Elements of Civil Government eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 218 pages of information about Elements of Civil Government.

Elements of Civil Government eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 218 pages of information about Elements of Civil Government.

1.  Why does the Constitution require that the President shall be a native of the United States?

2.  Who is now President, and of what State is he a citizen?

3.  When was he elected?

4.  Should the President be eligible for reelection?

5.  Do you think he should have the veto power?

6.  Of what use is a passport in traveling?

7.  What is internal revenue?

8.  What was the principal cause of the national debt?

9.  How many soldiers, including officers, in the army of the United States?

10.  Of what value are the weather reports?

11.  Why is it right for the government to grant pensions?

12.  Why should a census be taken?

13.  What is the population of the United States, and what the population of this State, by the last census?

14.  What is meant by conducting a suit before the supreme court?

QUESTION FOR DEBATE.

Resolved, That the President and the Vice President should be elected by the popular vote.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE UNITED STATES—­(Continued).

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.

The judicial department is one of the three great departments of the government, being coordinate with Congress, the legislative power, and with the President, the executive power.  The principle of three coordinate departments of government is new, the United States being the first nation that ever embodied it in its constitution.

The judicial system of the United States includes the Supreme Court of the United States, the circuit courts of appeals, district courts, the courts of the District of Columbia, the court of claims, the court of customs appeals, a territorial court for each of the Territories, and several commissioners’ courts in each of the States.

JURISDICTION OF UNITED STATES COURTS.—­The jurisdiction of United States courts extends to the following classes of suits at law: 

1.  To all cases arising under laws passed by Congress.

2.  Those affecting ministers, consuls, and other agents of the United States and foreign countries.

3.  Suits arising on the high seas.

4.  All suits to which the United States is a party.

5.  Controversies between a State and the citizens of another State.

6.  Cases between citizens of different States.

7.  Suits between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants by different States.

8.  Cases between a State or its citizens and a foreign State or its citizens.

It will be seen that all cases at law to which a State is a party must be tried in the courts of the United States.  A direct suit can not be brought against the United States except by authority of a special act of Congress; nor can a suit be brought against a State by a citizen of another State, or by one of its own citizens, except by the special permission of its legislature.

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Elements of Civil Government from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.