that of New England; possibly, it is in some ways a better one, the supervisors sitting, each for his township, on the county board, like the ancient reeves in the shire-moot. As regards the great purposes which local self-government may serve, aside from the convenient despatch of business, to evoke, namely, from the individual citizens who are forced to administer it, a vivid interest in public concerns, and to impart to them an education which above all things the freeman requires, the system is efficient. Upon the map, the great State of Illinois extends, blocked out in its counties, with something of the square precision of a chess-board. In the game which must always go forward in a society between the spirit of civilization on the one hand, and the forces of anarchy and disorder on the other, it is cheering to feel that on so fair a field as this at least there can be little doubt as to which shall receive checkmate. system of the The condition of self-government in the West need not be set forth at greater length. It is at its best estate in the Township-County system The Townof Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ne- ship-County braska. It is in least satisfactory form Northwest. in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas, where the County system prevails, and self-government is not brought vigorously home to the individual man through a well-developed township environment. As new States have been constituted, and as the older States have gone forward in their growth, various intermediate types have been presented. By a law of 1879, for instance, in Missouri, the same option was offered to the counties to take, if they chose, a Township organization, as was offered to the counties of Illinois. Of the one hundred and fourteen Missouri counties, however, but eighteen have as yet adopted the Township organization. Nevertheless, the tendency is in that direction as population grows dense, and Missouri may be regarded as undergoing a transition. Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas occupy a position intermediate; the township has more extended powers than in Ohio, possessing, for instance, an annual town-meeting for legislation as well as election. The township, however, has no representation upon the county board, which consists of commissioners few in number, sometimes not more than three, sometimes seven or eight, elected at large, and exercising wide control.1 It is claimed for this form that it is more cheap and efficient than the more numerous county board made up of township supervisors; on the other hand, it is said to offer dangerous facilities to the formation of "court-house rings." Professor Howard holds it to be less consonant with Anglo-Saxon precedents and a falling short of the highest ideal of social selfgovernment. In the new States of the Pacific Coast and the inchoate societies of the mountain and desert regions which lie back of them, the Township-County plan is approached in those lying toward the North; the County plan in those of the Centre and South. The County plan prevailed until the Civil War throughout the entire South. We have seen that in Virginia, to such an extent the parent system of the and typical colony of the South, the form of society originally established approached The County South. 1 Howard: Local Constitutional History, I, p. 158. that of contemporary England. There were, namely, vast landed estates, which descended by primogeniture, — a system inevitably resulting in an aristocracy with which lay all social and political prestige, while a great proportion of the population were in a depressed condition. The cultivation of tobacco, stimulating as it did negro slavery and increasing the tendency to scatter, already marked through the prevailing form of land-tenure, made anything like a popular moot impossible. There were, to begin with, few yeomen, small independent farmers, as in New England, the class to whom the moot was almost a necessary appurtenance; in the wide distribution of population, any consensus, whether obtained in formal moot, or through informal talk, was scarcely possible. Great counties were practically the primary divisions, whose officers, justices appointed by the governor, or, indeed, provided for after the manner of a close corporation, performed all administrative functions with small responsibility to the people. As the South came forward, Virginia continued to be scarcely less typical than in the early period. Cotton, which grew to be king over so vast a district, as tobacco had been in the Old Dominion, was equally potent in promoting slavery, a system of large plantations rather than small holdings, an aristocracy in whose hands should lie all power, and a vast class of poor whites with few of the qualities of freemen: it was equally potent, too, in discouraging town life and all forms of the moot. Everywhere through the South and Southwest the County system prevailed, its functionaries qualified by the oligarchy in power through some form of appointment or election, but subject to no popular control, and with no shadow of responsibility to any form of folk-moot. Since the war, however, noteworthy changes have been in progress. In the New South, mining, commerce, and manufactures have largely thrust into the background the old plantation life. Slavery is abolished. A more democratic spirit prevails, and as a natural consequence the disposition grows active to cherish the safeguards of Anglo-Saxon freedom. First among such safeguards the public school lifts its head. The school system of the North is rapidly making its way in the South, and "is likely to prove the model for the entire transformation of the social body." 1 In Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and Tennessee, the people vote school taxes and choose school officers; in Alabama the township has been formally instituted mainly for this purpose. The school district, with its belongings, is being firmly driven by the new democratic spirit into the ancient Southern framework, and plainly is an entering wedge for local self-government on a larger scale. Clearly, the school-meeting is to be a preparation for the townmeeting. In the salutary changes, Virginia, as ever, is a leader. In 1869, in days of disfranchisement, the Township-County system was projected for her; and promptly repudiated, in 1874, when the State was restored to herself. In what was substituted, however, the best features of the rejected plan were retained, all terminology being avoided which smelt of the "carpet-bag." Each county was divided into 1 Howard, Local Constitutional History, I, p. 237. 2 E. W. Bemis, quoted by Howard, Loc. Const. Hist., I, p. 237. not less than three divisions to which the name of "magisterial districts" was attached, the abhorrent word "township" being ignominiously cast out. Each such district has its elected supervisor among other functionaries, and the supervisors constitute, after the best precedents, the county board. Again, each larger district is subdivided into school districts. West Virginia and North Carolina show a similar change.1 As Mr. Bryce summarizes, the Union may be divided into three zones, northern, middle, and southern. The northern zone extends from the confluence of the Yellowstone with the Missouri enst ward to the Bay of Fundy, and includes the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and New England. There the town-meeting in preponderant activity is the unit of local government. The middle zone stretches from California to New Jersey and New York along the fortieth parallel. This is characterized by the Compromise system; in a part of the States one side of the organization preponderating, in part the other. All, however, are alike in this,you cannot lose sight for a moment of the larger or smaller area. The third zone includes all the Southern States. Here the county is predominant, though here and there school districts, and even townships, are growing in significance.2 The town-meeting, he continues, has been not only the source, but the school of democracy; but the we tion of so small a unit needs to be supe Ambayan h plemented, perhaps in some points to be com supervised, by that of the county; and in |