rder and providing for the protection of
persons and property from violence and robbery. (2). The fixing of
the legal relations between man and wife, and between parents and
children.

(3). The regulation of the holding, transmission, and interchange
of property, and determination of its liabilities for debt or for
crime.

(4). The determination of contract rights between individuals.

(5). The definition and punishment of crime.

(6). The administration of justice in civil causes.

(7). The determination of the political duties, privileges, and
relations of citizens.

(8). Dealings of the state with foreign powers; the preservation of
the state from external danger or encroachment, and the advancement
of its intellectual interests.

_#II. Optional or Ministrant Functions.#_

(1). The regulation of trade and industry. Under this head we must
include the coinage of money, and the establishment of standard
weights and measures, laws against forestalling, engrossing, the
licensing of trades, etc., as well as the great matters of tariffs,
navigation laws, and the like.

(2). The regulation of labor.

(3). The maintenance of thoroughfares, including state management
of railways, and that great group of undertakings which we embrace
within the comprehensive terms 'Internal Improvements,' or 'The
Development of the Country.'

(4). The maintenance of postal and telegraph systems, which is very
similar in principle to (3).

(5). The manufacture and distribution of gas, the maintenance of
water-works, &c.

(6). Sanitation, including the regulation of trades for sanitary
purposes.

(7). Education.

(8). Care of the poor and incapable. (9). Care and cultivation of
forests and like matters, such as stocking of rivers with fish.

(10). Sumptuary laws, such as 'prohibition' laws.

Under this second head have been included by no means all of the
functions whose exercise by the government has been attempted or
proposed, but they show the principal ones, and serve to indicate the
nature of the optional field of governmental activity.

[Footnote 1: Wilson, _The State_, Section 1232.]

CHAPTER IV.

Colonial Governments; Their Relation to Each Other, and to England.

To understand clearly the early history of our country; to appreciate