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Constitution and Government (Form of government)

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, Sept 25, 1804; a thirteenth amendment, Dec. 18, 1865; a fourteenth amendment, July 28, 1868; and a fifteenth amendment, March 30, 1870.

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 his office during a 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 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 person 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 President is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and of the militia in the service of the Union. He has the power of a veto on all laws passed by Congress; but, notwithstanding his veto, any bill may become a law on its being afterwards passed by each House of Congress by a two-thirds vote. The Vice-President is ex-officio President of the Senate; and in case of the death or resignation of the President, he becomes the President for the remainder of the term. The elections for President and Vice-President are at present held in all the States on Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, every leap-year; and on the 4th of March fol lowing the new President-elect assumes office.

The President of the United States has an annual salary of 50,000 dollars, and the Vice-President 8,000 dollars.

Since the adoption of the Constitution the offices of President and Vice-President have been occupied as follows: *Stateman's Year Book, 1892.

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