9. Make a chart showing the organization of the courts in your state, the number of judges in each, and the general jurisdiction of each court. Topics for Debate 1. The commission plan of government, as it now exists in many cities, should be applied to the states. 2. The United States should not acquire any territory which cannot ultimately be admitted as a state. 3. Which is the better plan of choosing Supreme Court judges: (_a_) appointment for life by the governor (Massachusetts), or, (_b_) election every six years by the people (Illinois)? CHAPTER XIII THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION _The purpose of this chapter is to explain how the constitution was framed, how it has developed, and how it can be changed._ [Sidenote: _E pluribus unum._] =The Achievement of Union.=—The greatest achievement of the American people has been the welding of separate states into a single nation. To have brought into a permanent federation thirteen relatively small communities, containing less than four million people in all, may not seem to us to have been a remarkable feat. These thirteen communities had won their independence together in a common war; they were inhabited for the most part by people of the same race, speaking the same language, and accustomed to the same laws. Why should there have been any difficulty in getting them to form a union in order to provide for the common defence and promote the general welfare? Is not unification a natural process? Well, if the gathering of different states into a single permanent union is an easy matter, why did not the warring cities of Ancient Greece unite? Why did they persist in their disunion, and through disunion ultimately fall a prey to their common enemy? The whole of Attica was smaller than the single state of South Carolina. Why did not the various states of Central America, or of South America, form a union after they had won their independence from Spain? How different the history of these Latin-American countries would have been during the past hundred years if they had established a federal union like that of the United States! The forming of the American union was not an easy task. It was brought about by dint of hard work, patience, a rare display of public spirit on the part of the leaders in the several states, and the common sense of the masses of the people. If the men and women of 1787 had regarded themselves alone and given no thought to posterity; if they had placed the immediate interests of the individual states above the ultimate well-being of the whole; if they had allowed themselves to be moved by prejudice rather than by patriotism, the American union would not have been formed. [Sidenote: Obstacles in the way of union.]