The civil administration of the Federal Gov ernment of the United States is confided to a body of upward of 100.000 officials. These are all incinded within the eight general departments of the National Government—the Departments of State, Justice, Interior. War. Navy, Treasury, Post-Office, and Agriculture—and Congress. though sonic of these contain a large number and variety of bureaus dealing with a great diversity of interests not logically related to the main business of the department. As examples of this incongruity, it is only necessary to men tion the National Observatory, under the juris diction of the Navy Department, and the Na tional Library, under that of Congress. The President is the great source of power in the Arneriean Federal system, all the officers of the Government, excepting the Vice-President. the members of the two Houses of Congress, and the employi.s of the latter, owing their offices to his appointment.
The eurions identity of the governmental and administrative forms Nviiich have been adopted in the several States of the American Union is treated in.the article UNITED STATES, section on State Government. The result of this identity is, of course. a great similarity in the civil service of the States. In most of the States, the principal judicial officers and the heads of the great de pa•tments of administration, as well as the Gov ernor and Licutenant-Governor, are chosen by popular vote. Generally, each elective officer has the power to name his own subordinates, the Governor's appointing power being limited to his own clerks and secretaries and to the officials of certain bureaus or commissions, which do not come under the jurisdiction of the constitutional departments of administration. The restricted character of the functions of the States in our Federal system has thus far furnished no occa sion for an extensive civil service, and, accord ingly, the number of persons employed in that service in the State governments is very small compared with the number employed in the Federal service. Tice establishment of a State constabulary, or police system. or the assump tion by the Commonwealth of the ownership and operation of telegraphs, railroads, or other great industrial enterprises, would of course enor mously increase the civil service of the State.
In the modern city, on the other hand. by rea son of the great diversity and extent of the functions of municipal government in our day, the number of civil servants is very great, and tends constantly to increase. Not only the purely governmental operations of a city government, as the maintenance of a police force and efficient local tribunals; not only its quasi-governmental functions, as the regulation and administration of a system of public instruction, the cleaning of streets. and the removal of waste: not only its gigantic business enterprises, as in supplying its citizens with water and gas, and the building and operation of bridges. systems of transportation, etc.; but also its administration of the property interests eommitted to its charge, as the docks, parks, streets. etc., call for a vast and com plicated machinery of administration and an army of civil servants. American cities have
generally reproduced, with great fidelity and uniformity, the type of municipal government brought over by our earliest city-builders from England. The head of the administration is a mayor, elected by popular vote, and with him are usually chosen a treasurer, comptroller, or other financial officer, and sometimes other heads of departments. But generally the power of ap pointment vested in the mayor is a large one, and often it extends to the appointment of most if not all of the chiefs of the several administra tive departments of the local government. See CITY; MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
Local political divisions, such as count ies, towns, parishes, and schoM districts. present a greater diversity of governmental form and ad ministration; but in the United States the num ber of appointive officers in those divisions is small, and in a general view of the subject of civil service they do not call for special con sideration.
The method of appointment to the public ser viee and the tenure of the civil servant vary greatly in England, according to the historical character of the service: in the United States, according to the jurisdiction and the rank of the official. High otlieers of State are appointed in Great Britain by royal warrant : in the United States, by commission. In the former country the complexity of the service is great. many public officers deriving their status from long usage. and being attended with privileges and immunities of immemorial force. :\lany of them are for life, many have the personal quality associated with the feudal tenure of land, and some are heredi tary. Indeed, by the common law of England, public office was a species of real property, held by a tenure, like laud, and vesting in the in cumbent an estate, either for life or in fee. Even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, offices are enumerated by Blackstone in his clas sification of real property as one of the class of incorporeal hereditaments. (See OFFICE.) To day, however, most of the positions in the public service in England ainl all offices in the United States are, in law, regarded as held in trust for the public benefit: and though an appointment to office usually vests in the incumbent a certain definite right to perform its duties and enjoy its emoluments, it no longer entitles him to make merchandise of it, to alienate it, or to transmit it to his heirs. All public offices in the L nited States being of comparatively recent ori gin. and created by statute. there is much greater simplicity and uniformity in the mode of their creation and in the incidents of their tenure than in Great Britain. Comparatively few positions in the public service here are held by a life-tenure —the principal exceptions being high judicial positions iu the Federal service and in a few of the States. In many cases an office is held at the will of the appointing power, and by statute a large proportion of the positions in the Federal service are held by a four years' tenure. See TENURE-OF-OFFICE ACT.