CHAPTER XII THE THREE BRANCHES OF OUR GOVERNMENT Our System of Checks and Balances.-You have now seen the three branches of our government-the executive, the legislative, and the judicial-and you have seen in detail how they check each other. The legislative power of Congress is checked by the President's veto. The executive power of the President is checked by the Senate's right to reject his appointments. The judiciary can check Congress all along the line by its right to hold it to the Constitution. All this was carefully planned by the makers of our Constitution, with definite purposes in view. They called it a system of checks and balances. Its Purposes. The purposes were two. One was to prevent tyranny by any one branch. The other was to prevent hasty action by the nation. If too much power lay in any one branch, or if the branches were not separate if the executive and legislative powers were united in one body, for instance (as is true in England to-day, where the chief executive is the premier chosen by the House of Commons)-there would be danger that some very strong man or men would usurp power and set up a dictatorship. The second reason does not appeal to some Americans with plans of change and reform. Undoubtedly the system has sometimes held back desirable changes too long. It certainly compels delay, debate, and second thoughts. It has certainly prevented many blunders. If it errs on the side of "safety first," it has worked and worked successfully for many years, through all kinds of strain and stress. Even if it makes us impatient at times, we should realize its value and hesitate a long time before changing it. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT 1. What illustrations of our system of checks and balances can you give? 2. What are the two objects of the system? 3. Why should we be slow to change it? CHAPTER XIII WHAT THE NATION DOES FOR US 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL SERVICES In Our Daily Life. Having viewed the machinery of our national government, let us examine in detail what services it renders each of us. Most of the things that come nearest to our daily life, that make life in a village or city pleasant and comfortable, are done by the local government, as we shall find later. But the national government performs some important services of this character, the delivery of mail, for instance; and as we know from our study of liberty and fair play, it performs other services even more important though not usually so plainly to be seen and appreciated. Let us take up these latter first. They have been already suggested. The Greatest Services of All.-The basis of all our rights of liberty, our safety and happiness, our religious freedom, our free speech, is our strong, unified, national government. Under weak and unstable governments no man's life or property is secure from day to day. You have read in our own history how troubled were the years just after the Revolution, when the thirteen colonies were only loosely held together under the Articles of Confederation. It was, in fact, the disorder and confusion of these years that made the colonies see the need and wisdom of a strong union under the Constitu tion. From 1783 to 1789 the new American confederation was threatened from without and from within, and the new Constitution gave the nation vast powers to end these troubles and safeguard the people's liberties. The preamble to the Constitution states this clearly: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Enemies Abroad. In time of peace we are apt to forget this elementary service that America does for us. Any one who lived through the period of the Great War can never make this mistake. When the war came, it was our national government at Washington that carried the whole burden. Local governments are useless in such a crisis, for unity of command is essential. To protect us from foreign invasion, to command us in our battles, to speak for America among the nations of the world, we must look to our national government. That is the most vital service of all. Upon it depends our whole safety and happiness. For if we were a weak, divided nation, without army or navy, and with no strong government, we might be conquered, deprived of our rights, and ruled as a colony, as indeed the imperialistic Germans dreamed of doing. China is the best example of such weakness. She has been invaded and overrun and conquered time and again. This danger of war is no remote possibility, though people are apt to forget in time of peace how constant the danger is. Our country was founded by a long and bloody war, the War of the Revolution. Since then we have fought five wars: the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish War, the Great War. The Revolution ended in 1781, the Great War in 1918. That is a period of one hundred and thirty-seven years, and, therefore, the average interval between wars has been less than twenty-seven years. The longest period between wars was from the Civil War to the Spanish War, 1864 to 1898, which is thirty-four years. Every generation of Americans has gone to war, and every American who has lived to middle age has lived through a war. In time of peace our foreign trade depends on the same force. Because our nation protects its flag wherever flown and its citizens wherever they travel, other nations respect us and our citizens can go where they will. If this were not so it would be impossible for us to build up our commerce overseas. In 1904 an American citizen of Greek ancestry, Ion Perdicaris, was seized by a bandit named Raisuli in Morocco and held a prisoner. President Roosevelt cabled to our representative that we must have "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." Perdicaris was promptly surrendered uninjured. Arbitration and the League of Nations.-In an effort to prevent war with all its cost in suffering and lives, the arbitration of disputes between nations was often resorted to during the last century. Our country has been a leader in developing this method of settling interna |