properly belongs to another branch of study; but as our work progresses it will appear that in many respects Englishmen and Germans enjoy fully as great political freedom as do the citizens of the United States of America, and that many of our most highly prized political institutions did not originate with us, but were brought across the seas by our ancestors to this land, where, by the general education of the people, they speedily received a wider application and more perfect development than conditions would permit in other countries.

A limited or constitutional monarchy may be defined in general as a government whose chief ruler, whether he be called king or emperor, does not enjoy absolute power, because his rights and privileges are limited by restrictions placed upon them for the benefit of the people. These restrictions exist in the form of laws which cannot be abrogated by the ruler without a revolution; they are so bene