Government
The United States Congress, in the Ratification Act of 1929, provided that until the Congress shall provide for the Government of the islands of American Samoa all civil, judicial, and military powers shall be vested in such person or persons and exercised in such manner as the President of the United States shall direct. In Executive Order 10264, the President of the United States directed that the Secretary of the Interior should take care for the administration of civil government in American Samoa. The Secretary promulgated the Constitution of American Samoa which was approved by a Constitutional Convention of the people of American Samoa and a majority of the voters of American Samoa voting at the 1966 election, and came into effect in 1967.
The government operates under a framework of a presidential representative democratic dependency, whereby the Governor of American Samoa is the head of government. Legislative power is vested in the American Samoa Fono. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of American Samoa
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts,—a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)