tional Constitution assumes, and so indirectly ordains, various features of the State Governments. Moreover, by assuming the existence of these features and by devolving upon Legislatures, Governors, and Judges certain definite duties, the Constitution makes them, de facto, a part of the machinery of the National Government, and so declares, by implication, that they shall continue. No State, therefore, could abolish its Legislature, Governor, or Courts of Law. To do so would bring it into collison with the National authority. And this also is a pledge that the government of every State must be republican. 667. Bills of Rights. Most if not all of the State constitutions contain, frequently as a preface, a series of propositions bearing this name, or at least answering to this description. The practice dates from Revolutionary times, as has been explained in a previous chapter. Some of these propositions are merely general political maxims, or abstract statements of rights, first copied from their English prototypes, but many of them are special and concrete. It is in these bills that many of the limitations imposed by the people of the States upon their governments are enumerated. Mr. Bryce observes, and very properly, a growing tendency on the part of the people to place less reliance upon general maxims, and more reliance upon specific declarations. 668. Fluctuations of State Constitutional Law. 1-Upon the whole, the State constitutions have proved to be much less fixed and stable than the Federal Constitution. In 1860 the Union consisted of 34 States; and only 5 of the number, and these ranging only from 3 to 15 years old, still retained their first constitutions unchanged. All the others had not indeed thrown aside their first constitutions, but they had all either thrown them aside or subjected them to more or less amendment, and often to repeated amendment. Up to that time 69 complete constitutions and 101 different sets of amendments had been promulgated. From 1860 to 1887 the new constitutions 1 Jameson, The Constitutional Convention, Chap. VII.; Hitchcock, American State Constitutions, pp. 15-17; Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. I, pp. 456, 457.. were 35, including the first ones of the new States; while the number of amendments longer and shorter, counting as one amendment whatever was adopted at one time, were 114. In other words, from 1776 to 1886 we count 104 complete constitutions and 215 amendments. This is not counting constitutions and amendments proposed that failed to receive ratification. In the last ten years of the period, 6 complete constitutions and 28 amendments were rejected by the popular vote. Previous to 1873, as many as 152 conventions had sat for the purpose of framing, devising, or ratifying constitutions. Six new States have been admitted to the Union since 1887; several of the old States have adopted new constitutions, and many more have adopted amendments, so that the process of elaborating State Constitutional Law shows no sign of coming to an end. It must be said that this process goes on much more rapidly in some sections of the country than in others. This is particularly true of the South and West. Louisiana and Georgia have each had 6 Constitutions; Virginia and South Carolina, 5; Pennsylvania, 4; Ohio and Michigan, 2; Illinois, 3; New York and Delaware, 3; Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maine, one each; New Hampshire and Vermont, two each; Massachusetts, one. Still, some of the constitutions that have stood longest have been considerably, and often materially, changed by amendment. The causes of this continued flux of State Constitutional Law are not far to seek. The State constitutions are regarded with much less reverence than the Federal Constitution; the machinery that is provided for their amendment is much less cumbersome and much more easily operated; while State opinion often depends directly upon new communities or communities where society has never assumed as regular and settled a form as it has in the whole country taken together. The increasing size of the State constitutions is well shown by the amount of space that they occupy in Poore's ample pages. The several constitutions of Virginia, beginning with 1776 and ending with 1870, occupy 4, 7, 18, and 25 pages each. Pennsylvania has grown from 8 pages to 23; Texas, from 10 to 24; Illinois, from 10 to 25. The New Hampshire constitution of 1776 contains 600 words; those of Missouri and South Dakota at the present time, 26,000 words. CHAPTER LI. THE STATE LEGISLATURES. 669. Names.-The Legislature is the name generally applied to the law-making body of the State, but this is not always the constitutional name. In New Hampshire and Massachusetts, it is called the General Court; in North Dakota, Montana, and Oregon, the Legislative Assembly; in Maine, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and California, sixteen in all, the Legislature; in the other twenty-three States, the General Assembly. 670. Names of the Two Houses.-In Georgia from 1777 to 1789, in Pennsylvania from 1776 to 1790, and in Vermont from its admission into the Union to 1836, the Legislature consisted of a single house. But these are the only exceptions to the prevalence of the bicameral system. In all the States the upper house is called the Senate. In Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, the lower house is the House of Delegates; in California, Nevada, Florida, New York, and Wisconsin, the Assembly; in New Jersey, the General Assembly; and in the thirty-five other States, the House of Representatives. Previous to 1868 North Carolina called her lower house the House of Commons. 671. Terms of Senators and Representatives.—In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the senatorial term is one year; in New Jersey, three years; in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Idaho, two years. In the remaining twenty-eight States, it is four years. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, the representatives hold one year; in Louisiana four years; in the other States two years. Some 672. Pay of Senators and Representatives.—In all cases this is the same for members of both houses. times it is fixed, or at least the maximum, by the constitution, but commonly by law. It ranges from a dollar a day and mileage at eight cents a mile, going and coming, in Rhode Island, to $1,500 a year and mileage at ten cents a mile, in New York. 673. The Number of Members. This varies widely in the different States. It is either fixed by the State constitution, or it results from the application of a rule that the constitution prescribes. The number of senators varies from 9 in Delaware to 51 in Illinois; the number of repre sentatives from 21 in Delaware to 321 in New Hampshire; under her amended constitution, New York has 50 senators and 150 assemblymen. 674. Apportionment.-The rule that is followed in the apportionment of members of the houses of legislation is population, but population as limited by town and county lines. In apportioning senators much closer attention is paid to such lines than in apportioning representatives. The widest departure from this rule is Vermont, where representatives have always been distributed among the towns equally, while senators are assigned to the counties according to their numbers. First constitutions always contain an apportionment of representatives, and often later ones; and all the constitutions, with the exception of Delaware, provide for a periodical redistribution of members. Very definite rules relating to the matter are prescribed, and their application is enjoined upon some constituted State authority. The common practice is to intrust this duty to the Legislature, but in Maryland it is given to the Governor, and in Ohio to the Governor, Auditor, and Secretary of State. By far the larger number of States provide for a new distribution following each National census. Ten States, California, Nevada, Oregon, Nebraska, Missouri, Wis consin, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, which have intercalary State censuses, provide for them once in five years. 675. Representative Population. This differs in different States. In some it is the total population as enumerated; in some, the total excluding aliens; in some, the total excluding Indians not taxed; in some, the total excluding Indians not taxed and aliens. Some States make the rule the total population, excluding aliens incapable of naturalization, as the Chinese in California; some, the total white population, and a few, the voters. 676. Districting the State.-Generally some civil division already existing is adopted as a unit, as the county in the Middle and Western States, and both the county and the town in New England. As it is not deemed desirable that the members of the two houses should have just the same constituents, the representative and senatorial districts do not commonly coincide. The factors to be considered in establishing the two districts are, the number of members to be distributed, population, existing civil divisions, and the representation of fractions. The common rule is to fix in the constitution major and minor numbers for each house, leaving a discretionary power to the Legislature within these limits. In such cases the Legislature ordinarily first fixes the number of members, then determines ratios of representation by dividing the population by this number, and finally establishes the districts with reference to the quotient. This is the method employed by Congress in apportioning National Representatives under the censuses of 1850 and 1860, except that Congress left the districting to the State Legislatures. A few constitutions, however, fix ratios of representation, and direct that these ratios shall be applied to the population to ascertain the size of the houses by division. Most of the constitutions give the State authority charged with the duty of apportionment, power to group counties when necessary; while they also deny or limit power to divide the civil division adopted as the unit. With a view to preventing the aggregation of too much political power at one point, most of the States having large cities limit the number of representatives assigned to them by requir. ing a larger population than in other parts of the State. Several States assign to each county at least one representative; while New |