Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 13

13. Is lynch law ever justifiable?

14. Ought those who resort to lynch law to be punished? If so, for what?

15. Compare the condition or government of a community where lynch law is resorted to with the condition or government of a community where it is unknown.

16. May the citizen who is not an officer of the law interfere (1) to stop the fighting of boys in the public streets, (2) to capture a thief who is plying his trade, (3) to defend a person who is brutally a.s.saulted? Is there anything like lynch law i.e. such interference? Where does the citizen's duty begin and end In such cases?

17. How came the United States to own the public domain or any part of it? (Consult my _Critical Period of Amer. Hist_., pp. 187-207.)

18. How does this domain get into the possession of individuals?

19. Is it right for the United States to give any part of it away? If right, under what conditions is it right? If wrong, under what conditions is It wrong?

20. What is the "homestead act" of the United States, and what is its object?

21. Can perfect squares of the same size be laid out with the range and towns.h.i.+p lines of the public surveys? Are all the sections of a towns.h.i.+p of the same size? Explain.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

Section 1. VARIOUS LOCAL SYSTEMS.--_J.H.V. Studies_, I., vi., Edward Ingle, _Parish Inst.i.tutions of Maryland_; I., vii., John Johnson, _Old Maryland Manors_; I., xii., B.J. Ramage, _Local Government and Free Schools in South Carolina_; III., v.-vii., L.

W. Wilhelm, _Local Inst.i.tutions of Maryland_; IV., i., Irving Elting, _Dutch Village Communities on the Hudson River_.

Section 2. SETTLEMENT OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.--_J. H. U. Studies_, III., i. H. B. Adams, _Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States_; IV., vii.-ix., Shoshuke Sato, _History of the Land Question in the United States_.

Section 3. THE REPRESENTATIVE TOWNs.h.i.+P-COUNTY SYSTEM.--_J H. U.

Studies_, I., iii., Albert Shaw, _Local Government in Illinois_; I., v., Edward Bemis, _Local Government in Michigan and the Northwest_; II., vii., Jesse Macy, _Inst.i.tutional Beginnings in a Western State (Iowa)_.

For farther ill.u.s.tration of one set of inst.i.tutions supervening upon another, see also V., v.-vi., J. G. Bourinot, _Local Government in Canada_; VIII., in., D. E. Spencer, _Local Government in Wisconsin_.

CHAPTER V.

THE CITY.

Section 1. _Direct and Indirect Government_.

[Sidenote: Summary of foregoing results.]

In the foregoing survey of local inst.i.tutions and their growth, we have had occasion to compare and sometimes to contrast two different methods of government as exemplified on the one hand in the towns.h.i.+p and on the other hand in the county. In the former we have direct government by a primary a.s.sembly,[1] the town-meeting; in the latter we have indirect government by a representative board. If the county board, as in colonial Virginia, perpetuates itself, or is appointed otherwise than by popular vote, it is not strictly a representative board, in the modern sense of the phrase; the government is a kind of oligarchy. If, as in colonial Pennsylvania, and in the United States generally to-day, the county board consists of officers elected by the people, the county government is a representative democracy. The towns.h.i.+p government, on the other hand, as exemplified in New England and in the northwestern states which have adopted it, is a pure democracy. The latter, as we have observed, has one signal advantage over all other kinds of government, in so far as it tends to make every man feel that the business of government is part of his own business, and that where he has a stake in the management of public affairs he has also a voice. When people have got into the habit of leaving local affairs to be managed by representative boards, their active interest in local affairs is liable to be somewhat weakened, as all energies in this world are weakened, from want of exercise. When some fit subject of complaint is brought up, the individual is too apt to feel that it is none of his business to furnish a remedy, let the proper officers look after it. He can vote at elections, which is a power; he can perhaps make a stir in the newspapers, which is also a power; but personal partic.i.p.ation in town-meeting is likewise a power, the necessary loss of which, as we pa.s.s to wider spheres of government, is unquestionably to be regretted.

[Footnote 1: A primary a.s.sembly is one in which the members attend of their own right, without having been elected to it; a representative a.s.sembly is composed of elected delegates.]

[Sidenote: Direct government impossible in a county.]

Nevertheless the loss is inevitable. A primary a.s.sembly of all the inhabitants of a county, for purposes of local government, is out of the question. There must be representative government, for this purpose the county system, an inheritance from the ancient English s.h.i.+re, has furnished the needful machinery. Our county government is near enough to the people to be kept in general from gross abuses of power. There are many points which can be much better decided in small representative bodies than in large miscellaneous meetings. The responsibility of our local boards has been fairly well preserved. The county system has had no mean share in keeping alive the spirit of local independence and self-government among our people. As regards efficiency of administration, it has achieved commendable success, except in the matter of rural highways; and if our roads are worse than those of any other civilized country, that is due not so much to imperfect administrative methods as to other causes,--such as the spa.r.s.eness of population, the fierce extremes of suns.h.i.+ne and frost, and the fact that since this huge country began to be reclaimed from the wilderness, the average voter, who has not travelled in Europe, knows no more about good roads than he knows about the temples of Paestum or the pictures of Tintoretto, and therefore does not realize what demands he may reasonably make.

This last consideration applies in some degree, no doubt, to the ill-paved and filthy streets which are the first things to arrest one's attention in most of our great cities. It is time for us now to consider briefly our general system of city government, in its origin and in some of its most important features.

[Sidenote: The Boston town-meeting in 1820.]

Representative government in counties is necessitated by the extent of territory covered; in cities it is necessitated by the mult.i.tude of people. When the town comes to have a very large population, it becomes physically impossible to have town-meetings. No way could be devised by which all the taxpayers of the city of New York could be a.s.sembled for discussion. In 1820 the population of Boston was about 40,000, of whom rather more than 7,000 were voters qualified to attend the town-meetings. Consequently when a town-meeting was held on any exciting subject in Faneuil Hall, those only who obtained places near the moderator could even hear the discussion. A few busy or interested individuals easily obtained the management of the most important affairs in an a.s.sembly in which the greater number could have neither voice nor hearing. When the subject was not generally exciting, town-meetings were usually composed of the selectmen, the town officers, and thirty or forty inhabitants. Those who thus came were for the most part drawn to it from some official duty or private interest, which, when performed or attained, they generally troubled themselves but little, or not at all, about the other business of the meeting.[2]

[Footnote 2: Quincy's _Munic.i.p.al History of Boston_, p. 28.]

Under these circ.u.mstances it was found necessary in 1822 to drop the town-meeting altogether and devise a new form of government for Boston. After various plans had been suggested and discussed, it was decided that the new government should be vested in a Mayor; a select council of eight persons to be called the Board of Aldermen; and a Common Council of forty-eight persons, four from each of twelve wards into which the city was to be divided. All these officials were to be elected by the people. At the same time the official name "Town of Boston" was changed to "City of Boston."

[Sidenote: Distinctions between towns and cities.]

There is more or less of history involved in these offices and designations, to which we may devote a few words of explanation. In New England local usage there is an ambiguity in the word "town."

As an official designation it means the inhabitants of a towns.h.i.+p considered as a community or corporate body. In common parlance it often means the patch of land const.i.tuting the towns.h.i.+p on the map, as when we say that Squire Brown's elm is "the biggest tree in town." But it still oftener means a collection of streets, houses, and families too large to be called a village, but without the munic.i.p.al government that characterizes a city. Sometimes it is used _par excellence_ for a city, as when an inhabitant of Cambridge, itself a large suburban city, speaks of going to Boston as going "into town." But such cases are of course mere survivals from the time when the suburb was a village. In American usage generally the town is something between village and city, a kind of inferior or incomplete city. The image which it calls up in the mind is of something urban and not rural. This agrees substantially with the usage in European history, where "town" ordinarily means a walled town or city as contrasted with a village. In England the word is used either in this general sense, or more specifically as signifying an inferior city, as in America.

But the thing which the town lacks, as compared with the complete city, is very different in America from what it is in England. In America it is munic.i.p.al government--with mayor, aldermen, and common council--which must be added to the town in order to make it a city.

In England the town may (and usually does) have this munic.i.p.al government; but it is not distinguished by the Latin name "city"

unless it has a cathedral and a bishop. Or in other words the English city is, or has been, the capital of a diocese. Other towns in England are distinguished as "boroughs," an old Teutonic word which was originally applied to towns as _fortified_ places.[3] The voting inhabitants of an English city are called "citizens;" those of a borough are called "burgesses." Thus the official corporate designation of Cambridge is "the mayor, aldermen, and _burgesses_ of Cambridge;" but Oxford is the seat of a bishopric, and its corporate designation is "the mayor, aldermen, and _citizens_ of Oxford."

[Footnote 3: The word appears in many town names, such as _Edinburgh, Scarborough, Canterbury, Bury St. Edmunds_; and on the Continent, as _Hamburg, Cherbourg, Burgos_, etc. In Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, the name "borough" is applied to a certain cla.s.s of munic.i.p.alities with some of the powers of cities.]

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What is the essential difference between towns.h.i.+p government and county government?

2. What is the distinct advantage of the former?

3. Why is direct government impossible in the county?

4. Speak of the degree of efficiency in county government.

5. Why is direct government impossible in a city?

6. What difficulties in direct government were experienced in Boston in 1820 and many years preceding?

7. What remedy for these difficulties was adopted?

8. Show how the word "town" is used to indicate

a. The land of a towns.h.i.+p.

b. A somewhat large collection of streets, houses, and families.

c. And even, in some instances, a city.

9. What is the town commonly understood to be in American usage?

10. What is the difference in the United States between a town and a city?

11. What is the difference in England between a town and a city?

12. Distinguish between citizens and burgesses in England.