STATE CONSTITUTIONS.

THE study of the American State Constitutions is not in itself an interesting one. A government, debarred from the exercise of all imperial functions, loses the dignity which the possession of supreme power confers in itself. One defect of the whole American system of government appears to me to be, that the prizes and opportunities of State politics are not sufficiently grand to secure the services of the highest class of politicians; and yet the powers wielded by the State Governments are so enormous as to require almost the very highest class of legislators for their due execution. Moreover, the relations between the systems of the State and the Central Governments act not altogether beneficially towards the latter. Every member of Congress must, in accordance with the Constitution, "be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.” Whether rightly or not, the word "inhabitant" has always been interpreted as identical with citizen. Thus, you want to enter Congress, you must enter it as

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senator or as representative from the State of which you are a citizen. Two consequences result inevitably from these conditions. A man who desires to enter on public life must make his name known as a local politician-must rise to Congress through the ante-chamber of local State politics; and, even after he has obtained entrance to Congress, must study the politics of his State as the condition of his political existence. This necessity for every national politician to be also a State politician undoubtedly deters many men of education and position from entering on public life. The talents fitted for the great arena of the National Assembly are not always those best qualified to succeed in the petty struggles of local legislatures. Again, the second and more hurtful consequence is, that a public man has no career before him, unless his politics are those of the majority of his own State. A pro-slavery man, who happened to be a citizen of Massachusetts, or an antislavery man of Maryland, would have no possibility of being returned to Congress. Take a case like that of Caleb Cushing, Mr. Pierce's Attorney-General. Here is a man of really remarkable ability, of great energy, and long experience of public life. So much even his most bitter enemies-and he has many-will allow. Yet General Cushing has practically little more chance of being returned to Congress than the writer of these pages. He would be the very best representative for a State like Maryland, by which, I mean, that even in the

view of his antagonists, he would be the most moderate and most desirable kind of representative that Maryland, at present, is ever likely to return. Yet he cannot be a member of Congress for any State but Massachusetts; and his democratic opinions and antecedents disqualify him from election in Massachusetts as long as the Republican party is in power. So, for the best years, probably for the remainder, of his life, the United States have no chance of obtaining General Cushing's services. Of course, he, or any man in a like position, might emigrate to another State, and begin his political career anew, but there are few men who, by the time they have obtained public distinction, are either able or willing to start life again on a new platform. In truth, the State is an "imperium in imperio" in the system of the United States. Absolute powers on all questions of life and death, law-making, taxation, regulation of religion, social relations, and political institutions, are conceded to it within its own limits. The diversities in the Constitutions of the several States are as great as in their climates. Subject to the restrictions I mentioned in the preceding chapter, the power of the States is unlimited. If New York chose to restrict the qualification of an elector to persons possessed of a million dollars, and to reduce the Government to an oligarchy; if Massachusetts declared marriage void and illegal; if Louisiana confined the franchise to Roman Catholics; or if Wisconsin passed an agrarian law, the Federal

Government would have neither the right nor the power to interfere. Of course, these are extreme cases, but if you wish to appreciate the real condition of the United States, you must realize, first of all, the extreme abstract independence enjoyed in all internal government by the several States, and, secondly, the real extent to which this independence has been asserted.

The features of resemblance are very numerous. The Constitutions of the original thirteen States were all adopted about the close of the War of Independence, before the Constitution of the United States was in existence. At that period, in the first triumph of success, there was probably more unity of sentiment throughout the States than has ever existed either before or since. In those days, too, the reaction in favour of classical republicanism, which ushered in the French Revolution, was at its height in America. Like all French theories, it was an exotic in an Anglo-Saxon country, and a very short-lived one; but, for a time, it operated powerfully, and has left its impress on the external forms of the State Constitutions, as well as in the names of Capitol and Senate. Moreover, seventy years ago there was no foreign element worth speaking of in the original States; and, therefore, under this superficial coating of French classicalism, there lay a deeper and more uniform groundwork of British traditions and British prejudices than you would find at the present day. Quaintly enough, as it seems at this moment, one of the favourite topics

of invective against the British Government in the revolutionary days is their employment of German soldiers. From all these causes the outward forms of the different State Constitutions are much more alike than they would have been if founded some years later; and, naturally enough, the new States, as they became incorporated with the Union, adopted a similar form of Constitution to that which existed in the older States.

In every State, then, the outline of the Constitution resembles closely that of the United States. There is a Governor, a Senate, and a House of Representatives; and the executive, legislative, and judicial functions are divided much in the same way. In each existing State, trial by jury, the habeas corpus, freedom of speech, freedom of petition and of the press, are guaranteed as a Bill of Rights by the Constitution. In no State as yet is there a State religion established by law. Whether a State can legally do so is a question which will come up to a practical issue when Utah demands admission as a State, and as far as the letter of the Constitution goes, there is little doubt that she may.

To show how the system of separate State Govern ments works, I will choose out a few prominent questions of government, and show how they are dealt with by the Constitutions of six States: Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York as free States; South Carolina, Louisiana, and Kentucky as slave States.

Take, for instance, the electoral qualification. In Mas