449
UNITED STATES.
(United States of Amkrica.) Constitution and Government.
The Declaration of Independence of the thirteen States of which the American Union then consisted was adopted by Congress July 4, 1776. On November 30, 1782, Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, and on September 3, 1783, the treaty of peace was con- cluded.
The form of 'government of the United States is based on the Constitution of Sept. 17, 1787, to which ten amendments were added Dec 15, 1791 ; an eleventh amendment, Jan. 8, 1798 ; a twelfth amendment, Sep" 1804 ; a thirteenth amendment, Dec. 18, 1865(slaveryabolished); a fourteenth amendment, July 28, 1868 ; a fifteenth amendment, March 30, 1870 (equal rights for white and coloured citizens) ; a sixteenth amendment, February 25, 1913 (income tax authorised) ; a seventeenth amendment. May 31, 1913 ; an eighteenth amendment, January 29, 1919 (liquor prohibition amendment); and a nineteenth amendment, August 26, 1920 (woman suffrage).
By the Constitution, the government of the nation is entrusted to three separate authorities, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. The executive power is vested in a President, who holds hi3 office during the term of four years, and is elected, together with a Vice-President chosen for the same term, in the mode prescribed as follows : — ' Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress : but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.' The practice is that in every State the electors allotted to the State are chosen by direct vote of the citizens on a general ticket, on the system known in France as acrulin de liste. The Constitution enacts that ' the Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States ' ; and further, that ' no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President ; neither shall any ]»erson be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States'.
The quadrennial election is held every fourth (leap) year. Electors are chosen in the several States on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November ; the electors meet and give their votes at their respective State capitals on the second Monday in January next following their appointment ; and the votes of the electors of all the States are opened and counted in the presence of both Houses of Congress on the second Wednesday in February. The presidential term begins on March 4, in the year following leap years.
The President is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and of the militia in the service of the Union. The Vice-President is ex-officlo President uf the Senate ; and in the case of the death or resignation of the President, he becomes the President for the remainder of the term.
President of the United States. — Warren Gamaliel Harding, of Ohio, born near Blooming Grove, Morrow County, in Ohio, November 2, 1865 ; educated
