suffrage was placed upon a democratic basis, the state judiciary was organized on a less irresponsible plan and the appearance of political responsibility secured by applying the principle of direct election to every branch of the state government. The longer term of office established for the legislative and executive branches of the state government, however, together with the increase in the authority of the judiciary and the adoption of the system of checks and balances has upon the whole had the effect of making the state government less responsive to the electorate. As seen in preceding chapters, the framers of the Federal Constitution made use of the scheme of checks and balances for the purpose of limiting the power of the people. There is little evidence that they favored diffusion of authority except in so far as that authority rested upon a popular basis. Hence they carried the plan much farther in curtailing the power of the House of Representatives than a logical application of the doctrine would have justified, while at the same time giving more authority and power of independent action to the other branches of the general government than was consistent with their avowed, if not real, purpose. They gave to the executive and judicial branches of the general government power to control the administration of Federal laws. The enforcement of all laws and regulations of the general government, in so far as the President and Senate might desire to enforce them, was guaranteed through the power to appoint and remove those who were entrusted with their execution, while the right of appeal from a state to the Federal courts precluded the possibility of enforcing a state law deemed to exceed the proper limits of state authority. In the state governments on the other hand we find a high degree of administrative decentralization. The governor, unlike the President, was not given any adequate power to control those entrusted with the execution of state laws. A multitude of directly elected local officials are the agents of the state for this purpose. And since they reflect the sentiment of the various local interests to which they owe their election, it may and often does happen that a law to which those interests are opposed is rendered practically inoperative through the efforts of those local officials who are sworn to enforce it. The practical working of this system often gives to a local community an administrative veto on such general laws of the state as may be opposed to local sentiment. By this means the general executive authority of the state is weakened and its responsibility correspondingly diminished.