Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/565

506 Executive Department.—The executive department is primarily organized for the purpose of causing the statutes to be enforced. It is charged with the maintenance of peace and order in society, both in its internal affairs and in its external relations. It therefore consists, in its personnel, of the executive officers of the government, as presidents, governors, mayors, marshals, constables, and policemen, and in external affairs with the army and navy with all their multifarious personnel. Nowhere among civilized governments is the differentiation between the executive and the operative departments fully accomplished, though the distinction is well recognized.

Judicative Department.—This department of government is pretty well segregated or differentiated from the other departments which we have indicated. Two distinct branches of the judicative department are well recognized, the one branch com- posed of justices of the courts, the other composed of the advocates or attorneys of the courts, who practise before the justices in guiding the procedure, in marshaling the evidence, and in calling attention to the law and the principles of law which they deem of importance in deciding cases. This side of the court is employed in the support of the interest of the disputants, both parties being represented in this manner, while the justices of the court preside over the hearing and, sometimes with the aid of ancillary juries, render a decision. While the legislature is engaged in the consideration of the principles of justice as applied to the people at large, the courts are engaged in the application of these principles to cases which arise in dispute.

Having set forth the nature of the five departments of government and explained how they may be perfectly recognized and yet imperfectly differentiated in practice, it seems desirable to make some further comment in relation to the importance of complete differentiation in these functions. The founders of the government of the United States were deeply imbued with the doctrine that the legislative, executive, and judicative depart-