. There is
always a state treasurer, and usually a state auditor or comptroller
to examine the public accounts and issue the warrants without which
the treasurer cannot pay out a penny of the state's money. There is
almost always an attorney-general, to appear for the state in the
supreme court in all cases in which the state is a party, and in
all prosecutions for capital offences. He also exercises some
superintendence over the district attorneys, and acts as legal adviser
to the governors and the legislature. There is also in many states
a superintendent of education; and in some there are boards of
education, of health, of lunacy and charity, bureau of agriculture,
commissioners of prisons, of railroads, of mines, of harbours, of
immigration, and so on. Sometimes such boards are appointed by the
governor, but such officers as the secretary of state, the treasurer,
auditor, and attorney-general are, in almost all the states, elected
by the people. They are not responsible to the governor, but to the
people who elect them. They are not subordinate to the governor, but
are rather his colleagues. Strictly speaking, the governor is not the
head of the executive department, but a member of it. The executive
department is parcelled out in several pieces, and his is one of the
pieces.

[Footnote 12: The state executive.]

[Sidenote: The governor's functions: 1. Advisor of legislature. 2.
Commander of state militia. 3. Royal prerogative of pardon. 4. Veto power.]
The ordinary functions of the governor are four in number. 1. He
sends a message to the legislature, at the beginning of each session,
recommending such measures as he would like to see embodied in
legislation. 2. He is commander-in-chief of the state militia, and as
such can assist the sheriff of a county in putting down a riot, or
the President of the United States, in the event of a war. On such
occasions the governor may become a personage of immense importance,
as, for example, in our Civil War, when President Lincoln's demands
for troops met with such prompt response from the men who will be
known to history as the great "war governors." 3. The governor is
invested with the royal prerogative of pardoning criminals, or
commuting the sentences pronounced upon them by the courts. This power
belongs to kings in accordance with the old feudal notion that the
king was the source or fountain of justice. When properly used it
affords an opportunity for rectifying s