CHAPTER IV. The Government of the United States. 57. INTRODUCTORY While the name was given at or before the meeting of the first continental congress in 1774, the United States, in its present form, did not exist until March 4, 1789, after eleven states had ratified the constitution which was framed in 1787. During the years between the above dates there was a government, but a government under which the states were jealous of each other and were drifting through discord toward dissolution. Under the Articles of Confederation there was no Nation, but a league of independent states. The states sent members to the congress to frame measures of general policy which were, in the main, wise and necessary, but having passed such measures the government represented by the Congress had no method of enforcing the law, but such enforcement was left to the states, and if the states, or any of them, for any reason, failed to comply with he spirit and letter of the measure by so far the act of Congress failed in accomplishing its purpose. Under the Articles of Confederation there was no supreme executive. Under the Constitution we have the President, as, not only the highest executive power, but the commander-in-chief of the army and navy by which, as the last extreme, the laws are enforced. Under the Articles the acts of Congress, in effect, amounted to suggestions. Under the Constitution they are authority. Under the Articles there was no system of national courts, which make one of the three departments of a complete government. Under the articles there was no system of national taxation. We have now the indirect tax of the tariff and internal revenue, and the power to impose direct taxes and taxes on the income of corporations and individuals. These weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation convinced the people that they must have a stronger government and delegates met in the convention which formed the constitution, and the states, by adopting it, made a government having all the powers necessary to accomplish the great tasks which every government is required to undertake. The purpose of our constitution is to establish and limit the power and authority of the law-making, law-enforcing and lawinterpreting departments of the government, and to guarantee the so-called inalienable, natural and civil rights of individual citizens. 58. EARLY STATE Every man is very likely to PATRIOTISM think well of the church, or the school, or the lodge of which he is a member or of the state of which he is a citizen. This is especially so when he has helped to organize the church, school, lodge or state, and it is a very natural condition. We love what we help to create and we want to see the thing that we have created grow and become great in the world. This was emphatically true of the men who were prominent at the time of the Revolutionary War. They had taken a leading part in the discussions which resulted in the Declaration of Independence, and the throwing off of English rule, as well as in the war which followed, and, therefore, felt a great interest in the nation which they were creating. But above and beyond this feeling for the new nation, they had a deep seated love for the states out of which the nation was to be created. Each state had secured some favors from the mother country. Each state had acquired a large measure of liberty and self government. Most or all of them had some form of a legislature which gave the colonists large direction of their own affairs. They had their own courts which meted out justice and any contemplated change of their systems of governments gave the citizens cause for fear lest they should not secure absolute justice. In the main, they had governors and executive departments which were in sympathy with the people and their welfare, and managed the affairs of government so that the people were prosperous and happy. It is not to be wondered at, that when the people joined in making a new government, as they did about the time of the Declaration of Independence, they made, not a complete sovereign nation, but they proceeded only so far in making a real union as seemed to be required to meet the immediate needs of the time. A legislative body, filled with true patriotism for the free institutions of all the colonies, and a committee which would direct the war activities seemed all that was necessary and these actually did appear to fulfil the needs. It was not usually necessary to compel men to enlist in the army or navy, men were ready to go if that was where they could best serve the states. It was not commonly necessary to compel the states to raise money, they did it out of love for the great cause. And these conditions, tempered at times by the adversities of war and pardonable jealousies, existed, as long as the Revolution lasted, for then the colonies had a common enemy. But when war was over patriotism for the states became intense while devotion for the nation waned, and so the tendency was toward the slow death of the nation, and, as some prominent men of the times believed, toward the ultimate returning of the colonies to protection under the British Crown. The only means of preventing such a condition was the formation of a real nation, a government having all the functions of a sovereign nation, and to this end the representatives of the States gathered in a convention to consider amending the Articles of Confederation. The plan of amending that document was abandoned because it was seen that no amendment could make a government which would result in permanent Union. Then came Then came the attempt to form the constitution, which attempt was near abandonment many times, but in the end that re sult was attained. The real cause for the near failure to establish the nation as we see it today was the patriotism of the individuals for the states themselves, and for those principles of freedom which had grown up with their state governments, freedom which had been won in England from the crown and had in large measure been transplanted to the shores of the new world by the immigrants, freedom which the English governments had encouraged, or at least tolerated, until just previous to the Revolutionary War, when England sought to use the colonies more for the enrichment of the English people than for the common good of the whole British Empire. Thus, it happened that in trying to correct the deficiencies of a poor government the convention fell upon the plan of forming a constitution for a new government. 59. PREAMBLE OF CONSTITUTION Most governments have come to their present form through a long series of changes which we call growth, but our thirteen sovereign states felt the need of a government which would be strong enough to cope with other great governments of the world, either in war, which was all too common in those years of the world's history, or in the peaceful pursuits of building up internal industries and external commerce. They tried to secure this first by joining in the Articles of Confederation but those proved a failure. They then created a government, which in all important particu |