tion to this method of legislation as a means of avoiding certain evils of the representative system.
The last form of legislation to be mentioned in this connection is that enacted by municipal and quasi-municipal corporations (counties, townships, etc.). This class of legislation deals with matters chiefly of local concern, but partly of interest to the State at large, and is enacted as a result of special grant from the legislature. In Europe, as a rule, there is a more general grant of legislative power to the localities. In the municipalities (q.v.) the organ of legislation is a representative council, sometimes consisting of a single chamber, sometimes of two, the right of veto usually being given to the mayor. In the counties it is usually a small representative board of commissioners or supervisors; in the townships it is sometimes a popular assembly of the voters, sometimes a smaller body of trustees or commissioners.
Statutory legislation in the United States is from the standpoint of its territorial application classified as general, when it applies to the State as a whole, and special, when its application is restricted to a particular locality. The abuses which have arisen from the practice of special legislation have recently led to the incorporation of provisions in many State Constitutions to prohibit this form of legislation, but they have frequently been evaded by a system of municipal classification. See Municipality.
Viewed from the standpoint of time of operation, legislation may be either prospective or retroactive. Retroactive legislation unless for curative purposes is generally objectionable and is generally regarded with disfavor. Such legislation when applied to criminal matters, or when it is intended to impair the obligations of contracts, is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States. Looked at from its content legislation may be either substantive or remedial. Legislation of the former character creates and defines individual rights; of the latter, provides remedies and affords protection.
The methods and processes of legislation roughly fall into two general classes: (1) the cabinet method, and (2) the congressional or committee method. According to the first method, which prevails everywhere in Europe, except in Switzerland and Germany, and even to a limited extent in Germany, the great mass of legislation is formulated and initiated by responsible ministers who have seats in the Legislature and may at the same time be members of that body. Whether members or not, the ministers take part in the debates advocating the adoption of the public measures which they wish to have enacted into law, defending them from the attacks of the opposition and finally resigning when defeated upon any important measure. (See Cabinet.) According to the second method there is no ministry to formulate and expedite the passage of bills, but each individual member introduces such public or private bills as he chooses and relies upon the aid of his colleagues to secure their passage. This is the method in vogue in the Congress of the United States, and in the legislatures of the several States. (See United States, section on Government.) Here the chief agencies for expediting legislation are the committees, which play only a subordinate part in the European systems. Apart from this divergence in the method of initiating and expediting the enactment of public measures, there is a substantial consensus among the leading nations of the world as to the general principles of legislative organization and procedure. (See Legislature.) The constitutions of many States prescribe detailed rules in regard to the form in which projects of legislation shall be cast, their reference to committees, the number of readings through which they shall pass, the keeping of a journal, the recording of the ayes and nays in certain cases, reconsideration of the executive veto, and sometimes such matters as amendments, divisions, discipline, and petitions.
Consult: Amos, The Science of Politics (New York, 1883); Holland, The Elements of Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1882); Maine, Early Law and Custom (London, 1883); Burgess, Political Science and Constitutional Law (Boston, 1896); and Lowell, Governments and Parties in Continental Europe (2 vols., Boston, 1896).
LEGISLATURE. That body of citizens in any State or nation, or part thereof, which is specifically empowered to make, alter, and repeal the laws. In some countries, however, the power of the legislature is more or less restricted by what is known as the organic law of those countries. In ancient systems of government, legislatures were not well developed, though in Athens there was an assembly known as the Ecclesia, and in Rome there were various councils, which exercised many of the functions which belong to a modern legislature. In the later Roman Empire the chief source of legislation was the Emperor. In the Germanic tribes there were councils, which all freemen could attend, and these survived for a long time in some cases, as for example the Witenagemot (q.v.) among the Anglo-Saxons, though its powers, were curtailed. Likewise the origin of the Spanish Cortes has been traced to the early Middle Ages, but in general, legislative power ultimately rested during the Middle Ages in the King or the feudal noble. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Imperial Diet possessed a shadow of legislative authority. Of the mediæval legislatures, the English Parliament is of the most importance, because it was the only one to attain a complete development. It developed out of the Saxon Witenagemot and its successor the Norman Royal Council. Until the thirteenth century, however, it represented only the higher nobility and clergy and possessed little or no independent authority. During the reign of Henry III. members from the counties and towns representing the gentry and the burghers were admitted, and, in the struggles which followed over the arbitrary exactions of the King, Parliament, as the new body now came to be called, gained increasing power and finally took over from the King the greater part of the legislative authority hitherto exercised by him. It first asserted the right to raise taxes, then to specify the purposes for which they were to be expended, then to inquire into the abuses of the administration and impeach the King's responsible ministers for misconduct. Next it asserted the right to share with the King the law-making power, and to give its resolutions precedence in authority over royal ordinances, and finally it succeeded in establishing its right to freedom from interference from the royal authority and the right
