The American Commonwealth: Vol. 2: The State Governments by James Bryce

Author:James Bryce [Bryce, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politikwissenschaft
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-08-10T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XLVII. THE TERRITORIES

Of the 3,501,404 square miles which constitute the area of the United States, 2,582,535 are included within the bounds of the forty-four States whose government has been described in the last preceding chapters. The 918,869 square miles which remain fall into the three following divisions: —

Four organized Territories, viz.: — Sq. Miles.

Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma 359,600

Two unorganized Territories, viz.: —

Alaska 531,409

Indian Territory, west of Arkansas 31,400

The Federal District of Columbia 70

Of these the three latter may be dismissed in a word or two. The District of Columbia is a piece of land set apart to contain the city of Washington, which is the seat of the Federal government. It is governed by three commissioners appointed by the President, and has no local legislature nor municipal government, the only legislative authority being Congress.

Alaska (population in 1890, 31,795, of whom 4303 were whites and 23,274 Indians) and the Indian Territory are also under the direct authority of officers appointed by the President and of laws passed by Congress. Both are chiefly inhabited by Indian tribes, some of which, however, in the Indian Territory, and particularly the Cherokees, have made considerable progress in civilization. Neither region is likely for a long time to come to receive regular political institutions.

Until 1889, the Organized Territories, eight in number, formed a broad belt of country extending from Canada on the north to Mexico on the south, and separating the States of the Mississippi valley from those of the Pacific slope. In that year Congress passed Acts under which three of them, Dakota (which divided itself into North Dakota and South Dakota), Montana, and Washington became entitled to be admitted as States; while in 1890 two others (Idaho and Wyoming) were similarly permitted to become States. These have now (1892) enacted Constitutions and thereby organized themselves as States. They are the six States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. To the three remaining Territories one has been added by the carving out of Oklahoma, in 1890, from the Indian Territory. These four require some description, because they present an interesting form of autonomy or local self-government, differing from that which exists in the several States, and in some points more akin to that of the self-governing colonies of Great Britain. This form has in each Territory been created by Federal statutes, beginning with the great Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio, passed by the Congress of the Confederation in 1787. Since that year many Territories have been organized, by different statutes and on different plans, out of the western dominions of the United States, under the general power conferred upon Congress by the Federal Constitution (Art. iv. § 3): and all but the above-mentioned four have now become States. At first local legislative power was vested in the Governor and the judges; it is now exercised by an elective legislature. The present organization of the four that remain is in most respects identical; and in describing it I shall ignore minor differences.

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