The Government of North Dakota

TO THE READER:

Let us get acquainted before you read further. This book does not tell you all about civil government. In fact, you will learn but very little about civil government from this book or from any other book. Your teacher or your father has learned very little civics from any one book. Yet the textbook is a very useful thing, in fact an almost indispensable thing. It will introduce you, day by day, to the things that are really significant in our government, to the principles underlying and explaining our institutions, and to the tendencies and changes now at work. You are living to-day, now, in the midst of Federal, State, and local government activities. A full systemized knowledge of these activities constitutes a full knowledge of civil government. This book is merely a laboratory guide to these activities. Used in this way it will prove helpful to you. You are urged, therefore, to keep a scrapbook or some similar classified collection of materials relating to civil government. You are urged to cultivate a scholarly and discriminating interest in current events.

There are two unsettled questions in civics which this book cannot answer and does not try to answer. They are, (1) To what extent should the administration of local government be centralized under State control? (2) To what extent should the Federal government be given centralized control over activities now administered by the State?

If you can answer these questions aright you will be an intelligent voter.

Sincerely yours,

THE AUTHOR,

PART I

THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER I

NATURE OF GOVERNMENT AND THE STATE

"Man is by nature a political animal.

A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society." ARISTOTLE, "Politics," I, 2.

Necessity of Government.-Over two thousand years ago one of the world's greatest thinkers described man as a "political animal." Man is indeed one of the most social of all beings; the greater part of the life of most men is spent in daily contact with the lives of other human beings. To such an extent is this true that persons forced by their occupations to live alone in remote regions, such as sheep herders, have often become insane from sheer loneliness. In all ages persons who have chosen to live by themselves in out-of-the-way places, and apart from other men, have been looked upon as peculiar beings, to say the least.

Men naturally associate with one another, forming a relationship which is called society. The study of the nature and development of this relationship is sociology or social science. Since men associating with one another do not always know what is the right thing to do, or are not willing to do the right thing, disputes and conflicts arise. There are, unfortunately, both fools and knaves in the world. And thus, since men are not perfectly wise or are not morally perfect, there must be in every association some rules to govern conduct and some power to enforce these rules. The act of making and enforcing rules is called government. Every one is familiar with such terms as family government, church government, and school government. Doubtless the four greatest social institutions produced by all the civilization of the past are the family, the church, the school, and the state. Each has its own peculiar government, and yet the state includes all these institutions in itself, and makes rules for the protection and preservation of them all. It is with the government of the state that this book deals.

The State. A state, in the sense here used, is an independent body of politically organized people, occupying a definite territory. There are four elements-persons, territory, organization, independence. The power of the state, exercised through the government of the state, must be the supreme power within the territory of the state; the possession of such power is called sovereignty. For example, the United States is a state; and so are France, Italy, and Mexico. The various "States" of the United States, as New York and Minnesota, are not quite real states, because they do not possess complete sovereignty.

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