Page:James Bryce American Commonwealth vol 1.djvu/356

334 department at Washington. The judgments of Federal courts are carried out by United States marshals, likewise dispersed over the country and supplied with a staff of assistants. This is a provision of the utmost importance, for it enables the central National government to keep its finger upon the people everywhere, and make its laws and the commands of its duly constituted authorities respected whether the State within whose territory it acts be heartily loyal or not, and whether the law which is being enforced be popular or obnoxious. The machinery of the National government ramifies over the whole Union as the nerves do over the human body, placing every point in direct connection with the central executive. The same is, of course, true of the army: but the army is so small and stationed in so few spots, mostly in the Far West where Indian raids are feared, that it scarcely comes into a view of the ordinary working of the system.

What happens if the authority of the National government is opposed, if, for instance, an execution levied in pursuance of a judgment of a Federal court is resisted, or Federal excisemen are impeded in the seizure of an illicit distillery?

Supposing the United States marshal or other Federal officer to be unable to overcome the physical force opposed to him, he may summon all good citizens to assist him, just as the sheriff may summon the posse comitatus. If this appeal proves insufficient, he must call upon the President, who may either order national troops to his aid or may require the militia of the State in which resistance is offered to overcome that resistance. Inferior Federal officers are not entitled to make requisitions for State force. The common law principle that all citizens are bound to assist the ministers of the law holds good in America as in England, but it is as true in the one country as in the other, that what is everybody's business is nobody's business. Practically, the Federal authorities are not resisted in the more orderly States and more civilized districts. In such regions, however, as the mountains of Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, and North Carolina the inland revenue officials find it very hard to enforce the excise laws, because the country is wild, concealment is easy among the woods and rocks, and the population sides with the smugglers. And in some of the western States