Civil Government in the United States Considered with eBook

The following books of the “English Citizen Series,” published by Macmillan & Co., may often be profitably consulted:  M.D.  Chalmers, Local Government; H.D.  Traill, Central Government; F.W.  Maitland, Justice and Police; Spencer Walpole, The Electorate and the Legislature; A.J.  Wilson, The National Budget; T.H.  Farrer, The State in its Relations to Trade; W.S.  Jevons, The State in its Relations to Labour.  The works on the English Constitution by Stubbs, Gneist, Taswell-Langmead, Freeman, and Bagehot are indispensable to a thorough understanding of civil government in the United States:  Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, 3 vols., London, 1875-78; Gneist, History of the English Constitution, 2d ed., 2 vols., London, 1889; Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, 3d ed., Boston, 1886; Freeman, The Growth of the English Constitution, London, 1872; Bagehot, The English Constitution, revised ed., Boston, 1873.  An admirable book in this connection is Hannis Taylor’s (of Alabama) Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, Boston, 1889.  In connection with Bagehot’s English Constitution the student may profitably read Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government, Boston, 1885, and A.L.  Lowell’s Essays in Government, Boston, 1890.  See also Sir H. Maine, Popular Government, London, 1886; Sir G.C.  Lewis on The Use and Abuse of Certain Political Terms, London, 1832; Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, 2 vols., London, 1852; and Dialogue on the Best Form of Government, London, 1863.

Among the most valuable books ever written on the proper sphere and duties of civil government are Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics, London, 1851; The Study of Sociology, 9th ed., London, 1880; The Man versus The State, London, 1884; they are all reprinted by D. Appleton & Co., New York.  The views expressed in Social Statics with regard to the tenure of land are regarded as unsound by many who are otherwise in entire sympathy with Mr. Spencer’s views, and they are ably criticised in Bonham’s Industrial Liberty, N.Y., 1888.  A book of great merit, which ought to be reprinted as it is now not easy to obtain, is Toulmin Smith’s Local Self-Government and Centralization, London, 1851.  Its point of view is sufficiently indicated by the following admirable pair of maxims (p. 12):—­

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT is that system of Government under which the greatest number of minds, knowing the most, and having the fullest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the greatest interest in its well-working, have the management of it, or control over it.

CENTRALIZATION is that system of government under which the smallest number of minds, and those knowing the least, and having the fewest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the smallest interest in its well-working, have the management of it, or control over it.