We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole people. No monarchial throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.-Daniel Webster. That no country "has ripened into a more prudently conservative temper may be largely ascribed to the influence of the famous instrument of 1789, which enacted in and for a new republic, summed up so much of what was best in the laws and customs of an ancient monarchy."-James Bryce. PREFACE. Two reasons induced me to prepare this study of the Government of the United States. First, text-books seemed to require too little study of the Constitution. The time spent by a student in trying to master the text written by the author of a civil government might as well be put upon the Constitution itself. It is believed that in this way the students will get clearer ideas of what the Constitution is and what it contains. Second, books on civil government usually spend too much time telling how the Constitution came to be adopted. Evidently students need to know. first how the United States is governed. The history of the Constitution is intensely interesting and very profitable, but that is history. Very little of it is necessary in order to understand what the Constitution means. The work of the student in this book has therefore been centered upon the Constitution itself, and the main object has been to induce a study of how the Government of the United States is carried on at the present time. THE AUTHOR. CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. PREAMBLE. WE the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ARTICLE I. LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. SECTION I. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. SECTION II. 1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. 2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United |