Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

virtue is there in Constitutional restrictions, in mere wax and paper, to withstand it? To deny to the great body of the people all share in the government, on suspicion that they may deprive others of their property; to rob them in advance of their rights; to look to a privileged order as the fountain and depositary of all power is to depart from the fundamental maxims, to destroy the chief beauty, the characteristic feature, indeed, of Republican Government."

In 1849, these words became true in Virginia as well in practice as in theory.

And generally throughout the Republic at this period there rested the strife between the mighty spirits of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, the one living in latter days in the stately steppings of Daniel Webster, and the other, passing strange for a Virginian to say, reincarnated in the tall form and furrowed brow and catholic spirit of Abraham Lincoln.

What has been the effect of universal suffrage upon the great living principles of our government? Whither has been the trend, upward or downward? Has it strengthened or pauperized the fundamental principles which we have been taught were the abiding glory of free government? How has it affected the relation of the citizen to the local government, to the town, to the city, to the State, and to the Union; the relation between the State and the National Government; and the relation between the classes composing this free government? These questions, while allowing no touch of

poetry or opportunity for the play of fancy, are vital, and their general principles alone can be here considered.

How has universal suffrage affected the principle of local self-government, for as one of the great living heads of my profession, Judge Dillon, well says, “and local self-government, it cannot be too often enforced, is the true and only solid basis of our free institutions"?

This is the first relation of the citizen to government, and it is the fundamental idea of our governmental life because it affects the immediate daily life of the citizen. This primary exercise of the rights of citizenship is so important that I will be pardoned for a little elementary discussion, for a free people should never become tired of contemplating the first steps of free institutions.

The borough-mote in Old England preserved and cultured the vital spark of Teutonic liberty. The borough bell was the living resonant signal as far as its piercing clang could reach, warning fierce baron and greedy churchman and grasping king that the Englishman held to his local rights, even if these rights required his blood.

This is the principle which has distinguished Old England from the other nations of the world, her resolute clinging to the primal principles of her government. In the borough alone was the right of free speech in open meeting. Here alone in all of the Kingdom was the right of self-government, and above all, here was the right of trial by one's peers. "Had Kebel been a

dweller within the borough," said the Burgesses, "he would have gotten his acquittal as our liberty is." Under Angevin and Saxon the local power of self-government was resolutely defended. Sometimes it was paid for in money, more often in blood; but at whatever price, it was gotten, despite conflict, bloody though it may have been, or price however high. Then as now the borough was the schoolhouse of liberty. Here were discussed, and often-times fiercely discussed, the first beginnings and principles of free government; for the settlement of these principles affected the immediate welfare of the community, and frequently the personal liberty of its inhabitants. "Let the City of London have all its old liberties and its free customs as well by land as water, besides this I will and grant, that all other cities, boroughs, and towns and ports have all of their liberties and free customs," rang the clarion note of the Great Charter. "They have given me four and twenty over kings," exclaimed John Lackland, as he gnashed his teeth in his anguish, but as usual he was mistaken in the people, for instead of twenty-four over kings, he had placed for all time the written guarantees of local government, the very germ of liberty, in the hands of all of his people.

More than five hundred years afterwards, in a new country, the American Revolution broke out, says De Tocqueville, and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people grew out of the township and took possession of the State.

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, suspending our own Legislatures, ran the indignant protest of the Declaration of Independence.

Here, then, for the first time, voluntarily, in the history of government, was there incorporated in the initiative life of a State, the full, free, and unqualified consent of the law-making power to the principle of local self-government. We have changed the borough and the town to the magisterial and school district, the town, the village, and the city, but have only transferred to our citizens the doctrine as well as the traditions of the grandest figure in the history of free government, the English borough-man. Sir, it seems to me that if I could make the stricken marble glow with living life, it would not speak in the image of stern Puritan or belted Virginian Cavalier, as typical of our political being, great though their lessons have been; but rather would I create as the chiefest figure of our civil life the English borough-man, holding in his strong and resolute hands, against all comers, the right of free speech, of free local government, and the right of trial by jury.

How, then, under the exercise of universal suffrage do we stand to-day in the evolution of local political government? The insistent demand of the citizen, following the English tradition, is for the free control of local matters, concerning the local interests of township, district, or county, as the years roll on, the demand is becoming more potent within their respective limita

tions that the local government must be uninterfered with and uncontrolled. Local self-government was never so potent in the history of civil government as it is to-day. In education, police, and fiscal affairs its principles have manifestly broadened and strengthened since the advent of universal suffrage. In every State, we see the citizen strengthening his local government by careful legislative enactment controlling the management of his local business. Universal suffrage has peculiarly intensified the desire for, and benefit of, local self-government, for the obvious reason that the local government deals not with the few great questions, but rather with the every-day small affairs of life in which the every-day small people, unlearned and learned, whether owning property or not, are directly interested. This growth of the desire for local self-government is well illustrated by the increasing legislation in all of the States, providing for the election of district and township officers rather than their appointment by a central body such as the County Court. This principle has vindicated the great and persistent contention of our English ancestry by its history in our Union, for local self-government, under universal suffrage, has increased its efficiency in promoting public good by decreasing taxation, increasing the educational facilities, and taking direct charge of and improving the police and fiscal affairs. Here do we behold the action of the people directly upon public affairs, untrammelled by political thought and uninter

« AnteriorContinuar »