boards, and remove, with the assent of the Senate, any official appointed by him and it. He is paid $4000 (£800) a year. A Lieutenant-Governor, elected by the people for two years, salary $800 (£160) a year, with the duty of succeeding to the governor (in case of death or disability), and of presiding in the Senate. A Secretary of State, elected by the people for two years (along with the governor), salary $2000 (£400) a year, besides sundry fees for copies of documents. His duties are to take charge of laws and documents of the State, gather and report statistics, distribute instructions to certain officers, and act as secretary to certain boards, to serve on the State printing and State library boards, to make an abstract of the votes for candidates at presidential and State elections. A State Auditor, elected by the people for four years, salary $3000 (£600). Duties to keep accounts of all moneys in the State treasury, and of all appropriations and warrants, to give warrants for all payments from or into the treasury, to conduct financial communications with county authorities, and direct the attorneygeneral to prosecute revenue claims, to serve on various financial boards, and manage various kinds of financial business. A State Treasurer, elected by the people fortwo years, salary $3000 (£600). Duties-to keep account of all drafts, paying the money into the treasury, and of auditor's warrants for drafts from it, and generally to assist and check the auditor in the supervision and disbursement of State revenues, publishing monthly statements of balances. A State Attorney-General, elected by the people for two years, salary $1500 (£300) a year, and 3 per cent on all collections made for the State, but total not to exceed $2000 a year in all. Duties -to appear for the State in civil and criminal cases, advise legally the governor and other State officers, and the Assembly, proceed against offenders, enforce performance of charitable trusts, submit statistics of crime, sit upon various boards. A State Commissioner of Common Schools, elected by the people for three years, salary $2000 (£400) a year. Duties to visit and advise teachers' institutes, boards of education, and teachers, deliver lectures on educational topics, see that educational funds are legally distributed, prepare and submit annual reports on condition of schools, appoint State board of examiners of teachers. Three Members of Board of Public Works, elected by the people for three years, one in each year, salary $800 (£160) a year, and travelling expenses, not exceeding $50 a month. Duties -to manage and repair the public works (including canals) of the State, appoint and supervise minor officials, let contracts, present annual detailed report to the governor. Besides these, the people of the State elect the judges and the clerk of the supreme court. Other officials are either elected by the people in districts, counties, or cities, or appointed by the governor or legislature. Of the subordinate civil service of a State there is little to be said. It is not large, for the sphere of administrative action which remains to the State between the Federal government on the one side, and the county, city, and township governments on the other, is not wide. It is ill-paid, for the State legislatures, especially in the West, are parsimonious. It is seldom well-manned, for able men have no inducement to enter it; and the so-called "Spoils System," which has been hitherto applied to State no less than to Federal offices, makes places the reward for political work, i.e. electioneering and wirepulling. Efforts are now being made in some States to introduce reforms similar to those begun in the Federal administration, whereby certain walks of the civil service shall be kept out of politics, at least so far as to secure competent men against dismissal on party grounds. Such reforms would in no case apply to the higher officials chosen by the people, for they are always elected for short terms and on party lines. Every State, except Oregon, which is content to rely on the ordinary law, provides for the impeachment of executive officers, and usually of all such officers, for grave offences. In all, save two, the State House of Representatives is the impeaching body; and in all but New York the State Senate sits as the tribunal, a twothirds majority being generally required for a conviction. Impeachments are rare in practice. There is also in many States a power of removing officials, sometimes by the vote of the legislature, sometimes by the governor on the address of both houses, or by the governor alone, or with the concurrence of the Senate. Such removals must of course be made in respect of some offence, or for some other sufficient cause, not from caprice or party motives; and when the case does not seem to justify immediate removal, the governor is sometimes empowered to suspend the officer, pending an investigation of his conduct. CHAPTER XLII THE STATE JUDICIARY THE Judiciary in every State includes three sets of courts:—A supreme court or court of appeal; superior courts of record; local courts; but the particular names and relations of these several tribunals and the arrangements for criminal business vary greatly from State to State. We hear of courts of common pleas, probate courts, surrogate courts, prerogative courts, courts of oyer and terminer, orphans' courts, court of general sessions of the peace and gaol delivery, quarter sessions, hustings' courts, county courts, etc. etc. All sorts of old English institutions have been transferred bodily, and sometimes look as odd in the midst of their new surroundings as the quaint gables of a seventeenthcentury house among the terraces of a growing London suburb. As respects the distinction which Englishmen used to deem fundamental, that of courts of common law and courts of equity, there has been great diversity of practice. Most of the original thirteen colonies once possessed separate courts of chancery, and these were maintained for many years after the separation from England, and were imitated in a few of the earlier 1 Admiralty business is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal courts. among the new States, such as Michigan, Arkansas, Missouri. In some of the old States, however, the hostility to equity jurisdiction, which marked the popular party in England in the seventeenth century, had transmitted itself to America. Chancery courts were regarded with suspicion, because thought to be less bound by fixed rules, and therefore more liable to be abused by an ambitious or capricious judiciary.1 Massachusetts, for instance, would permit no such court, though she was eventually obliged to invest her ordinary judges with equitable powers, and to engraft a system of equity on her common law, while still keeping the two systems distinct. Pennsylvania held out still longer, but she also now administers equity, as indeed every civilized State must do in substance, dispensing it, however, through the same judges as those who apply the common law, and having more or less worked it into the texture of the older system. Special chancery courts were abolished in New York, where they had flourished and enriched American jurisprudence by many admirable judgments, by the democratizing constitution of 1846; and they now exist only in a few of the States, chiefly older Eastern or Southern States, which, in judicial matters, have shown themselves more conservative than their sisters in the West. In three States only (New York, North Carolina, and California) has there been a complete fusion of law and equity, although there are several others which have provided that the legislature shall abolish the distinction between the two kinds of pro 1 Note that the grossest abuses of judicial power by American judges, such as the Erie Railroad injunctions of Judge Barnard of New York in 1869, were perpetrated in the exercise of equitable jurisdiction. Equity in granting discretion opens a door to indiscretion, or to something worse. 2 Distinct chancery courts remain in Delaware, New Jersey, Vermont, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Michigan. VOL. II I |