The Fundamentals of American Government

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: terially affect the general preponderance of English-speaking people; and at the time of the Revolution all the colonies which joined in forming the new nation were subject to the English government. The United States, therefore, became essentially another English nation, in which the English language was...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: terially affect the general preponderance of English-speaking people; and at the time of the Revolution all the colonies which joined in forming the new nation were subject to the English government. The United States, therefore, became essentially another English nation, in which the English language was generally used, and by a custom, general if not universal, constitutions, laws, public documents, and records are required to be in the English language. English is therefore the national language; and while it may not always be easy for older persons to learn to speak the language readily, the necessity of being able to speak it has been imposed by law upon a foreigner who wishes to be naturalized. The naturalization law of 19o6 declares the general rule, subject to some exceptions, that an applicant for naturalization must be able to speak the English language. As a foreigner is required to live here five years before he can be naturalized, the law assumes that he will spend some part of this time in learning to speak the English language as a part of his preparation to become a citizen. THE STATES. The American Nation is composed of states united under one central government. Each state is in its local affairs independent of other states, and in most respects independent of the general government. Each of the thirteen states from which the Union was formed was, prior to the Revolution of 1776, a colony or province under the dominion of the British government. Each colony had a local government partly dependent on the Crown, and partly independent. The boundaries of the colonies were reasonably well defined, and each colony was substantially an independent community. Colonies frequently treated with each other as if they were neighboring states, and they possessed, ...