ome injustice for which the
ordinary machinery of the law could not provide, or for making such
allowances for extraordinary circumstances as the court could not
properly consider. In our country it is too often improperly used to
enable the worst criminals to escape due punishment, just because
it is a disagreeable duty to hang them. Such misplaced clemency is
pleasant for the murderers, but it makes life less secure for honest
men and women, and in the less civilized regions of our country it
encourages lynch law. 4. In all the states except Rhode Island,
Delaware, Ohio, and North Carolina, the governor has a veto upon the
acts of the legislature, as above explained; and in ordinary times
this power, which is not executive but legislative, is probably the
governor's most important and considerable power. In thirteen of
the states the governor can veto particular items in a bill for the
appropriation of public money, while at the same time he approves
the rest of the bill. This is a most important safeguard against
corruption, because where the governor does not have this power it is
possible to make appropriations for unworthy or scandalous purposes
along with appropriations for matters of absolute necessity, and then
to lump them all together in the same bill, so that the governor must
either accept the bad along with the good or reject the good along
with the bad. It is a great gain when the governor can select the
items and veto some while approving others. In such matters the
governor is often more honest and discreet than the legislature, if
for no other reason, because he is one man, and responsibility can be
fixed upon him more clearly than upon two or three hundred.

Such, in brief outline, is the framework of the American state
governments. But our account would be very incomplete without some
mention of three points, all of them especially characteristic of
the American state, and likely to be overlooked or misunderstood by
Europeans.

[Sidenote: In building the state, the local self-government was left
unimpaired.]
_First_, while we have rapidly built up one of the greatest
empires yet seen upon the earth, we have left our self-government
substantially unimpaired in the process. This is exemplified in
two ways: first, in the relationship of the state to its towns
and counties, and, secondly, in its relationship to the federal
government. Over the township and county governments the state
exercises a gen