Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 10

TOWNs.h.i.+P AND COUNTY.

Section 1. _Various Local Systems_.

We have now completed our outline sketch of town and county government as ill.u.s.trated in New England on the one hand and in Virginia on the other. There are some important points in the early history of local government in other portions of the original thirteen states, to which we must next call attention; and then we shall be prepared to understand the manner in which our great western country has been organized under civil government. We must first say something about South Carolina and Maryland.

[Sidenote: Parishes in South Carolina.]

South Carolina was settled from half a century to a century later than Ma.s.sachusetts and Virginia, and by two distinct streams of immigration. The lowlands near the coast were settled by Englishmen and by French Huguenots, but the form of government was purely English. There were parishes, as in Virginia, but popular election played a greater part in them. The vestrymen were elected yearly by all the taxpayers of the parish. The minister was also elected by his people, and after 1719 each parish sent its representatives to the colonial legislature, though in a few instances two parishes were joined together for the purpose of choosing representatives. The system was thus more democratic than in Virginia; and in this connection it is worth while to observe that parochial libraries and free schools were established as early as 1712, much earlier than in Virginia.

[Sidenote: The back country]

During the first half of the eighteenth century a very different stream of immigration, coming mostly along the slope of the Alleghanies from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and consisting in great part of Germans, Scotch Highlanders, and Scotch-Irish, peopled the upland western regions of South Carolina. For some time this territory had scarcely any civil organization. It was a kind of "wild West." There were as yet no counties in the colony. There was just one sheriff for the whole colony, who "held his office by patent from the crown." [1] A court sat in Charleston, but the arm of justice was hardly long enough to reach offenders in the mountains. "To punish a horse-thief or prosecute a debtor one was sometimes compelled to travel a distance of several hundred miles, and be subjected to all the dangers and delays incident to a wild country." When people cannot get justice in what in civilized countries is the regular way, they will get it in some irregular way. So these mountaineers began to form themselves into bands known as "regulators," quite like the "vigilance committees" formed for the same purposes in California a hundred years later. For thieves and murderers the "regulators" provided a speedy trial, and the nearest tree served as a gallows.

[Footnote 1: B. J. Ramage, in _Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies_, I., xii.]

[Sidenote: The district system.]

In order to put a stop to this lynch law, the legislature in 1768 divided the back country into districts, each with its sheriff and court-house, and the judges were sent on circuit through these districts. The upland region with its districts was thus very differently organized from the lowland region with its parishes, and the effect was for a while almost like dividing South Carolina into two states. At first the districts were not allowed to choose their own sheriffs, but in course of time they acquired this privilege. It was difficult to apportion the representation in the state legislature so as to balance evenly the districts in the west against the parishes in the east, and accordingly there was much dissatisfaction, especially in the west which did not get its fair share. In 1786 the capital was moved from Charleston to Columbia as a concession to the back country, and in 1808 a kind of compromise was effected, in such wise that the uplands secured a permanent majority in the house of representatives, while the lowlands retained control of the senate. The two sections had each its separate state treasurer, and this kind of double government lasted until the Civil War.

[Sidenote: The modern South Carolina county.]

At the close of the war "the parishes were abolished and the district system was extended to the low country." But soon afterward, by the new const.i.tution of 1868, the districts were abolished and the state was divided into 34 counties, each of which sends one senator to the state senate, while they send representatives in proportion to their population. In each county the people elect three county commissioners, a school commissioner, a sheriff, a judge of probate, a clerk, and a coroner. In one respect the South Carolina county is quite peculiar: it has no organization for judicial purposes. "The counties, like their inst.i.tutional predecessor the district, are grouped into judicial circuits, and a judge is elected by the legislature for each circuit. Trial justices are appointed by the governor for a term of two years."

[Sidenote: The counties are too large.]

This system, like the simple county system everywhere, is a representative system; the people take no direct part in the management of affairs. In one respect it seems obviously to need amendment. In states where county government has grown up naturally, after the Virginia fas.h.i.+on, the county is apt to be much smaller than in states where it is simply a district embracing several towns.h.i.+p governments. Thus the average size of a county in Ma.s.sachusetts is 557 square miles, and in Connecticut 594 square miles; but in Virginia it is only 383 and in Kentucky 307 square miles. In South Carolina, however, where the county did not grow up of itself, but has been enacted, so to speak, by a kind of afterthought, it has been made too large altogether. The average area of the county in South Carolina is about 1,000 square miles. Charleston County, more than 40 miles in length and not less than 35 in average width, is larger than the state of Rhode Island. Such an area is much too extensive for local self-government. Its different portions are too far apart to understand each other's local wants, or to act efficiently toward supplying them; and roads, bridges, and free schools suffer accordingly. An unsuccessful attempt has been made to reduce the size of the counties. But what seems perhaps more likely to happen is the practical division of the counties into school districts, and the gradual development of these school districts into something like self-governing towns.h.i.+ps. To this very interesting point we shall again have occasion to refer.

[Sidenote: The _hundred_ in Maryland.]

[Sidenote: Clans, brotherhoods, and tribes]

We come now to Maryland. The early history of local inst.i.tutions in this state is a fascinating subject of study. None of the American colonies had a more distinctive character of its own, or reproduced old English usages in a more curious fas.h.i.+on. There was much in colonial Maryland, with its lords of the manor, its bailiffs and seneschals, its courts baron and courts leet, to remind one of the England of the thirteenth century. But of these ancient inst.i.tutions, long since extinct, there is but one that needs to be mentioned in the present connection. In Maryland the earliest form of civil community was called, not a parish or towns.h.i.+p, but a _hundred_. This curious designation is often met with in English history, and the inst.i.tution which it describes, though now almost everywhere extinct, was once almost universal among men. It will be remembered that the oldest form of civil society, which is still to be found among some barbarous races, was that in which families were organized into clans and clans into tribes; and we saw that among our forefathers in England the dwelling-place of the clan became the towns.h.i.+p, and the home of the tribe became the s.h.i.+re or county. Now, in nearly all primitive societies that have been studied, we find a group that is larger than the clan but smaller than the tribe,--or, in other words, intermediate between clan and tribe. Scholars usually call this group by its Greek name, _phratry_ or "brotherhood", for it was known long ago that in ancient Greece clans were grouped into brotherhoods and brotherhoods into tribes. Among uncivilized people all over the world we find this kind of grouping. For example, a tribe of North American Indians is regularly made up of phratries, and the phratries are made up of clans; and, strange as it might at first seem, a good many half-understood features of early Greek and Roman society have had much light thrown upon them from the study of the usages of Cherokees and Mohawks.

Wherever men have been placed, the problem of forming civil society has been in its main outlines the same; and in its earlier stages it has been approached in pretty much the same way by all.

[Sidenote: The hundred court.]

The ancient Romans had the brotherhood, and called it a _curia_.

The Roman people were organized in clans, curies, and tribes. But for military purposes the curia was called a _century_, because it furnished a quota of one hundred men to the army. The word _century_ originally meant a company of a hundred men, and it was only by a figure of speech that it afterward came to mean a period of a hundred years. Now among all Germanic peoples, including the English, the brotherhood seems to have been called the hundred.

Our English forefathers seem to have been organized, like other barbarians, in clans, brotherhoods, and tribes; and the brotherhood was in some way connected with the furnis.h.i.+ng a hundred warriors to the host. In the tenth century we find England covered with small districts known as hundreds. Several towns.h.i.+ps together made a hundred, and several hundreds together made a s.h.i.+re. The hundred was chiefly notable as the smallest area for the administration of justice. The hundred court was a representative body, composed of the lords of lands or their stewards, with the reeve and four selected men and the parish priest from each towns.h.i.+p. There was a chief magistrate for the hundred, known originally as the hundredman, but after the Norman conquest as the high constable.

[Sidenote: Decay of the hundred.]

[Sidenote: Hundred meetings in Maryland]

By the thirteenth century the importance of the hundred had much diminished. The need for any such body, intermediate between towns.h.i.+p and county, ceased to be felt, and the functions of the hundred were gradually absorbed by the county. Almost everywhere in England, by the reign of Elizabeth, the hundred had fallen into decay. It is curious that its name and some of its peculiarities should have been brought to America, and should in one state have remained to the present day.

Some of the early settlements in Virginia were called hundreds, but they were practically nothing more than parishes, and the name soon became obsolete, except upon the map, where we still see, for example, Bermuda Hundred. But in Maryland the hundred flourished and became the political unit, like the towns.h.i.+p in New England. The hundred was the militia district, and the district for the a.s.sessment of taxes. In the earliest times it was also the representative district; delegates to the colonial legislature sat for hundreds. But in 1654 this was changed, and representatives were elected by counties. The officers of the Maryland hundred were the high constable, the commander of militia, the tobacco-viewer, the overseer of roads, and the a.s.sessor of taxes. The last-mentioned officer was elected by the people, the others were all appointed by the governor. The hundred had also its a.s.sembly of all the people, which was in many respects like the New England town-meeting. These hundred-meetings enacted by-laws, levied taxes, appointed committees, and often exhibited a vigorous political life. But after the Revolution they fell into disuse, and in 1824 the hundred became extinct in Maryland; its organization was swallowed up in that of the county.

[Sidenote: The hundred in Delaware]

[Sidenote: The levy court, or representative county a.s.sembly.]

In Delaware, however, the hundred remains to this day. There it is simply an imperfectly developed towns.h.i.+p, but its relations with the county, as they have stood with but little change since 1743, are very interesting. Each hundred used to choose its own a.s.sessor of taxes, and every year in the month of November the a.s.sessors from all the hundreds used to meet in the county court-house, along with three or more justices of the peace and eight grand jurors, and a.s.sess the taxes for the ensuing year. A month later they a.s.sembled again, to hear complaints from persons who considered themselves overtaxed; and having disposed of this business, they proceeded to appoint collectors, one for each hundred. This county a.s.sembly was known as the "court of levy and appeal," or more briefly as the levy court.

It appointed the county treasurer, the road commissioners, and the overseers of the poor. Since 1793 the levy court has been composed of special commissioners chosen by popular vote, but its essential character has not been altered. As a thoroughly representative body, it reminds one of the county courts of the Plantagenet period.

[Sidenote: The old Pennsylvania county.]

We next come to the great middle colonies, Pennsylvania and New York.

The most noteworthy feature of local government in Pennsylvania was the general election of county officers by popular vote. The county was the unit of representation in the colonial legislature, and on election days the people of the county elected at the same time their sheriffs, coroners, a.s.sessors, and county commissioners. In this respect Pennsylvania furnished a model which has been followed by most of the states since the Revolution, as regards the county governments.

It is also to be noted that before the Revolution, as Pennsylvania increased in population, the towns.h.i.+ps began to partic.i.p.ate in the work of government, each towns.h.i.+p choosing its overseers of the poor, highway surveyors, and inspectors of elections.[3]

[Footnote 3: Town-meetings were not quite unknown in Pennsylvania; see W. P. Holcomb, "Pennsylvania Boroughs," _J. H. U. Studies_, IV., iv.]

[Sidenote: Town-meetings in New York.]

[Sidenote: The county board of supervisors.]

New York had from the very beginning the rudiments of an excellent system of local self-government. The Dutch villages had their a.s.semblies, which under the English rule were developed into town-meetings, though with less ample powers than those of New England. The governing body of the New York town consisted of the constable and eight overseers, who answered in most respects to the selectmen of New England. Four of the overseers were elected each year in town-meeting, and one of the retiring overseers was at the same time elected constable. In course of time the elective offices came to include a.s.sessors and collectors, town clerk, highway surveyors, fence-viewers, pound-masters, and overseers of the poor. At first the town-meetings seem to have been held only for the election of officers, but they acquired to a limited extent the power of levying taxes and enacting by-laws. In 1703 a law was pa.s.sed requiring each town to elect yearly an officer to be known as the "supervisor," whose duty was "to compute, ascertain, examine, oversee, and allow the contingent, publick, and necessary charges" of the county.[4] For this purpose the supervisors met once a year at the county town. The principle was the same as that of the levy court in Delaware. This board of supervisors was a strictly representative government, and formed a strong contrast to the close corporation by which county affairs were administered in Virginia. The New York system is of especial interest, because it has powerfully influenced the development of local inst.i.tutions throughout the Northwest.

[Footnote 4: Howard, _Local Const. Hist_., i. 111.]

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. Describe the early local government of eastern South Carolina.

2. Describe the early local government of western South Carolina.

3. Explain the difference.

4. What effort was made in 1768 to put a stop to lynch law?

5. What difficulties arose from the attempted adjustment of 1768?

6. What compromises were made between the two sections down to the time of the Civil War?

7. What changes have been made in local government since the Civil War?

8. Mention a peculiarity of the South Carolina county.

9. Compare its size with that of counties in other states.

10. What disadvantage is due to this great size?

11. What was the earliest form of civil community in Maryland, and from what source did it come?

12. Trace the development of the hundred in accordance with the following outline:--

a. Intermediate groups between clans and tribes.

b. Ill.u.s.trations from Greece and the North American Indians.

c. The Roman century and the German hundred.

13. Describe the English hundred in the tenth century.

14. Describe the hundred court.

15. Describe the Maryland hundred and its decay.

16. What is the relation of the Delaware hundred to the county?

17. Describe the Delaware levy court.

18. What were the prominent features of the Pennsylvania county?