Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 5

The officers of the parish were the constable, the parish and vestry clerks,[6] the beadle,[7] the "waywardens" or surveyors of highways, the "haywards" or fence-viewers, the "common drivers," the collectors of taxes, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century overseers of the poor were added. There were also churchwardens, usually two for each, parish. Their duties were primarily to take care of the church property, a.s.sess the rates, and call the vestry-meetings. They also acted as overseers of the poor, and thus in several ways remind one of the selectmen of New England. The parish officers were all elected by the ratepayers a.s.sembled in vestry-meeting, except the common driver and hayward, who were elected by the same ratepayers a.s.sembled in court leet. Besides electing parish officers and granting the rates, the vestry-meeting could enact by-laws; and all ratepayers had an equal voice in its deliberations.

[Footnote 6: Of these two officers the vestry clerk is the counterpart of the New England town-clerk.]

[Footnote 7: Originally a messenger or crier, the beadle came to a.s.sume some of the functions of the t.i.thing-man or petty constable, such as keeping order in church, punis.h.i.+ng petty offenders, waiting on the clergyman, etc. In New England towns there were formerly officers called t.i.thing-men, who kept order in church, arrested tipplers, loafers, and Sabbath-breakers, etc.]

[Sidenote: The transition from England to New England.]

During the last two centuries the const.i.tution of the English parish has undergone some modifications which need not here concern us. The Puritans who settled in New England had grown up under such parish government as is here described, and they were used to hearing the parish called, on some occasions and for some purposes, a towns.h.i.+p. If we remember now that the earliest New England towns were founded by church congregations, led by their pastors, we can see how town government in New England originated. It was simply the English parish government brought into a new country and adapted to the new situation. Part of this new situation consisted in the fact that the lords of the manor were left behind. There was no longer any occasion to distinguish between the towns.h.i.+p as a manor and the towns.h.i.+p as a parish; and so, as the three names had all lived on together, side by side, in England, it was now the oldest and most generally descriptive name, "towns.h.i.+p," that survived, and has come into use throughout a great part of the United States. The townsfolk went on making by-laws, voting supplies of public money, and electing their magistrates in America, after the fas.h.i.+on with which they had for ages been familiar in England. Some of their offices and customs were of h.o.a.ry antiquity.

If age gives respectability, the office of constable may vie with that of king; and if the annual town-meeting is usually held in the month of March, it is because in days of old, long before Magna Charta was thought of, the rules and regulations for the village husbandry were discussed and adopted in time for the spring planting.

[Sidenote: Building up states.]

To complete our sketch of the origin of the New England town, one point should here be briefly mentioned in antic.i.p.ation of what will have to be said hereafter; but it is a point of so much importance that we need not mind a little repet.i.tion in stating it.

[Sidenote: Representation.]

We have seen what a great part taxation plays in the business of government, and we shall presently 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 towns.h.i.+p; 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 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.

[Sidenote: s.h.i.+re-motes.]

[Sidenote: Earl Simon's Parliament.]

In English towns.h.i.+ps there has been from time immemorial a system of representation. Long before Alfred's time there were "s.h.i.+re-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 century by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and was completed by Edward I. Simon's parliament, the first in which the Commons were fully represented, was a.s.sembled 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. For its humble beginnings we have to look back to the "reeve and four" sent by the ancient towns.h.i.+ps to the county meetings.

[Sidenote: Towns.h.i.+p as unit of representation.]

The English towns.h.i.+p or parish was thus at an early period the "unit of representation" in the government of the county. It was also a district for the a.s.sessment and collection of the national taxes; in each parish the a.s.sessment was made by a board of a.s.sessors chosen by popular vote. These essential points reappear in the early history of New England. The towns.h.i.+p was not only a self-governing body, but it was the "unit of representation" in the colonial legislature, or "General Court;" and the a.s.sessment of taxes, whether for town purposes or for state purposes, was made by a.s.sessors 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 inst.i.tutions with them as naturally as they brought their language and their social customs.

[Sidenote: The Russian village community; not represented in the national government.]

Observe now that the towns.h.i.+p 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 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 called a _mir_, and like the English towns.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sessed 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 battle-ground 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 towns.h.i.+p the "unit of representation" for the county. Then the towns.h.i.+p, besides managing its own affairs, began to take part in the management of wider affairs.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.

1. Obtain the following doc.u.ments:--

a. A town warrant.

b. A town report.

c. A tax bill, a permit, a certificate, or any town paper that has or may have an official signature.

d. A report of the school committee.

If you live in a city, send to the clerk of a neighbouring town for a warrant, inclosing a stamp for the reply. City doc.u.ments will answer most of the purposes of this exercise.

Make any of the foregoing doc.u.ments the basis of a report.

2. Give an account of the following:--

a. The various kinds of taxes raised in your town, the amount of each kind, the valuation, the rate, the proposed use of the money, etc.

b. The work of any department of the town government for a year, as, for example, that of the overseers of the poor.

c. Any pressing need of your town, public sentiment towards it, the probable cost of satisfying it, the obstacles in the way of meeting it, etc.

3. A good way to arouse interest in the subject of town government is to organize the cla.s.s as a town-meeting, and let it discuss live local questions in accordance with articles in a warrant. For helpful details attend a town-meeting, read the record of some meeting, consult some person familiar with town proceedings, or study the General Statutes.

To insure a discussion, it may be necessary at the outset for the teacher to a.s.sign to the several pupils single points to be expanded and presented in order.

There is an advantage in the teacher's serving as moderator. He may, as teacher, pause to give such directions and explanations as may be helpful to young citizens.

The pupils should be held up to the more obvious requirements of parliamentary law, and shown how to use its rules to accomplish various purposes.

4. Has the state a right to direct the education of its youth? If the state has such a right, are there any limits to the exercise of it? Does the right to direct the education of its youth carry with it the right to abolish private schools?

5. Is it wise to a.s.sist private educational inst.i.tutions with public funds?

6. Ought teachers, if approved, to be appointed for one year only, or during good behaviour?

7. What cla.s.ses of officers in a town should serve during good behaviour? What cla.s.ses may be frequently changed without injury to the public?

8. Compare the school committee in your own state (if it is not Ma.s.sachusetts) with that in Ma.s.sachusetts.

9. Ill.u.s.trate from personal knowledge the difference between real estate and personal property.

10. A loans B $1000. May A be taxed for the $1000? Why? May B be taxed for the $1000? Why? Is it right to tax both for $1000? Suppose B with the money buys goods of C. Is it right to tax the three for $1000 each?

11. A taxpayer worth $100,000 in personal property makes no return to the a.s.sessors. In their ignorance the a.s.sessors tax him for $50,000 only, and the tax is paid without question. Does the taxpayer act honourably?

12. What difficulties beset the work of the a.s.sessors?

13. Would anything be gained by exempting personal property from taxation? If so, what? Would anything be lost? If so, what?

14. Does any one absolutely escape taxation?

15. Does the poll-tax payer pay, in any sense, more than his poll-tax?

16. Are there any taxes that people pay without seeming to know it? If so, what? (See below, chap. viii. section 8.).

17. Have we clans to-day among ourselves? (Think of family reunions, people of the same name in a community, descendants of early settlers, etc.). What important differences exist between these modern so-called clans and the ancient ones?

18. What is a "clannish" spirit? Is it a good spirit or a bad one? Is it ever the same as patriotism?

19. Look up the meaning of _ham_, _wick_, and _stead_. Think of towns whose names contain these words; also of towns whose names contain the word _tun_ or _ton_ or _town_.

20. Give an account of the t.i.thing-man in early New England.

21. In what sense is the word "parish" commonly used in the United States? Is the parish the same as the church? Has it any limits of territory?

22. In Ma.s.sachusetts, clergymen were formerly paid out of the taxes of the towns.h.i.+p. How did this come about? In this practice was there a union or a separation of church and state?

23. Ministers are not now supported by taxation in the United States.