Civil Government in the United States | Page 3

a town or county is of one sort or another. If the average

character of our local governments for the past quarter of a century had
been quite as high as that of the Boston town-meeting or the Virginia
boards of county magistrates, in the days of Samuel Adams and Patrick
Henry, who can doubt that many an airy demagogue, who, through
session after session, has played his pranks at the national capital,
would long ago have been abruptly recalled to his native heath, a
sadder if not a wiser man? We cannot expect the nature of the
aggregate to be much better than the average natures of its units. One
may hear people gravely discussing the difference between Frenchmen
and Englishmen in political efficiency, and resorting to assumed
ethnological causes to explain it, when, very likely, to save their lives
they could not describe the difference between a French commune and
an English parish. To comprehend the interesting contrasts between
Gambetta in the Chamber of Deputies, and Gladstone in the House of
Commons, one should begin with a historical inquiry into the causes,
operating through forty generations, which have frittered away
self-government in the rural districts and small towns of France, until
there is very little left. If things in America ever come to such a pass
that the city council of Cambridge must ask Congress each year how
much money it can be allowed to spend for municipal purposes, while
the mayor of Cambridge holds his office subject to removal by the
President of the United States, we may safely predict further extensive
changes in the character of the American people and their government.
It was not for nothing that our profoundest political thinker, Thomas
Jefferson, attached so much importance to the study of the township.
In determining the order of exposition, I have placed local government
first, beginning with the township as the simplest unit. It is well to try
to understand what is near and simple, before dealing with what is
remote and complex. In teaching geography with maps, it is wise to get
the pupil interested in the streets of his own town, the country roads
running out of it, and the neighbouring hills and streams, before
burdening his attention with the topographical details of Borrioboola
Gha. To study grand generalizations about government, before
attending to such of its features as come most directly before us, is to
run the risk of achieving a result like that attained by the New
Hampshire school-boy, who had studied geology in a text-book, but

was not aware that he had ever set eyes upon an igneous rock.
After the township, naturally comes the county. The city, as is here
shown, is not simply a larger town, but is much more complex in
organization. Historically, many cities have been, or still are,
equivalent to counties; and the development of the county must be
studied before we can understand that of the city. It has been briefly
indicated how these forms of local government grew up in England,
and how they have become variously modified in adapting themselves
to different social conditions in different parts of the United States.
Next in order come the general governments, those which possess and
exert, in one way or another, attributes of sovereignty. First, the various
colonial governments have been considered, and some features of their
metamorphosis into our modern state governments have been described.
In the course of this study, our attention is called to the most original
and striking feature of the development of civil government upon
American soil,--the written constitution, with the accompanying power
of the courts in certain cases to annul the acts of the legislature. This is
not only the most original feature of our government, but it is in some
respects the most important. Without the Supreme Court, it is not likely
that the Federal Union could have been held together, since Congress
has now and then passed an act which the people in some of the states
have regarded as unconstitutional and tyrannical; and in the absence of
a judicial method of settling such questions, the only available remedy
would have been nullification. I have devoted a brief chapter to the
origin and development of written constitutions, and the connection of
our colonial charters therewith.
Lastly, we come to the completed structure, the Federal Union; and by
this time we have examined so many points in the general theory of
American government, that our Federal Constitution can be more
concisely described, and (I believe) more quickly understood, than if
we had made it the subject of the first chapter instead of the last. In
conclusion, there have been added a few brief hints and suggestions
with reference to our political history. These remarks have been
intentionally limited. It is