When It Comes To Pass That An Assemblage Of Men
In One So-Called City Have To Be Counted By Millions, There Arises
The Impossibility Of Defining The Limits Of That City, And Of
Saying Who Belong To It And Who Do Not.
An arbitrary line may be
drawn, but that arbitrary line, though perhaps false when drawn as
including too much, soon becomes more false as including too
little.
Ealing, Acton, Fulham, Putney, Norwood, Sydenham,
Blackheath, Woolwich, Greenwich, Stratford, Highgate, and Hampstead
are, in truth, component parts of London, and very shortly Brighton
will be as much so.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
As New York is the most populous State of the Union, having the
largest representation in Congress - on which account it has been
called the Empire State - I propose to state, as shortly as may be,
the nature of its separate constitution as a State. Of course it
will be understood that the constitutions of the different States
are by no means the same. They have been arranged according to the
judgment of the different people concerned, and have been altered
from time to time to suit such altered judgment. But as the States
together form one nation, and on such matters as foreign affairs,
war, customs, and post-office regulations, are bound together as
much as are the English counties, it is, of course, necessary that
the constitution of each should in most matters assimilate itself
to those of the others. These constitutions are very much alike.
A Governor, with two houses of legislature, generally called the
Senate and the House of Representatives, exists in each State. In
the State of New York the Lower House is called the Assembly. In
most States the Governor is elected annually; but in some States
for two years, as in New York. In Pennsylvania he is elected for
three years. The House of Representatives or the Assembly is, I
think, always elected for one session only; but as in many of the
States the legislature only sits once in two years, the election
recurs of course at the same interval. The franchise in all the
States is nearly universal, but in no State is it perfectly so.
The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and other officers are elected
by vote of the people, as well as the members of the legislature.
Of course it will be understood that each State makes laws for
itself - that they are in nowise dependent on the Congress assembled
at Washington for their laws - unless for laws which refer to
matters between the United States as a nation and other nations, or
between one State and another. Each State declares with what
punishment crimes shall be visited; what taxes shall be levied for
the use of the State; what laws shall be passed as to education;
what shall be the State judiciary. With reference to the
judiciary, however, it must be understood that the United States as
a nation have separate national law courts, before which come all
cases litigated between State and State, and all cases which do not
belong in every respect to any one individual State.
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