Councillor of State

“ We want the wise State councillors who, under the Emperor, reflected on the laws, and a legislative body elected by the intelligence of the country as well as by the land-owners, whose only function would be to oppose bad legislation and capricious wars. ”

“ But a body of councillors, are never without some other authority, either of judicature, or of immediate administration: as in a monarchy, they represent the monarch, in delivering his commands to the public ministers: in a democracy, the council, or senate propounds the result of their deliberations to the people, as a council; but when 232they appoint judges, or hear causes, or give audience to ambassadors, it is in the quality of a minister of the people: and in an aristocracy, the council of state is the sovereign assembly itself; and gives counsel to none but themselves. ”

“ It shall have the power to adopt any and every measure it may deem necessary to secure the success of the organization; provided that nothing shall be done by the said national council in violation of the constitution; and provided further, that in all political matters, its members may be instructed by the state councils, and if so instructed, shall carry out such instructions of the state councils which they represent until overruled by a majority of the national council. ”

“ The function of the representative body, needed under a system of direct legislation, is substantially that of a legislative and administrative council or commission. It should be an experienced body of legal, administrative, and financial experts, comparatively limited in numbers, and selected in a manner to make them solicitous of the interests of the whole state. They should be elected, consequently, from comparatively large districts, or, if possible, by the electorate of the whole state under some system of cumulative voting. ”

“ In the event of the President's death, incapacitation, or resignation, the Council is authorized to act as head of the state until the National Assembly shall have chosen a successor. As a cabinet the ministers formulate the fundamental policies of the Government and represent it in the chambers. The Council is administrative and is expressly recognized by law; the Cabinet is political and is not so recognized. In the meetings of the Council the President of the Republic not only sits, but presides; in those of the Cabinet he rarely even appears. ”

“ The third major organ at the national level, referred to in the constitution as the government, is the Council of Ministers, which is theoretically appointed by and responsible to the National Assembly but is actually responsible to the State Council. National policy decisions reach the grass roots level through the pyramidal system of people's councils. ”

“ Even among the zealous patrons of a Council of State the most irreconcilable variance is discovered, concerning the mode in which it ought to be constituted. The demand of one gentleman is, that the Council should consist of a small number to be appointed by the most numerous branch of the Legislature. ”

“ Local councils may annut or amend any decision, ordinance or measure taken by councils subordinate to their own authority which infringes the Constitution or the laws.
32.— (1) In their work the local councils are in direct contact with the population; they promote the active participation, initiative and control of the workers in the local exercise of State authority.
(2) The local councils must report on their work to the electors at least twice a year. ”

“ It shall have the power to form state, territorial, or district councils, and to grant dispensations for the formation of such bodies, when five subordinate councils shall have been put in operation in any state, territory, or district, and application made. ”

“ Others laboured to have the supreme authority to consist of an Assembly chosen by the People, and a Council of State to be chosen by that Assembly, to be vested with executive power, and accountable to that which should next succeed, at which time the power of the said Council should determine. ”

“ The provincial council was for the whole state; the district committee for the safety of each district, and the county and town committees for each county and town.
It was through the thought, loyalty and enduring bravery of the men who constituted these committees, that we of today have a constitution that gives us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—in whatever manner pleases us, so long as it does not trespass on another's well being.
We do not give half the honor we should to our ancestry, who have done so much for us! ”

“ Elective functions—Deputation—Elective councils.—There is a whole class of functionaries, if it be permitted to say so, who owe their origin to election, and who are the mandataries of the people, either in municipal councils, or in general councils, or in the great elective bodies of the State, the Senate and House of Representatives. (See Civil instruction.) The principle of the sovereignty of the people requires that for all its interests, communal, departmental or national, the country have a deliberative voice by means of its representatives. ”

“ The emperor is assisted in the discharge of his executive duties by a prime minister and nine department ministers; besides these he has the advice of a privy council, composed of elder statesmen, of which Marquis Ito is now the president.
Each state has what corresponds to our legislature, and each city has a council; both of these bodies are elective and to the city council is entrusted the selection of the mayor.
They have a judiciary, federal and local, appointed for life, but no jury system. ”

“ In the states, the elections are frequent, and the representatives numerous: they transact business in the midst of their constituents, and every man must be called upon to account for his conduct. In this state, the council of appointment are elected for one year. The proposed Constitution establishes a council of appointment who will be perpetual. Is there any comparison between the two governments in point of security? It is said that the governor of this state is always eligible ”

“ The President of the United States has no constitutional council, (a thing unknown in any safe and regular government.) He will therefore be unsupported by proper information and advice, and will generally be directed by minions and favorites; or he will become a tool to the Senate; or a council of state will grow out of the principal officers of the great departments—the worst and most dangerous of all ingredients for such a council, in a free country ”

“ At the same time, however, that both our Secretaries of State, many of our Privy Councillors, war Councillors, forest Councillors, and finance Councillors, are to be reckoned among the second class, still not one of these exalted individuals, who from their situations are necessarily in constant personal communication with the Sovereign, ever see that Sovereign except in his Cabinet and his Council-Chamber. ”

“ One object of the national executive, so far as it would have a negative on the laws, was to control the national legislature, so far as it might be infected with a similar propensity. Refer the appointment of the national executive to the state legislatures, and this controlling purpose may be defeated. The legislatures can and will act with some kind of regular plan, and will promote the appointment of a man who will not oppose himself to a favorite object. ”

“ He shall have no veto power or other control over legislation, and shall not make any suggestions or recommendations in regard thereto.
(b) His function shall be purely executive. He may select his own council or fellow commissioners for the different governmental departments, and they shall hold their positions at his pleasure. ”

“ This then novel application of the democratic principle, exemplified in the federal service by the spoils system, led, in the state and local governments, to the popular election for short terms of purely administrative officials. It is a curious fact that the state governments, which imitated the federal system in most respects, have always departed from it in one of its most important features—the centralization of the administrative service in the hands of the chief executive. ”

“ They would require closer attention at the moment of creation. The main matter is that each council would control its own affairs by the direct representation of all the people in the country engaged in its practical conduct. And these special interests would meet the direct representation of the Nation by Assembly in the Government of the day. ”

“ A Cabinet is a combining committee—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the State to the executive part of the State. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other. ”

“ As the legislative councilors are appointed for life, they control enormous patronage, recommending all appointments to government positions and meeting any applicants for office, who are outside the "family" ring, with the curt refusal that has become famous for its insolence, "no one but a gentleman." ”

“ And, Honorable Judges, the whole experience of government proves the absolute necessity for a separate legislative department. Look where you will, and in each case there is an executive cabinet, based upon appointment, untrammelled by the burdens of legislation, and subjected to the criticism and control of a reviewing body. In Europe, the city councils are elected by the people, and the administrative departments are made up through a process of selection and appointment, together with the assurance of reasonable permanence of tenure, responsibility, and adequate support. ”

“ The machinery of local administration is completed by councils of which the governor of a prefecture, the mayor of a town, [3] or the head-man of a county or district, is ex-officio president, and the councillors are partly elective, partly nominated by the Central Government. The councils may be said to stand in an executive position towards the local legislatures, namely, the assemblies, for the former give effect to the measures voted by the latter, take their place in case of emergency and consider questions submitted by them. ”

“ I have hitherto, my lords, confined myself to the consideration of one single article of this complicated charge, because it appears to me to be the only part of it necessary to be examined; for if once it be acknowledged that the affairs of the nation are transacted not by the minister but the administration, by the council in which every man that sits there has an equal voice and equal authority, the blame or praise of all the measures must be transferred from him to the council, and every man that has advised or concurred in them, will deserve the same censure or the same applause ”

“ But as the governor is to be invested with the executive power, with consent of council, I think he ought to have a negative upon the legislative. If he is annually elective, as he ought to be, he will always have so much reverence and affection for the people, their representatives and counsellors, that, although you give him an independent exercise of his judgment, he will seldom use it in opposition to the two houses, except in cases the public utility of which would be conspicuous ”

“ The councilors appointed by the Crown shall be appointed by special decrees, stating the qualification entitling the appointee to serve as councilor. Councilors thus appointed shall hold office for life. One-half the number of elective councilors shall be elected every five years, and the whole number shall be elected whenever the council of administration shall be dissolved by the Governor-General. ”

“ Councils are composed of mere human beings, liable to error and subject to be intimidated by a Governor-General. It is prudent, therefore, to demand that the decision of the council be confirmed by the Procureur, who is directly subordinated to the Minister of Justice. ”

“ It is to be hoped that, in these days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet, consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent when it is of the Cabinet—a difference of less moment than it sounds, seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but listen to what is going to be done. ”

“ We have seen the times, when the majority of a council by their words and actions have seemed to think themselves obliged to comply with every thing proposed by the chair, and to have no rule of conduct but a governor's will and pleasure. ”

“ the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity—municipal, State, and Federal; ”

“ There are the representatives of all the great sections of the community, of the Church, of the law, of the Peerage, of the Commons. The exclusion of one half of the counsellors from office under the Crown, an exclusion which is quite absurd when we consider the Council merely as an executive board, becomes at once perfectly reasonable when we consider the Council as a body intended to restrain the Crown as well as to exercise the powers of the Crown, to perform some of the functions of a Parliament as well as the functions of a Cabinet. ”