colonial politics, and the promoter and conservator of free speech, a free press, and a spirit of liberty which pervaded the whole population.
It was the fruitful seed of republicanism.
In the town-meetings its taxes were voted and its affairs discussed and settled.
Therein the agents and public servants of each town were annually elected by a free ballot, and there abstract political principles were debated.
By these discussions an intelligent public sentiment was created concerning the rights of man, and particularly the rights of Englishmen in
, which was ready to support, by its power, the champions of freedom in the great struggle for justice, and finally for independence.
It was this latter feature of the town-meeting that excited the opposition of the crown officers, who called it a “focus of rebellion.”
They hated and feared it.
]
essay on the town-meeting, has set forth its origin and relation to German, English, and American history in the most brilliant manner.
We give a few short extracts from the same.
Immediately on their arrival in
New England the settlers proceeded to form for themselves a government as purely democratic as any that had ever been seen in the world.
Instead of scattering about over the country, the requirements of education and of public worship, as well as of defence against Indian attacks, obliged them to form small village communities.
As these villages multiplied, the surface of the country came to be laid out in small districts (usually from 6 to 10 miles in length and breadth) called townships.
Each township contained its village, together with the woodlands surrounding it.
From the outset the government of the township was vested in the town-meeting.
Once in each year a meeting is held, at which every adult male residing within the limits of the township is expected to be present, and is at liberty to address the meeting or vote upon any question that may come up.
At each annual town-meeting there are chosen not less than three or more than nine selectmen, a town clerk, a town treasurer, a school committee, assessors of taxes, overseers of the poor, constables, surveyors of highways, fence viewers, and other officers.
In very small townships the selectmen themselves may act as assessors of taxes or overseers of the poor.
The selectmen may appoint police officers if such are required; they may act as a board of health; in addition to sundry specific duties too numerous to mention here, they have the general superintendence of all the public business, save such as is expressly assigned to the other officers; and whenever circumstances may seem to require it, they are authorized to call a town-meeting.
Besides choosing executive officers, the town-meeting has the power of enacting by-laws, of making appropriations of money for town purposes, and of providing for miscellaneous emergencies by what might be termed special legislation.
It is only in
New England that the township system is to be found in its completeness.
In several Southern and Western States the administrative unit is the county, and local affairs are managed by county commissioners elected by the people.
Elsewhere we find a mixture of the county and township systems.
In some of the
Western States settled by the
New England people, town-meetings are held, though their powers are somewhat less extensive than in
New England.
But something very like the “townmeeting principle” lies at the bottom of all the political life of the
United States.
To maintain vitality in the centre without sacrificing it in the parts; to preserve tranquillity in the mutual relations of forty powerful States, while keeping the people everywhere as far as possible in direct contact with the government, such is the political problem which the American union exists for the purpose of solving, and of this great truth every American citizen is supposed to have some glimmering, however crude.
