by forbidding their passage. The Mayor of a city can generally veto an ordinance of the Council, the Governor of a State (in all States except North Carolina) can veto a law of the Legislature, the President of the United States can veto a law of Congress. But the veto power is not complete, absolute, and final. When one branch. of the Legislature votes down a bill passed by the other branch, that is the end of the matter, for the bill is killed, but when the Governor or the President vetoes a bill the Legislature or the Congress can vote on it again and if it can be passed a second time by a two-thirds or threefifths majority of both houses it becomes a law in spite of the veto. So the veto power is only partial and may be only a temporary check. The Independence of the Departments. In the exercise of its own proper powers one department is entirely independent of the others. Each department is expected to attend to its own business in its own way and not to meddle with the affairs of another department. In the political scales the power of one department is supposed to balance precisely the power of another. The scales must not tip one way or the other. Who is to keep this system of checks and balances in good working order? When the beam tips, who is to restore the balance? The people themselves. Only the voters have power enough to outweigh the power of a department. If a Mayor has seized powers that do not belong to him, the voters may refuse to reëlect him; if a Legislature is lording it over a Governor, a vote of the people may keep the members of the Legislature at home and thus give back to the Governor his rightful power. As a voter you may be called upon to help in preserving a balance of power among the departments, and you ought to understand clearly that such a balance is a good thing and that encroachment is a bad thing. Why is it a bad thing? Why should you refuse to support a department that is grasping powers that do not belong to it? Washington has answered this question. "The spirit of encroachment," he says, "tends to consolidate the power of all the departments in one and thus create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism." When you hear men calling for power, power, more power, remember these words of Washington, and don't give them the power unless it is precisely the kind they ought to have. Don't give to the judge the kind of power a lawmaker ought to have; don't give to the lawmaker the kind of power a judge ought to have; don't give to an executive officer the kind of power the legislature ought to have. Keep all the parts of government well balanced and thus prevent the despotism that Washington feared. QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 1. What does the word veto mean? 2. Do you think it would be wise to give the lawmaking power of the school to pupils? The judicial power? The executive power? 3. In some schools the pupils organize themselves into a little democracy or self-governing community. They elect from their number a lawmaking body which makes the rules of the school, executive officers who carry the rules into effect, and a judicial body which de cides whether a pupil has violated a rule. Whom of your school would you choose for your lawmakers? Whom would you choose as your chief executive officer? Whom would you choose as your judges? What rules would you desire in respect to tardiness? Whispering? Cheating? Truancy? Absence? Rudeness? (Pupils and teachers who are interested in the subject of self-government for schools should consult Wilcox and Gill's "Outline of American Government.") 4. Name two great lawmakers, two great judges, two great executives. XV. THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT: LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT "It is to local self-government that we owe what we are and what we hope to be."-Daniel Webster. Introduction.-You now have learned three of the great truths that lie at the foundation of American government, namely: (1) that government is conducted according to the principle of majority rule; (2) that the people govern through their chosen representatives; (3) that the power of government is sharply separated and given to three great departments. A fourth great truth about our political system is this: in respect to local matters every community has large powers of local self-government. In this lesson let us learn about local self-government. The Three Grades of Government.-If you have paid any attention at all to public affairs you have already noticed several governments in operation around you. If you live in a southern State on a farm you know something of a county government that transacts its business at the county seat, something of a State government that has its headquarters at your State capital, and something of the great National Government that has its seat at Washington. If you live on a farm in a northern State you are familiar also with a town or township govern ment. If you live in a village or in a city you are constantly brought face to face with the officers of a village or city government. At first sight, therefore, it appears that we have at least half a dozen different kinds of government, but let us see if we cannot group them so as to reduce the number of classes. It will be noticed that all the governments below the State government attend to the affairs of a small area. The county is usually not so large but that one may drive from one end of it to the other in a day, a township occupies only a few square miles, and the area of the village or city is generally even smaller. Moreover, as we shall presently see, all these governments of lower grade stand in the same relation to the higher State government, and they all perform the same kind of public service. So we may consider all the political divisions below the State, that is to say, counties, towns, townships, villages, boroughs, cities, as having the same grade of government, and we may call this grade neighborhood or local government because its services are always confined to a neighborhood or locality. We have, therefore, three grades of government-local government, State government, and National Government. The Relation of the Local Government to the State. What is the relation of a local government to the governments of higher grade? How does your county or township or city stand in respect to the State and to the nation? The answer to this question is very simple: the local government receives all its powers from the State F. Civil Govt.-6 |