CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION-PRINCIPLES OF THE GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM OF THE

UNITED STATES.

In compiling this volume it has been the purpose to summarize the duties and powers of the officials of the Federal Government in a statement in regard to each, which includes such information as will be needed by the general reader. There has been little attempt to include verbatim citations, or to give the very many references on which the statements are based, since it is desired to simplify the presentation as much as possible. The sources are the Constitution of the United States, the Revised Statutes and regulations promulgated by the heads of the different Departments. In addition to these authorities there is also a considerable amount of unwritten custom and usage, which has been stated in as definite terms as possible in connection with the specific provisions as to the duties of Federal officials.

The body of law made up of provisions relating to the public officers of the government is widely scattered and not easily attainable by the layman and general reader. It is believed therefore that this compilation will be found not only a source of interesting general information, but a valuable book of reference as well.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Federal form of the government of the independent States, composing the United States of America, has been described as a government of laws and not of men. How accurate a description this is will be seen in the following pages, which will deal chiefly with the restrictions and requirements imposed by statute upon the agents of the Federal government. Such a book as is here proposed would not naturally, and in the usual order of

2

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

governmental affairs, so largely deal with restrictive enactments. In most of the governmental systems of the world, scope, in some cases comparatively wide scope, is given to the discretion of the official functionary, and his powers and duties are stated in wide terms or exist in a condition of amplitude, because of the traditions and lack of restrictions which surround his office. It is, however, entirely different with the incumbents of Federal offices in the United States, from the highest to the lowest. The power to do all things necessary for the proper conduct of an administrative position is seldom or never granted in the Federal system. So much is this the fact that the language of a recent act creating the Board of Exposition Commissioners with "power to do all things necessary" is almost unique in the history of Federal legislation,

The tangible evidences of the existence of a Federal government, which were represented in a former generation only by the local postmaster or the local collector of customs or internal revenue, become more definite as the United States is forced, through the increase of population and the decrease of state distinctiveness, to enter more closely into the social and commercial relations of the people. The fabric of the United States courts, formerly to the popular mind a nebulous and little understood system of jurisprudence, comes with the increase of Federal penal legislation to occupy a larger and larger share of the public attention, since it is in this manifestation of the Federal power that the increased activities of the Federal government come to popular notice. The manifestations of the Federal government can, however, only be understood by bearing in mind that there is no single Federal power as such, but that the operations referred to are those of three co-equal branches, the distinction between which and the powers of which were carefully prescribed by the Constitutional Convention. The provision for each branch was carefully framed to meet a particular need which presented itself to the founders of the government. The conflicts. of the formatory period of the present British governmental system, the influences of the school of thought contemporary with