Presidio

“ But the idea of an officer implies the existence of an office which he holds. It would be a misapplication of terms to call one an 'officer' who holds no office, and a public office can exist only by force of law. ”

“ To be sure each country has its political parties, but the integrity of men in office is, I was informed, rarely if ever questioned. Positions such as secretary-general of the department of justice, which office carries with it in Holland and Belgium the administration of prisons and other correctional institutions, or that of the head of the Prussian prison system, or that of chairman of the prison commissioners of England or Scotland is practically a position of life tenure, during good behavior. ”

“ The duties of a presiding officer are of such a nature, and require him to possess so entirely and exclusively the confidence of the assembly, that, with certain exceptions, which will presently be mentioned, he is not allowed to exercise any other functions than those which properly belong to his office ”

“ But the official corps is dispersed throughout the country, in every town, village, and city, mixing with the people, attending their meetings and conventions, becoming chairmen and members of committees, and urging and stimulating partisans to active and vigorous exertion. Acting in concert, and, throughout the whole union, obeying orders issued from the centre, their influence, aided by executive patronage, by the post-office department, and all the vast other means of the executive, is almost irresistible. ”

“ The requisition of the public force within the interior of the realm belongs to the civil officers, according to the regulations determined by the legislative power.
11. If disorders disturb an entire department, the king, under the responsibility of his ministers, shall give the necessary orders for the execution of the laws and for the re-establishment of order, but subject to informing the legislative body thereof, if it is assembled, and of convoking it, if it is in recess.
12. The public force is essentially, obedient; no armed body can deliberate. ”

“ Moreover, in the revolutionary committees, at the Commune, in the offices of the Committee of General Safety, in the bureau of the Central Police, at the headquarters of the armed force, at the revolutionary Tribunal, the service to which they are compelled to do becomes daily more onerous and more repulsive. ”

“ Let it be considered, what makes a subordinate magistrate, whom we own as such; it must be only his commission from a superior power, otherwise we reject him; if one come to us of his own head, taking upon him the stile and office of a bailiff, sheriff or judge, and command our persons, demand our purses, or exact our oaths; we think we may deny him, not taking ourselves to owe him any subjection, not owning any bond of conscience to him; why? because he hath no lawful commission. ”

“ In modern usage the roles and regulations of clubs, learned societies, and other associations, are also called by-laws.]
[Sidenote: Power and responsibility.] In the selectmen and various special officers the town has an executive department; and here let us observe that, while these officials are kept strictly accountable to the people, they are entrusted with very considerable authority. Things are not so arranged that an officer can plead that he has failed in his duty from lack of power. There is ample power, joined with complete responsibility. ”

“ Now, that certain superior officers bear more or less responsibility for the conduct of their subordinates, that there are certain subordinate positions of a more confidential character than others and that therefore the superior officers must in such cases have the discretionary power to select their subordinates without being troubled by any civil service rules, is one of the well-worn stock arguments of the enemies of civil service reform. ”

“ To appear, and to be, all that a chief magistrate ought to appear, and to be, in the centre of his cabinet, what a mass of information, on a great variety of subjects—what tact, amid the details of the cabinet—must be required, which very few gentlemen, who have devoted themselves to the military profession, can be supposed to possess! If knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness ”

“ The service will become one of mere routine and of short and easy acquiescence in all except the most extraordinary cases which present an appearance of danger to the officer himself if he overlook them. Under such arrangements, the functions of the office degenerates into a highly prejudicial form, protracting the evil, by creating an impression from the fact of the existence of the office, that all has been done in the way of prevention or remedy that can be done by such an officer. ”

“ When you hear of a gouverneur, a lieutenant du Roi, a commandant, and an intendant of the same province, is, it not natural, is it not becoming, is it not necessary, for a stranger to inquire into their respective rights and privileges? And yet, I dare say, there are very few Englishmen who know the difference between the civil department of the Intendant, and the military powers of the others. ”

“ The governor, for the time being, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank of general officers; all general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress. ”

“ The Peers address themselves to the House, and not to the presiding officer, when they rise to speak; this officer has not the power to decide to whom the floor belongs, or to call a member to his seat; the House itself regulates all its internal police. ”

“ THE CLOAK
In the department of—but it is better not to mention the department. There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service. Each individual attached to them nowadays thinks all society insulted in his person. Quite recently a complaint was received from a justice of the peace, in which he plainly demonstrated that all the imperial institutions were going to the dogs, and that the Czar’s sacred name was being taken in vain ”

“ He is not an enlisted man, whose duty is largely that of blind and prompt obedience, but a citizen temporarily bearing arms for a specific and limited purpose.
The method of discovering and applying correct principles applicable to all bodies of men acting under authority to the police force; to do away with improper conditions; to reconcile discrepancies, and to establish the administration of the department upon a stable foundation, ought to be the work of a suitably constituted commission. ”

“ In the 50 departments a good deal of local self-government is enjoyed through the village communes and their public assemblies, but the imperial power as represented by the police and military is felt in all parts, while governors of departments have wide and ill-defined powers which admit of abuse. ”

“ The Constitution declares that 'the Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.' It is no doubt usual and proper to vest the appointment of inferior officers in that department of the government, executive or judicial, or in that particular executive department to which the duties of such officers appertain. ”

“ While the various undertakings engaged in are necessarily entrusted to competent men, the great responsibility attaching to the works rests upon the chief officer, the gaoler, under whose supervision operations are conducted, and this, with the management of the prison and its inmates, and, in addition, the duties entailed upon him as Probation Officer, and the vast correspondence connected with all the branches of his department, makes his office to be no sinecure. ”

“ Perhaps the officer, too, remembered that day when he had said that he would rather resign his office than receive such a prisoner into his care, when he had exhausted arguments and persuasions to induce him to submit to prison rules, and how, when at last he had felt obliged to hint at the employment of force, he had seen the strong man fall powerless before him. ”

“ And now we may proceed in order to speak of the election of other officers; for generals have to be elected, and these again must have their ministers, commanders, and colonels of horse, and commanders of brigades of foot, who would be more rightly called by their popular name of brigadiers. The guardians of the law shall propose as generals men who are natives of the city, and a selection from the candidates proposed shall be made by those who are or have been of the age for military service. ”

“ His field, his plantation, and his house shall not be given for his redemption.
33. If a governor or a prefect have a substitute,182 or for a royal expedition accept a mercenary as substitute and incorporate (him) , that governor or prefect shall be killed.
34. If a governor or a prefect take the property of an army-officer, ruin an army-officer, lend an army-officer for hire, grant an army-officer in a lawsuit to a magnate, take the gift which the king has given to an army-officer, that governor or prefect shall be killed. ”

“ A new governor-general had been appointed for the province, an event as every one knows that always throws the local officials into great perturbation: it is invariably followed by dismissals, reprimands, punishments, and the various official treats with which higher officers regale their subordinates. ”

“ The secretary, who was the first to rise in reply, even in refuting a part of his excuses, did him justice in other points, and treated him on the whole with great courtesy. Finally, it was the unanimous censure of the council, that the-456-
-vol ii- earl should abstain from exercising the functions of privy-councillor, earl marshal, or master of the ordnance; that he should return to his own house, and there remain a prisoner as before, till it should please her majesty to remit both this and all the other parts of the sentence. ”

“ Indeed, the value of the principle of concentrating power in the hands of a chief officer, under the name of governor, or of some equivalent term, is recognized by its adoption in large institutions of every sort in the country. ”

“ Ministerial offices are those which give the officer no power to judge of the matter to be done, and which require him to obey some superior, many of which are merely employments requiring neither a commission nor a warrant of appointment, as temporary clerks or messengers. ”

“ Those alone are magistrates whom the proper officers appoint by lot in the temple of Theseus, or the people elect by suffrage in their ordinary assemblies, such as generals of the army, commanders of the cavalry, and such like; all others are but commissioners who are but to execute a particular decree. ”

“ Every officer commanding a regiment, or corps, may appoint, for his own regiment or corps, courts-martial, to consist of three commissioned officers, for the trial and punishment of offences, not capital, and decide upon their sentences. For the same purpose all officers, commanding any of the garrisons, forts, barracks, or other places where the troops consist of different corps, may assemble courts-martial, to consist of three commissioned officers, and decide upon their sentences. ”

“ Each Chamber shall have the right of police within its interior, and in what relates to it, and that of punishing its own members; the whole according as the legislature shall determine.
The members of the Senate and of the Assembly cannot be arrested during the session, nor in the space of time fixed by the legislature before and after the session, except for crime. ”

“ Officers being removable only for cause to be tried, and officers appointed by one Administration holding through the term of another, we shall accustom ourselves to the practice of having men in office belonging to another party than that which controls the Administration. ”

“ Each executive department has certain public functions and duties, the performance of which is absolutely necessary to the existence of the government, but it may temporarily, at least, operate with seeming harshness upon individuals. ”

“ More effectually to secure their object, every governor was to select from his own council an efficient officer who should frequently make the circuit of the province and institute strict inquiries into the obedience shown by the inferior officers to these commands, and then transmit quarterly, to the capital an exact report of their visitation. ”

“ You will find that the control and manipulation of these forces are carried on by the various political officers, and it is through these departments that instructions come with regard to the movement of troops in any required direction for any specific purpose. In a word, the Houses of Parliament make laws and alter them as in their wisdom they determine; they appoint the officers controlling the executive departments and they have at their disposal the means of ensuring that these laws are carried into effect for the carrying on of society to-day. ”

“ The exercise of the appointing power is a task of much delicacy. The present constitution has entrusted it to the judgment and discretion of the Chief Magistrate. His object should be the selection of officers who will advance the comfort and prosperity of all, by a faithful, honest, and efficient discharge of their duty. ”

“ Accordingly in every department there is a series of authorities, starting with "other ranks" at the bottom, proceeding in an ascending scale of dignity and worth, and disappearing through a cloud of Generals into an infinite of which no man knoweth the nature. ”