Government and Administration of the United States

Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

Preface.

These chapters were originally prepared for and used as a manual in the public schools of the District of Columbia. In a revised and amplified form they are now published as one of Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Politics.

The aim of this revision is to furnish assistance to students beginning the study of the history and practical workings of our political institutions. It is not the purpose to furnish a complete text-book upon the government of the United States and its administration, but, by a clear, concise statement of the salient points of our federal system, and a description of the actual workings of the characteristic features of our institutions, to give to the student a better understanding of the manner in which the same are administered, than is to be obtained from the ordinary text-books on Civil Government.

These Outlines are intended as an aid to both teacher and pupil, and for use in a class whose members are already familiar with the leading events and names in United States history. The work is intended to furnish such supplementary information as can be obtained only with great difficulty by most teachers, and which for the most part cannot be obtained at all by the pupils.

The authors have endeavored to make prominent the fact that our present form of government is far from being contained in the written constitution of 1787, and consequently, that a study of that instrument alone will give a very inadequate idea of our government as it is. The constitution was but a foundation upon which to build a government.

Nothing like an analysis or commentary upon the constitution of the United States is here attempted. The public is already well supplied with books covering that ground. History proper, except as showing the basis and reason for the establishment of our institutions, has likewise found no place here.

The book is to be used chiefly as a manual, to supply information that would otherwise need to be dictated by the instructor. The Outlines are in many particulars merely suggestive. Many topics are simply mentioned, which the teacher must elaborate and explain at greater length.

Lastly, though this book does not pretend to give a connected account of our administration or politics, yet the subjects have been carefully arranged in such an order as would most naturally be followed in a course to which the work is intended to be an aid.

Government.

From the earliest times of which history furnishes authentic record, and in all countries inhabited by man, people have found it necessary to bind themselves together by civic regulations so that certain things may be done by all in common—in short, to establish some form of government.

Now, as has always been the case, there are certain things which, from their very nature, cannot be left to each individual to do, or not to do, as he may choose, or to do in his own way. First of all, there is the necessity of some means by which the weak may be protected from the strong....