The

American System of Government

From "THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH"

BY

JAMES BRYCE

Abridged and Edited from the First Edition by JOHN H. CLIFFORD

THE

AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.

THE

The National Government

CHAPTER I

THE NATION AND THE States

HE American Union is a Commonwealth of common wealths, a Republic of republics, a State which, while one, is nevertheless composed of other States even more essential to its existence than it is to theirs.

When within a large political community smaller communities are found existing, the relation of the smaller to the larger usually appears in one or other of the two following forms: One form is that of a League, in which a number of political bodies, be they monarchies or republics, are bound together so as to constitute for certain purposes, and especially for the purpose of common defense, a single body. The members of such a composite body or league are not individual men but communities. It exists only as an aggregate of communities, and will therefore vanish so soon as the communities which compose it separate themselves from one another. A familiar instance of this form is to be found in the Germanic Confederation as it existed from 1815 till 1866. The Hanseatic League in mediaval Germany, the Swiss Confederation down till the present century, are other examples.

In the second form, the smaller communities are mere subdivisions of that greater one which we call the Nation. They have been created, or at any rate they exist, for administrative purposes only. Such powers as they possess are powers dele