EXEMPTIONS. — Many of the states have passed what are termed exemption laws, specifying certain kinds of property which shall not be deemed taxable. In levying taxes, therefore, the assessors make up their lists from taxable property only. In general, the states exempt from taxation some portion of one's personal property, particularly the tools and utensils of laborers. In most states institutions of learning and charitable institutions are exempt from taxation. In some states church property, like meeting-houses and parsonages, are exempt from taxation. It will readily be seen that a very large part of the taxes must be collected from real estate. Whenever the town collector is charged with collecting the state tax and county tax, as well as the town tax, these three sums, which are to be found on three separate tax lists, are to be added together, and the collector receives from the tax-payer the amount needed to pay the town expenses, the proper share of the county expenses, and a relative portion of the state expenses. As a matter of fact, the state tax, in our country, is usually much less than the town tax or the county tax.

CHAPTER V.

TOWN, STATE, AND NATION.

WE have considered, very briefly, certain fundamental facts and customs concerning our town or city governments. Towns, cities, and incorporated villages and buroughs are called municipalities. Their government is distinguished by the name municipal government.

A collection of towns forms a county. A collection of counties is included in a state. Our union of states forms a national or federal government. We have considered the municipal government first for the following reasons in the first place, you are all more or less acquainted with the government of the town or city in which you live, and therefore that would be the natural starting-point. In the next place, the individual citizen comes more directly in contact with the government of the town than of the state or nation.

CONTACT WITH GOVERNMENT. - We have seen that the municipal government touches us first of all by way of taxation, then in connection with the schools and highways, the police or constables, the surveyor of lumber, the measurer of wood, etc. We come in contact with the government of the county and the state less frequently. We vote for town officers, for school officers, for members of the legislature, and for governor. We record our deeds of real estate at the county seat. Our courts of justice are held in the counties.

With the national government the ordinary citizen

has but little to do. In common life we touch the national government almost entirely through the postoffice. The machinery of the national government reaches down to the towns scarcely in any other way than through the post-office; but in order properly to understand the whole subject of government, its relations to us as individuals, our relations and our responsibilities to it, we must consider the national government and the state governments as well as matters concerning the towns.

OUR GOVERNMENT PECULIAR. - Our government is a peculiar one. It has been called "a complicated machine." Our national constitution differs from any constitution ever before known in the world. Our government is not purely a republic, neither is it a league of states. Our American people constitute a nation with a republican government. It has a constitution clearly defining and limiting the powers and duties of the government. This constitution is the supreme law of the land. We have also state governments.

THE NATION AND THE STATE. The national constitution embraces under its authority all the people in every section of the entire country.

The state constitution must not be in opposition to the national constitution, but under that constitution it includes under its authority all the people in all sections of the state, and is the organic law for the state. If our government were merely a league of states, we could have no supreme national government. On the other hand, if it were a consolidated republic, the national constitution would be sufficient, and there could be no state constitutions.

In one view we are a single people, a nation, completely and absolutely, just as truly as France or England. Again, our national constitution recognizes the individual states with their powers and their separate constitutions. Each state is not a sovereign state, but has absolute authority within certain limits, yielding supremacy to the national government in all points covered by the national constitution.

ORIGIN OF THE States and thE NATION.-Originally there were thirteen states united in our national government. The nation did not precede the states, nor did the states precede the nation. Thirteen English colonies subject to the government of Great Britain complained to the mother country of certain grievances. In prosecuting these complaints, the colonies appointed delegates to an American Congress. The grievances were not abated. The delegates to the Continental Congress adopted what was called a "Declaration of Independence." By this declaration these thirteen colonies ceased to be colonies of the mother country, and became states at once, states of the American Republic, consisting of a union of these states. The republic with its national organization commenced July 4, 1776. The states ceased to be colonies and became states July 4, 1776. Then the nation began, then the life of the states as states commenced.

It will be necessary, therefore, in order to understand the nature of our national government, thus briefly outlined, to consider with some care the principal events of history which lead up to the beginning of this nation.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COLONIAL HISTORY.

AFTER the discovery of America by Columbus, the leading nations of Europe contended for the possession of the new world. Each claimed for itself, by right of discovery, sole right and title to vast sections of North America, along the coast of which their explorers and navigators had sailed.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS. In process of time settlements were made here and there along this coast. The French were the first settlers in Canada, and hence they claimed the entire valley of the St. Lawrence river. From Canada their explorers, particularly the priests of the Roman Catholic Church, pushed out westward, crossed the great lakes, floated down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and finally France took possession of the entire valley of the Mississippi river. The French, therefore, held these two great valleys.

At

SPANISH SETTLEMENTS.- Spain confined her operations to the warmer latitudes, made settlements and laid claim to Florida, Mexico, and Central America. one time it seemed as though the great contest for supremacy on this continent would be fought out between France and Spain, and that either one or the other would dominate the continent.

BRITISH COLONIES. - Great Britain sent over a few feeble colonists. These settled, at first, in Virginia and