Government in the United States, National, State and Local

=Who are Citizens.=--The population of every country is composed of two classes of persons: citizens and aliens. The larger portion of the inhabitants are citizens, but the alie...

=Need of Municipal Government.=--The systems of local government described in the preceding chapter are those which have been devised mainly for rural communities, that is, comm...

=The Cabinet.=--The heads of the ten executive departments collectively constitute the President's cabinet. They are, in the order of rank, the secretary of state (first styled...

=The Inauguration.=--It is no longer the practice to notify the President officially of his election, and so without certificate of election or commission, he presents himself a...

=The Postal Service.=--The beginnings of the postal service in the United States date back to the action of the Continental Congress in creating a post office department in 1775...

=The Presidential Office.=--One of the weaknesses in the organization of the government under the Articles of Confederation was, as we have seen, the lack of an executive to car...

=The House of Representatives.=--The Constitution provides that the national house of representatives--the lower house of Congress--shall consist of members chosen every second...

=Organization of the Two Houses.=--_Officers._--Each house of Congress is free to organize itself in such a manner as it pleases, and to choose its own officers, except that the...

=Kinds of Local Government.=--Most of us live under at least four different governmental organizations: the government of the United States, the government of a state, the gover...

=The National Taxing Power.=--The lack of the power of Congress to levy taxes was, as we have seen, one of the chief weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, voluntary contr...

=Powers of the State Legislatures.=--The powers of the state legislature, unlike those of the city council and those of the Congress of the United States, are not set forth in t...

=Nature of the Elective Franchise.=--The right of suffrage, that is, the right to take part in the choice of public officials, is sometimes said to be a natural and inherent rig...

=The Governor; Election and Qualifications.=--Each state has a chief executive styled a governor, who is charged with the execution of the laws. In all he is elected by the peop...

=Function of the Courts.=--The legislature enacts the laws, the executive officers enforce them, the courts interpret their meaning and apply them to particular cases. The court...

=Place of the States in Our Federal System.=--Proceeding upward from the county, township, and city, we come to the state, the authority to which the local governments described...

=Nature and Functions of Political Parties.=--Political parties are organized by groups of voters for the purpose of promoting the success of the policies in which they believe,...

=The Articles of Confederation.=--The Continental Congress, which managed the common affairs of the Union during the early stages of the Revolution, was a body whose authority w...

=Power of Congress over the Territories.=--The Constitution expressly confers upon Congress the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the ter...

=Establishment of the federal Judiciary.=--The Articles of Confederation, as we have seen, made no provision for a national judiciary. Hamilton declared this to be the crowning...

=The Power to Regulate Commerce.=--Under the Articles of Confederation, as we have seen, Congress possessed no power to regulate commerce among the states or with foreign nation...

The _Fifth Amendment_ protects the accused from prosecution in capital cases or cases involving infamous crime except upon indictment by a grand jury. Some of the states, as we...