James Wilford Garner

“ In some of the Continental States, particularly France, Germany, and Italy, the chief executive still has a large ordinance power which is not only used to fill in the details of legislative acts, but even to supplement them in some cases. ”

“ The ratio of representation varies greatly. In the Congress of the United States it is one representative to every 194,000 inhabitants, in the German Empire one to every 131,000, in Great Britain and Ireland (on an average) one to every 63,000, in France one to every 100,000, in Mexico one to every 40,000, and in Switzerland one to every 20,000. ”

“ At the end of the eighteenth century the political reformers on the European Continent looked to the institutions of England for their inspiration, so that during the course of the nineteenth century most of the countries of Continental Europe adopted written constitutions of government providing for legislative bodies, partially representative at least, and vested with the greater part of the legislative power and often modeled closely upon the English Parliament. ”

“ In all the countries of America and Europe where legislative bodies exist, except in some of the Balkan and Central American States, the bicameral system has been adopted as having substantial advantages over the old three-chambered bodies of estates, on the one hand, and the single-chambered legislatures on the other. ”

“ The qualifications for members of the lower houses do not now differ greatly in the various modern States of the world. In general they are male sex; mature age, sometimes twenty-one years, although it is twenty-five in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, and Prussia, and thirty in Italy ”

“ The principle of representation upon which the popular chambers rest is essentially the same almost everywhere, namely, apportionment according to the population, often with some regard to geographical division, and choice by district ticket, rather than the apportionment according to classes of voters and choice by general ticket. ”

“ In some countries, however, the power of the legislature is more or less restricted by what is known as the organic law of those countries. In ancient systems of government, legislatures were not well developed, though in Athens there was an assembly known as the Ecclesia, and in Rome there were various councils, which exercised many of the functions which belong to a modern legislature. ”

“ In the Holy Roman Empire, the Imperial Diet possessed a shadow of legislative authority. Of the mediæval legislatures, the English Parliament is of the most importance, because it was the only one to attain a complete development. ”