its members. Allowing for the contrast between the English bodies, with their strictly limited powers, and the immense competence of an American State legislature, this English phenomenon is sufficiently like those of America to be worth taking as an illustration. We may accordingly say that the average American voter, belonging to the labouring or farming or shopkeeping class, troubles himself little about the conduct of State business. He votes the party ticket at elections as a good party man, and is pleased when his party wins. When a question comes up which interests him, like that of canal management, or the regulation of railway rates, or a limitation of the hours of labour, he is eager to use his vote, and watches what passes in the legislature. He is sometimes excited over a contest for the governorship, and if the candidate of the other party is a stronger and more honest man, may possibly desert his party on that one issue. But in ordinary times he does not follow the proceedings of the legislature, as indeed how could he? seeing that they are most scantily reported. The politics which he reads by preference are national politics; and especially whatever touches the next presidential election. In State contests that which chiefly fixes his attention is the influence of a State victory on an approaching national contest. The more educated and thoughtful citizen, especially in great States, like New York and Pennsylvania, is apt to be disgusted by the sordidness of many State politicians and the pettiness of most. He regards Albany and Harrisburg much as he regards a wasps' nest in one of the trees of his suburban garden. The insects eat his fruit, and may sting his children; but it is too much trouble to set up a ladder and try to reach them. Some public-spirited young men have, however, thrown themselves into the muddy whirlpool of the New York legislature, chiefly for the sake of carrying Acts for the better government of cities. If their tenacity proves equal to their courage, they will gain in time the active support of those who have hitherto stood aloof, regarding State politics as a squabble over offices and jobs. But the prevalence of the rule that a man can be elected only in the district where he lives, renders it difficult to create a reforming party in a legislature, so the men who, instead of shrugging their shoulders put them to the wheel, generally prefer to carry their energies into the field of national politics, thinking that larger and swifter results are to be obtained there, because victories achieved in and through the National government have an immediate moral influence upon many States at once, whereas reforms in New York make no great difference. to Pennsylvania or Ohio. A European observer, sympathetic with the aims of the reformers, is inclined to think that the battle for honest government ought to be fought everywhere, in State legislatures and city councils as well as in the national elections and in the press, and is at first surprised that so much effort should be needed to secure what all good citizens, to whichever party they belong, might be expected to work for. But he would be indeed a self-confident European who should fancy he had discovered anything which had not already occurred to his shrewd American friends; and the longer such an observer studies the problem, the better does he learn to appreciate the difficulties which the system of party organization, which I must presently proceed to describe, throws in the way of all reforming efforts. CHAPTER XLVII THE TERRITORIES Of the 3,501,404 square miles which constitute the area of the United States, 2,040,780 are included within the bounds of the thirty-eight States whose government has been described in the last preceding chapters. The 1,460,624 square miles which remain fall into the three following divisions: Eight organized Territories, viz. Dakota, Wyoming, Of these the three latter may be dismissed in a word or two. The District of Columbia is a piece of land set apart to contain the city of Washington, which is the seat of the Federal government. It is governed by three commissioners appointed by the President, and has no local legislature nor municipal government, the only legislative authority being Congress. Alaska (population in 1880, 30,178, of whom 392 were whites) and the Indian territory are also under the direct authority of officers appointed by the President and of laws passed by Congress. Both are chiefly inhabited by Indian tribes, some of which, however, in the Indian Territory, and particularly the Cherokees, have made considerable progress in civilization.1 Neither region is likely for a long time to come to receive regular political institutions. The eight organized Territories form a broad belt of country extending from Canada on the north to Mexico on the south, and separating the States of the Mississippi valley from those of the Pacific slope. They require a somewhat fuller description, because they present an interesting form of autonomy or local self-government, differing from that which exists in the several States, and in some points more akin to that of the self-governing colonies of Great Britain. This form has in each Territory been created by Federal statutes, beginning with the great Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States north-west of the River Ohio, passed by the Congress of the Confederation in 1787. Since that year many Territories have been organized under different statutes and on different plans out of the western dominions of the United States, under the general power conferred upon Congress by the Federal Constitution (Art. iv. § 3). Most of these Territories have now become States, but there remain 1 There are five civilized tribes in this territory, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. "Each tribe manages its own affairs under a constitution modelled upon that of the United States. Each has a common school system, including schools for advanced instruction, all supported by the Indians themselves. The agent of the National Indian Defence Association says that there is not in the Cherokee Nation a single Indian of either sex over fifteen years of age who cannot read or write."-Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1886. The total population of the Indian Territory is estimated at from 60,000 to 75,000; the total number of tribal Indians in the United States (excluding Alaska) at 250,000 besides 66,407 non-tribal (census of 1880). VOL. II P the eight already mentioned. At first local legislative power was vested in the Governor and the judges; it is now exercised by an elective legislature. The present organization of these eight is in most respects identical; and in describing it I shall for the sake of brevity ignore minor differences. The fundamental law of every Territory, as of every State, is the Federal Constitution; but whereas every State has also its own popularly enacted State Constitution, the Territories are not regulated by any similar instruments, which for them are replaced by the Federal statutes passed by Congress establishing their government and prescribing its form. However, some Territories have created a sort of rudimentary constitution for themselves by enacting a Bill of Rights.1 In every Territory, as in every State, the executive legislative and judicial departments are kept distinct. The Executive consists of a governor, appointed for four years by the President of the United States, with the consent of the Senate, and removable by the President, together with a secretary, treasurer, auditor, and usually also a superintendent of public instruction, and a librarian. The governor commands the militia, and has a veto upon the acts of the legislature, which, however, may (except in Utah and Arizona) be overriden by a two-thirds majority in each house. He is responsible to the Federal government, and reports yearly to the President on the condition of the Territory, often making his report a sort of prospectus in which the advantages which his dominions offer to intending immigrants are fondly set forth. He also sends a message to the 1 Arizona in providing that her Bill of Rights shall be changeable only by the vote of a majority of all the members elected to the Territorial legislature gives it a species of rigidity. |