The Functions of Government.
Broadly speaking, the functions performed by government are of a
threefold order: the establishment, interpretation, and enforcement of
laws. A division of government into three branches is thus called for:
the legislative, the judicial and the executive. The manner in which
these departments are related to each other, the extent to which they
are vested in the same hands, and the degree in which they are separate
from each other and independent in their workings, differ in different
countries. In England, as we have seen, the executive and legislative
functions are closely united. In our government, as we shall see when we
come to consider its structure, complete independence of the three
departments has been aimed at.
All statesmen agree that a good government should possess ample power to
interpret its own laws, and sufficient strength to fully enforce them.
When we come, however, to the question of what are the proper subjects
for control by government, and what for free management by individuals,
we reach a subject upon which writers and thinkers have been unable to
agree.
Under the great question, over how broad a field it is expedient and
right to extend the activities of government, are embraced many of the
great topics at present agitating the public mind. Difference upon this
point has been one of the underlying causes of the existence of
political parties in the United States, and has furnished one of the
real springs of our history. Communism, socialism, and anarchy, may be
embraced under this question. This it is that makes the study of the
principles of government, especially in the United States, so important
to every one who would understand the political life around him, and be
able to form an intelligent decision upon the questions of the day.
Shall the nation or the state own and manage the railroads, the
telegraph lines, and the canals? Shall education receive the support of
the state? Shall the employment of women and children in mines and
factories be regulated by law? Shall the city own its own street
railways, its markets, its water and gas supply, its telephones, and its
water fronts? Shall this or that duty be delegated to the city or to the
state, or shall it be left to the chance performance of individuals or
corporations? These are some of the many questions of supreme importance
that meet us at every point, and the better we understand the true
nature and structure of our government, the better shall we be able to
give intelligent answers.
Among the many functions of government, there are many so obviously
necessary to the existence of a nation, however organized, that there is
no discussion concerning the expediency of their exercise by the state.
We may, therefore, group governmental duties under two heads: the
necessary, and the optionable; or, as Professor Wilson has named them,
the _Constituent_ and the _Ministrant_.[1] Under the first head is
embraced all those functions which _must_ exist under every form of
government; and under the second title those "undertaken, not by way of
governing, but by way of advancing the general interests of society."
The following is Professor Wilson's classification:
_#I. The Necessary or Constituent Functions.#_--
(1). The keeping of order and providing for the protection of
persons and property from violence and robbery. (2). The fixing of
the legal relations between man and wife, and between parents and
children.
(3). The regulation of the holding, transmission, and interchange
of property, and determination of its liabilities for debt or for
crime.
(4). The determination of contract rights between individuals.
(5). The definition and punishment of crime.
(6). The administration of justice in civil causes.
(7). The determination of the political duties, privileges, and
relations of citizens.
(8). Dealings of the state with foreign powers; the preservation of
the state from external danger or encroachment, and the advancement
of its intellectual interests.
_#II. Optional or Ministrant Functions.#_
(1). The regulation of trade and industry. Under this head we must
include the coinage of money, and the establishment of standard
weights and measures, laws against forestalling, engrossing, the
licensing of trades, etc., as well as the great matters of tariffs,
navigation laws, and the like.
(2). The regulation of labor.
(3). The maintenance of thoroughfares, including state management
of railways, and that great group of undertakings which we embrace
within the comprehensive terms 'Internal Improvements,' or 'The
Development of the Country.'
(4). The maintenance of postal and telegraph systems, which is very
similar in principle to (3).
(5). The manufacture and distribution of gas, the maintenance of
water-works, &c.
(6). Sanitation, including the regulation of trades for sanitary
purposes.
(7). Education.
(8). Care of the poor and incapable. (9). Care and cultivation of
forests and like matters, such as stocking of rivers with fish.
(10). Sumptuary laws, such as 'prohibition' laws.
Under this second head have been included by no means all of the
functions whose exercise by the government has been attempted or
proposed, but they show the principal ones, and serve to indicate the
nature of the optional field of governmental activity.
[Footnote 1: Wilson, _The State_, Section 1232.]