Civil Government In The United States

Text extracted from opening pages of book: tanbart) ti& rarp Ctoitum THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF JOHN FISKE WITH MANY PORTRAITS OF ILLUSTRIOUS PHILOSOPHERS, SCIENTISTS, AND OTHER MEN OF NOTE IN TWELVE VOLUMES VOLUME XII CIVIL IN THE UNITED STATES CONSIDERED WITH SOME REFERENCE TO ITS, . ORIGINS BY JOHN FISKE ?-0, ij irai Zijj/ bs' E\ v0epiov, TO' yap tv ir6vT vtp dpOi. PINDAR, Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State' Sail on, O Union, strong and great . Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our team, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee, are all with thee LONGFELLOW BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY $ fc fttoerjtifce $ re#, Cambntigr Dotation THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED, WITH THE AUTHOR* S BEST WISHES AND SINCERE REGARD, TO THE MANY HUNDREDS OF YOUNG FRIENDS WHOM HE HAS FOUND IT SO PLEASANT TO MEET IN YEARS PAST, AND ALSO TO THOSE WHOM HE LOOKS FORWARD TO MEETING IN YEARS TO COME, IN STUDIES AND READINGS UPON THE RICH AND FRUITFUL HISTORY OF OUR BE LOVED COUNTRY r PREFACE SOME time ago, my friends, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., requested me to write a small book on Civil Govern ment in the United States, which might be useful as a text-book, and at the same time serviceable and suggestive to the general reader interested in American history. In preparing the book certain points have been kept espe cially in view, and deserve some mention here. It seemed desirable to adopt a historical method of exposition, not simply describing our political institutions in their present shape, but pointing out their origin, indicating some of the processes through which they have acquired that present shape, and thuskeeping before the student's mind the fact that government is perpetually undergoing modifications in adapt ing itself to new conditions. Inasmuch as such gradual changes in government do not make themselves, but are made by men and made either for better or for worse it is obvious that the history of political institutions has seri ous lessons to teach us. The student should as vii PREFACE soon as possible come to understand that every institution is the outgrowth of experiences. One probably gets but little benefit from abstract definitions and axioms concerning the rights of men and the nature of civil society, such as we often find at the beginning of books on gov ernment. Metaphysical generalizations are well enough in their place, but to start with such things as the French philosophers of the eighteenth century were fond of doing is to get the cart before the horse. It is better to have our story first, and thus find out what government in its concrete reality has been, and is. Then we may finish up with the metaphysics, or do as I have done leave it for somebody else. I was advised to avoid the extremely syste matic, intrusively symmetrical style of exposi tion, which is sometimes deemed indispensable in a book of this sort. It was thought that students would be more likely to become inter ested in the subject if it were treated in the same informal manner into which one naturally falls in, giving lectures to young people. I have en deavoured to bear this in mind without sacri ficing that lucidity in the arrangement of topics which is always the supreme consideration. For many years I have been in the habit of lectur viii PREFACE ing on history to college students in differentparts of the United States, to young ladies in private schools, and occasionally to the pupils in high and normal schools, and in writing this little book I have imagined an audience of these earnest and intelligent yoiing friends gathered before me. I was especially advised by my friend Mr. James MacAlister, superintendent of schools in Philadelphia, for whose judgment I have the highest respect to make it a little book, less than three hundred pages in length, if possible. Teachers and pupil