Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 14

Section 2. _Origin of English Boroughs and Cities_.

[Sidenote: "Chesters."]

[Sidenote: Coalescence of towns to fortified boroughs.]

What, then, was the origin of the English borough or city? In the days when Roman legions occupied for a long time certain military stations in Britain, their camps were apt to become centres of trade and thus to grow into cities. Such places were generally known as _casters_ or _chesters_, from the Latin _castra_, "camp," and there are many of them on the map of England to-day. But these were exceptional cases. As a rule the origin of the borough was as purely English as its name. We have seen that the town was originally the dwelling-place of a stationary clan, surrounded by palisades or by a dense quickset hedge.

Now where such small enclosed places were thinly scattered about they developed simply into villages. But where, through the development of trade or any other cause, a good many of them grew up close together within a narrow compa.s.s, they gradually coalesced into a kind of compound town; and with the greater population and greater wealth, there was naturally more elaborate and permanent fortification than that of the palisaded village. There were ma.s.sive walls and frowning turrets, and the place came to be called a fortress or "borough." The borough, then, was simply several towns.h.i.+ps packed tightly together; a hundred smaller in extent and thicker in population than other hundreds.[4]

[Footnote 4: Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, vol. v. p. 466. For a description of the _hundred_, see above, pp. 75-80.]

[Sidenote: The borough as a hundred.]

From this compact and composite character of the borough came several important results. We have seen that the hundred was the smallest area for the administration of justice. The towns.h.i.+p was in many respects self-governing, but it did not have its court, any more than the New England towns.h.i.+p of the present day has its court. The lowest court was that of the hundred, but as the borough was equivalent to a hundred it soon came to have its own court. And although much obscurity still surrounds the early history of munic.i.p.al government in England, it is probable that this court was a representative board, like any other hundred court, and that the relation of the borough to its const.i.tuent towns.h.i.+ps resembled the relation of the modern city to its const.i.tuent wards.

[Sidenote: The borough as a county.]

But now as certain boroughs grew larger and annexed outlying towns.h.i.+ps, or acquired adjacent territory which presently became covered with streets and houses, their const.i.tution became still more complex. The borough came to embrace several closely packed hundreds, and thus became a.n.a.logous to a s.h.i.+re. In this way it gained for itself a sheriff and the equivalent of a county court. For example, under the charter granted by Henry I. in 1101, London was expressly recognized as a county by itself. Its burgesses could elect their own chief magistrate, who was called the port-reeve, inasmuch as London is a seaport; in some other towns he was called the borough-reeve. He was at once the chief executive officer and the chief judge. The burgesses could also elect their sheriff, although in all rural counties Henry's father, William the Conqueror, had lately deprived the people of this privilege and appointed the sheriffs himself. London had its representative board, or council, which was the equivalent of a county court. Each ward, moreover, had its own representative board, which was the equivalent of a hundred court. Within the wards, or hundreds, the burgesses were grouped together in towns.h.i.+p, parish, or manor....

Into the civic organization of London, to whose special privileges all lesser cities were ever striving to attain, the elements of local administration embodied in the towns.h.i.+p, the hundred, and the s.h.i.+re thus entered as component parts.[5] Const.i.tutionally, therefore, London was a little world in itself, and in a less degree the same was true of other cities and boroughs which afterwards obtained the same kind of organization, as for example, York and Newcastle, Lincoln and Norwich, Southampton and Bristol.

[Footnote 5: Hannis Taylor, _Origin and Growth of the English Const.i.tution_, vol. i. p. 458.]

[Sidenote: The guilds.]

[Sidenote: mayor, aldermen, and common council.]

In such boroughs or cities all cla.s.ses of society were brought into close contact,--barons and knights, priests and monks, merchants and craftsmen, free labourers and serfs. But trades and manufactures, which always had so much to do with the growth of the city, acquired the chief power and the control of the government. From an early period tradesmen and artisans found it worth while to form themselves into guilds or brotherhoods, in order to protect their persons and property against insult and robbery at the hands of great lords and their lawless military retainers. Thus there came to be guilds, or "wors.h.i.+pful companies," of grocers, fishmongers, butchers, weavers, tailors, ironmongers, carpenters, saddlers, armourers, needle-makers, etc. In large towns there was a tendency among such trade guilds to combine in a "united brotherhood," or "town guild," and this organization at length acquired full control of the city government.

In London this process was completed in the course of the thirteenth century. To obtain the full privileges of citizens.h.i.+p one had to be enrolled in a guild. The guild hall became the city hall. The _aldermen_, or head men of sundry guilds, became the head men of the several wards. There was a representative board, or _common council_, elected by the citizens. The aldermen and common council held their meetings in the Guildhall, and over these meetings presided the chief magistrate, or port-reeve, who by this time, in accordance with the fas.h.i.+on then prevailing, had a.s.sumed the French t.i.tle of _mayor_. As London had come to be a little world in itself, so this city government reproduced on a small scale the national government; the mayor answering to the king, the aristocratic board of aldermen to the House of Lords, and the democratic common council to the House of Commons. A still more suggestive comparison, perhaps, would be between the aldermen and our federal Senate, since the aldermen represented wards, while the common council represented the citizens.

[Sidenote: The city of London.]

The const.i.tution thus perfected in the city of London[6] six hundred years ago has remained to this day without essential change. The voters are enrolled members of companies which represent the ancient guilds.

Each year they choose one of the aldermen to be lord mayor. Within the city he has precedence next to the sovereign and before the royal family; elsewhere he ranks as an earl, thus indicating the equivalence of the city to a county, and with like significance he is lord lieutenant of the city and justice of the peace. The twenty-six aldermen, one for each ward, are elected by the people, such as are ent.i.tled to vote for members of parliament; they are justices of the peace. The common councilmen, 206 in number, are also elected by the people, and their legislative power within the city is practically supreme; parliament does not think of overruling it. And the city government thus const.i.tuted is one of the most clean-handed and efficient in the world.[7]

[Footnote 6: The city of London extends east and west from the Tower to Temple Bar, and north and south from Finsbury to the Thames, with a population of not more than 100,000, and is but a small part of the enormous metropolitan area now known as London, which is a circle of twelve miles radius in every direction from its centre at Charing Cross, with a population of more than 5,000,000. This vast area is an agglomeration of many parishes, manors, etc., and has no munic.i.p.al government in common.]

[Footnote 7: Loftie, _History of London _, vol. i. p. 446]

[Sidenote: English cities, the bulwarks of liberty.]

The development of other English cities and boroughs was so far like that of London that merchant guilds generally obtained control, and government by mayor, aldermen, and common council came to be the prevailing type. Having also their own judges and sheriffs, and not being obliged to go outside of their own walls to obtain justice, to enforce contracts and punish crime, their efficiency as independent self-governing bodies was great, and in many a troubled time they served as staunch bulwarks of English liberty. The strength of their turreted walls was more than supplemented by the length of their purses, and such immunity from the encroachments of lords and king as they could not otherwise win, they contrived to buy. Arbitrary taxation they generally escaped by compounding with the royal exchequer in a fixed sum or quit-rent, known as the _firma burgi_. We have observed the especial privilege which Henry I.

confirmed to London, of electing its own sheriff. London had been prompt in recognizing his t.i.tle to the crown, and such support, in days when the succession was not well regulated, no prudent king could afford to pa.s.s by without some substantial acknowledgment. It was never safe for any king to trespa.s.s upon the liberties of London, and through the worst times that city has remained a true republic with liberal republican sentiments. If George III. could have been guided by the advice of London, as expressed by its great alderman Beckford, the American colonies would not have been driven into rebellion.

[Sidenote: Simon de Montfort and the cities.]

The most signal part played by the English boroughs and cities, in securing English freedom, dates from the thirteenth century, when the nation was vaguely struggling for representative government on a national scale, as a means of curbing the power of the crown. In that memorable struggle, the issue of which to some extent prefigured the shape that the government of the United States was to take five hundred years afterward, the cities and boroughs supported Simon de Montfort, the leader of the popular party and one of the foremost among the heroes and martyrs of English liberty. Accordingly on the morrow of his decisive victory at Lewes in 1264, when for the moment he stood master of England, as Cromwell stood four centuries later Simon called a parliament to settle the affairs of the kingdom, and to this parliament he invited, along with the lords who came by hereditary custom, not only two elected representatives from each rural county, but also two elected representatives from each city and borough. In this parliament, which met in 1265, the combination of rural with urban representatives brought all parts of England together in a grand representative body, the House of Commons, with interests in common; and thus the people presently gained power enough to defeat all attempts to establish irresponsible government, such as we call despotism, on the part of the crown.

[Sidenote: Oligarchical abuses in English cities (cir. 1500-1835).]

If we look at the later history of English cities and boroughs, it appears that, in spite of the splendid work which they did for the English people at large, they did not always succeed in preserving their own liberties unimpaired. London, indeed, has always maintained its character as a truly representative republic. But in many English cities, during the Tudor and Stuart periods, the mayor and aldermen contrived to dispense with popular election, and thus to become close corporations or self-perpetuating oligarchical bodies. There was a notable tendency toward this sort of irresponsible government in the reign of James I., and the Puritans who came to the sh.o.r.es of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay were inspired with a feeling of revolt against such methods. This doubtless lent an emphasis to the mood in which they proceeded to organize themselves into free self-governing towns.h.i.+ps.

The oligarchical abuses in English cities and boroughs remained until they were swept away by the great Munic.i.p.al Reform Act of 1835.

[Sidenote: Government of the city of New York (1686-1821).]

The first city governments established in America were framed in conscious imitation of the corresponding inst.i.tutions in England.

The oldest city government in the United States is that of New York.

Shortly after the town was taken from the Dutch in 1664, the new governor, Colonel Nichols, put an end to its Dutch form of government, and appointed a mayor, five aldermen, and a sheriff. These officers appointed inferior officers, such as constables, and little or nothing was left to popular election. But in 1686, under Governor Dongan, New York was regularly incorporated and chartered as a city. Its const.i.tution bore an especially close resemblance to that of Norwich, then the third city in England in size and importance. The city of New York was divided into six wards. The governing corporation consisted of the mayor, the recorder, the town-clerk, six aldermen, and six a.s.sistants. All the land not taken up by individual owners was granted as public land to the corporation, which in return paid into the British exchequer one beaver-skin yearly. This was a survival of the old quit-rent or _firma burgi_.[8] The city was made a county, and thus had its court, its sheriff and coroner, and its high constable. Other officers were the chamberlain or treasurer, seven inferior constables, a sergeant-at-arms, and a clerk of the market, who inspected weights and measures, and punished delinquencies in the use of them. The princ.i.p.al judge was the recorder, who, as we have just seen, was one of the corporation. The aldermen, a.s.sistants, and constables were elected annually by the people; but the mayor and sheriff were appointed by the governor. The recorder, town-clerk, and clerk of the market were to be appointed by the king, but in case the king neglected to act, these appointments also were made by the governor. The high constable was appointed by the mayor, the treasurer by the mayor, aldermen, and a.s.sistants, who seem to have answered to the ordinary common council. The mayor, recorder, and aldermen, without the a.s.sistants, were a judicial body, and held a weekly court of common pleas. When the a.s.sistants were added, the whole became a legislative body empowered to enact by-laws.

[Footnote 8: Jameson, "The Munic.i.p.al Government of New York," _Mag.

Amer. Hist_., vol. viii. p. 609.]

Although this charter granted very imperfect powers of self-government, the people contrived to live under it for a hundred and thirty-five years, until 1821. Before the Revolution their pet.i.tions succeeded in obtaining only a few unimportant amendments.[9]

When the British army captured the city in September, 1776, it was forthwith placed under martial law, and so remained until the army departed in November, 1783. During those seven years New York was not altogether a comfortable place in which to live. After 1783 the city government remained as before, except that the state of New York a.s.sumed the control formerly exercised by the British crown. Mayor and recorder, town-clerk and sheriff, were now appointed by a council of appointment consisting of the governor and four senators. This did not work well, and the const.i.tution of 1821 gave to the people the power of choosing their sheriff and town-clerk, while the mayor was to be elected by the common council. Nothing but the appointment of the recorder remained in the hands of the governor. Thus nearly forty years after the close of the War of Independence the city of New York acquired self-government as complete as that of the city of London.

In 1857, as we shall see, this self-government was greatly curtailed, with results more or less disastrous.

[Footnote 9: Especially in the so-called Montgomerie charter of 1730.]

[Sidenote: City government in Philadelphia (1701-1789).]

The next city governments to be organized in the American colonies, after that of New York, were those of Philadelphia, incorporated in 1701, and Annapolis, incorporated in 1708. These governments were framed after the wretched pattern then so common in England. In both the mayor, the recorder, the aldermen, and the common council const.i.tuted a close self-electing corporation. The resulting abuses were not so great as in England, probably because the cities were so small. But in course of time, especially in Philadelphia as it increased in population, the viciousness of the system was abundantly ill.u.s.trated. As the people could not elect the governing corporation or any of its members, they very naturally and reasonably distrusted it, and through the legislature they contrived so to limit its powers of taxation that it was really unable to keep the streets in repair, to light them at night, or to support an adequate police force. An attempt was made to supply such wants by creating divers independent boards of commissioners, one for paving and draining, another for street-lamps and watchmen, a third for town-pumps, and so on. In this way responsibility got so minutely parcelled out and scattered, and there was so much jealousy and wrangling between the different boards and the corporation, that the result was chaos. The public money was habitually wasted and occasionally embezzled, and there was general dissatisfaction. In 1789 the close corporation was abolished, and thereafter the aldermen and common council were elected by the citizens, the mayor was chosen by the aldermen out of their own number, and the recorder was appointed by the mayor and aldermen. Thus Philadelphia obtained a representative government.

[Sidenote: Traditions of good government lacking.]

These instances of New York and Philadelphia sufficiently ill.u.s.trate the beginnings of city government in the United States. In each case the system was copied from England at a time when city government in England was sadly demoralized. What was copied was not the free republic of London, with its n.o.ble traditions of civic honour and sagacious public spirit, but the imperfect republics or oligarchies into which the lesser English boroughs were sinking, amid the foul political intrigues and corruption which characterized the Stuart period. The government of American cities in our own time is admitted on all hands to be far from satisfactory. It is interesting to observe that the cities which had munic.i.p.al government before the Revolution, though they have always had their full share of able and high-minded citizens, do not possess even the tradition of good government. And the difficulty, in those colonial times, was plainly want of adequate self-government, want of responsibility on the part of the public servants toward their employers the people.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What was the origin of the _casters_ and _chesters_ that are found in England to-day?

2. Trace the development of the English borough until it became a kind of hundred.

3. Compare this borough, with the hundred in the administration of justice.

4. Trace the further development of the borough in cases in which it became a county.

5. Ill.u.s.trate this development with London, showing how the elements of the towns.h.i.+p, the hundred, and the s.h.i.+re government enter into its civic organization.

6. Explain the origin and the objects of the various guilds.

7. Speak of the "town guild" under the following heads:--

a. Its composition and power.

b. Its relation to citizens.h.i.+p.

c. Its place of meeting.

d. The aldermen.

e. The common council.

f. The chief magistrate.

8. Compare the government of London with that of Great Britain or of the United States.

9. Give some account of the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the councilmen of London.

10. Distinguish between London the city and London the metropolis.

11. Show how the English cities and boroughs became bulwarks of liberty by (1) their facilities for obtaining justice, (2) the strength of their walls, and (3) the length of their purses.

12. Contrast the power of London with that of the throne.

13. What notable advance in government was made under the leaders.h.i.+p of Simon de Montfort?