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Building up

states

sently have to treat of county, state, and federal governments, all of them wider in their sphere than the town government. In the course of history, as nations have gradually been built up, these wider governments have been apt to absorb or supplant and crush the narrower governments, such as the parish or township; and this process has too often been destructive to political freedom. Such a result is, of course, disastrous to everybody; and if it were unavoidable, it would be better that great national governments need never be formed. But it is not unavoidable. There is one way of escaping it, and that is to give the little government of the town some real share in making up the great government of the state. That is not an easy thing to do, as is shown by the fact that most peoples have failed in the attempt. The people who speak the English language have been the most successful, and the device by which they have overcome the difficulty is REPRESENTATION. The town sends to tation the wider government a delegation of persons who can represent the town and its people. They can speak for the town, and have a voice in the framing of laws and imposition of taxes by the wider government.

Represen

In English townships there has been from time immemorial a system of representation. Long before Alfred's time there were "shire

Shire-motes

motes," or what were afterwards called county meetings, and to these each town sent its reeve and "four discreet men "as representatives. Thus to a certain extent the wishes of the townsfolk could be brought to bear upon county affairs. By and by this method was applied on a much wider scale. It was applied to the whole kingdom, so that the people of all its towns and parishes succeeded in securing a representation of their interests in an elective national council or House of Commons. This great work was accomplished in the thirteenth Earl Simon's century by Simon de Montfort, Earl Parliament of Leicester, and was completed by Edward I. Simon's Parliament, the first in which the Commons were fully represented, was assembled in 1265; and the date of Edward's Parliament, which has been called the Model Parliament, was 1295. These dates have as much interest for Americans as for Englishmen, because they mark the first definite establishment of that grand system of representative government which we are still carrying on at our various state capitals and at Washington. For its humble beginnings we have to look back to the reeve and four" sent by the ancient townships to the county meetings.

The English township or parish was thus at an early period the " unit of representation" in the government of the county. It was also a

Township as unit of representation

district for the assessment and collection of the national taxes; in each parish the assessment was made by a board of assessors chosen by popular vote. These essential points reappear in the early history of New England. The township was not only a self-governing body, but it was the “unit of representation" in the colonial legislature, or "General Court;" and the assessment of taxes, whether for town purposes or for state purposes, was made by assessors elected by the townsfolk. In its beginnings and fundamentals our political liberty did not originate upon American soil, but was brought hither by our forefathers the first settlers. They brought their political institutions with them as naturally as they brought their language and their social customs.

Observe now that the township is to be regarded in two lights. It must be considered not only in itself, but as part of a greater whole. We began by describing it as a self-governing body, but in order to complete our sketch we were obliged to speak of it as a body which has a share in the government of the state and the nation. The latter aspect is as important as the former. If the people of a town had only the power of managing their local affairs, without the power of taking part in the management of national affairs, their political freedom would be far from complete. In Russia, for example, the

called a

The Russian

village community; not the national

represented in

government

larger part of the vast population is resident in village communities which have to a considerable extent the power of managing their local affairs. Such a village community is mir, and like the English township it is lineally descended from the stationary clan. The people of the Russian mir hold meetings in which they elect sundry local officers, distribute the burden of local taxation, make regulations concerning local husbandry and police, and transact other business which need not here concern us. But they have no share in the national government, and are obliged to obey laws which they have no voice in making, and pay taxes assessed upon them without their consent; and accordingly we say with truth that the Russian people do not possess political freedom. One reason for this has doubtless been that in times past the Russian territory was the great frontier battleground between civilized Europe and the wild hordes of western Asia, and the people who lived for ages on that turbulent frontier were subjected to altogether too much conquest. They have tasted too little of civil government and too much of military government, - a pennyworth of wholesome bread to an intolerable deal of sack. The early English, in their snug little corner of the world, belted by salt sea, were able to develop their civil government with less

destructive interference. They made a sound and healthful beginning when they made the township the "unit of representation" for the county. Then the township, besides managing its own affairs, began to take part in the management of wider affairs.

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