NET AND CABINET GOVERNMENT; EXECUTIVE).
All other Federal offices are filled by appoint ment, which is subject only to the restrictions and limitations of custom or Congressional en actments. Appointive offices may he held by women, minors or aliens. See APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE; TENURE OF OFFICE.
State.— The States quite effectively control their office-holders. The only stipulation in the Constitution as first adopted regarding State office-holders was that they should "be bound by oath or affirmation" to support the Consti tution (Art. VI, 3). The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments provided that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citi zens of the United States" and that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude? Hence any law enacted by a State which expressly de prives a negro citizen of the right to vote or to hold office would be unconstitutional, but the courts have upheld laws which indirectly dis qualify certain classes of negroes and therefore they cannot hold office. In the early State con stitutions are to be found numerous religious tests for office-holders. The man possessing moderate means might vote, but legislation was restricted to well-to-do Christians, and in some States none but a rich Christian could aspire to the governorship. In New Hampshire, New Jersey and South Carolina, no Hebrew, atheist or Roman Catholic could become governor and none but a Christian in Massachusetts, Dela ware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Caro lina. Maryland did not open public offices to Jews until 1826. 'In some New England States church members alone could vote, while the South Carolina constitution of 1778 extended the privilege to "every free white man, and no other person, who acknowledges the being of a God, and believes in a future state of re wards and punishments? The early constitu tions also required in many cases that office holders be ((Christians? or "of the Protestant religion? or should believe "in the Trinity and Inspiration of the Scriptures" (Delaware 1776), or should declare themselves "to be of the Christian religion" (Massachusetts 1780). In New York, Delaware, Maryland and Geor gia no priest nor minister of any creed could hold a civil office, though in Georgia the pro hibition is limited to the assembly. (Wiley, Edwin, and Rines, Irving E., (The United States,) Vol. V, pp. 98-99). Indeed, as Mc Master says: "The government set up by many a constitution, despite the principle announced in its preamble, was that of a class.
Nowhere, save in Vermont. did manhood suffrage exist. Elsewhere no man voted who did not pay a property tax. or rent a house. or own a specified of acres of land. or have a specified yearly income. Each one of the State constitutions guaranteed liberty of conscience; but the man who did not exercise that liberty of conscience in such wise as to become a Protestant or a Catholic, a trinitarian or believer in the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testa ments must give up all hope of political preferment. Even to such as could subscribe to creeds and doctrines. the way to public office was barred by property qualifications, which increased with the dignity of the office until it became abso lutely impossible for a poor man to become a candidate for the State senate or the governorship." (McMaster. J. B. ' Historyof the People of the United States,' Vol. V,p. 377).
Most of these requirements have been elim inated, though eight States still retain rem nants, among them being South Carolina, whose constitution of 1895 (Art. IV, § 3) provides that no one may be governor "who denies the existence of the Supreme Being? Property qualifications also have been eliminated gradu ally from the State constitutions. In our early history religious qualifications were not deemed sufficient; heavy property qualifications were added, especially for executive officers, for the governor must not only be pious but rich; the importance of the office determined the amount of property. According to the South Carolina constitution of 1775 governors and lieutenant governors "shall have in this State a settled plantation or freehold in their and each of their own right of the value of at least ten thousand pounds currency, clear of debt," while the estate of a senator must be valued at 12,000 currency and of a representative £3,500. The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 provided that senators must possess a freehold of the value of L300 or personal estate of at least must be possessed and continue to be possessed in fee simple or for life of a freehold of 100 acres of land; in Georgia he must own 250 acres of land or property worth f250. Usually the qualifications for membership in the upper house were the same as those for the lower house, save that values were twice as great. Some of the recent constitutions of the South ern States contain provisions regarding prop erty or payment of taxes incorporated with the object of excluding negroes from voting and holding office.