must be vested with a certain portion of legislative and executive powers. The form of their government, for such it is, on however small a scale, ought, like that of the state, to be republican; not of the representative kind, but a pure and simple democracy, in which the power of making local laws and regulations, and the appointment to corporate offices will reside in the people, the inhabitants of the town.

It is proper that there should be appointed by law, a meeting to be held annually in each town for the election of town officers, and for the transaction of such other business as shall be found necessary, and within the limits of their powers. They will also be authorized to call meetings at other times on necessary occasions. Among the officers to be annually appointed, will be a town-clerk, and one-or rather a select board-whose duty it shall be to take care of the prudential affairs, and to carry into effect all the legal acts of the town. As to other town officers, how many there will be, and what the nature of their several offices, will depend on the powers vested in the corporation, and the duties enjoined. Some few of these I will mention.

To carry into full effect such local regulations as the towns are empowered to make, and especially in what relates to the maintenance of peace and good order, civil magistrates will be found necessary. Such magistrates will be furnished through the justices of the peace appointed in every town by the proper appointing power of the state.-But there must be appointed by each town a constable, to be empowered by law to arrest disturbers of the peace, and to serve within his limits all process both civil and criminal, issued by a justice of the peace and also one or more officers in each to present and prosecute before some justice, all breaches of the peace and other offences committed within the town for which they are appointed. Such officer has sometimes been denominated a grand-juror. On the towns will properly be enjoined the duty of laying out, making and repairing roads, and of building and repairing bridges, within their respective limits, to perform which there must be an appointment of proper officers. It will also be made the duty of each town to provide for their own poor, agreeable to the provision of the general laws of

the state. To enable the towns to fulfil these duties, it is necessary that each should have the power of laying and collecting taxes under proper restrictions, and to appoint an officer who shall have the powers necessary to make the collection. It may, and indeed ought to be made the duty of the towns severally, to appoint annually suitable persons assessors, for the purpose of taking, in the manner prescribed by law, a valuation of the taxable property in each, agreeable to which all state and other taxes authorized by law, shall be apportioned for collection. In this mode a valuation more just, equal, and satisfactory, will be obtained, than in any other which could probably be devised.

The towns may also be entrusted with the appointment of the collector of state taxes within their several districts, for whose abilities and the faithful performance of his duties, the town appointing, should be made responsible to the state treasury. In no other mode can the public taxes be collected with equal facility, security, and economy.

It will be further, as I conceive, a very important and necessary provision, that for the election of representatives, and all state and public officers to be elected by the suffrages of the people, the votes should be taken at public meetings to be appointed by law in the several towns, in each of which, none should be permitted to vote but the qualified inhabitants of the same town. Such provision will effectually prevent that violent excitement, those tumults, and even riots which are found too often to prevail among the multitude at the poll from a large district, and besides, it affords an opportunity to a greater number of citizens to exercise the invaluable right of suffrage.

There is another division of the several towns, which, though the lowest in grade, is not the least in its usefulness and importance, a division of each into school districts. Each town should have the power of making such divisions as occasion may require, in the manner best calculated to accommodate the inhabitants and the attendance of the scholars at that early age, when they are to be taught the first rudiments of common learning. These districts ought to be instituted with corporate powers, which will be few and simple, adapted

to the end and design of their institution, the establishment and maintenance of common schools. The inhabitants of these districts, severally, must be empowered to appoint proper officers, to tax themselves in such manner as shall be provided by law, for the purpose of building a school house, and maintaining a school, or to raise money by subscription, or in any, other mode upon which they shall agree; to collect such tax and to carry their agreements into effect. They ought also to be enabled to hold funds to a reasonable amount, and entitled to receive each a due proportion of any general fund belonging to the town for the use of schools, or which may be appointed by the state, on such conditions as the law shall prescribe. It is unnecessary here to dwell on the usefulness of such institution to the rising generation, and to the community in general.

Cities, which I have placed in the same division, are to be considered as towns consistering of a more numerous and dense population, where we find, pressed as it were, into contact with each other, people of every condition in life, from the extreme of wealth, to the extreme of poverty, and of character, from the highest degree of integrity and moral worth, to the lowest degree of profligacy, vice, and crime. They will therefore demand a different organization, and powers more extensive and efficient. Cities in this country have generally, in the form and manner of their government, had a more arbitrary cast than what belongs to our free institutions: the examples have been taken from governments of different principles and a different construction.

The situation and circumstances of cities, above hinted, will require an organization different from that of the common towns, and a more energetic government, and which may have a nearer analogy to the state government. In this case the powers of local legislation cannot be properly exercised by the people in their public meetings, which would bring together a heterogenous and ungovernable multitude, setting at defiance all discussion, all deliberation and every semblance of order. It therefore appears most proper that resort should be had to the system of representation. The power of making all the necessary local laws and regulation's may, under proper guards, be vested in a city legislature to consist like the state

legislature, of a senate and body of representatives, to be annually elected by the freemen in the several wards, in such numbers and in such manner as shall be provided by the laws of the state by which the corporation is to be constituted. There must also be an executive officer usually called the mayor, to be elected annually by the freemen of the city, and clothed with sufficient powers.

The power of appointing to office may be vested generally in the legislature or in one of its branches, and perhaps in some instances more properly in the mayor. Many officers will be necessary, but to point them out with their several duties would be tedious and uninteresting. I shall content myself with mentioning a few of them generally. There must be city magistrates for various purposes; an efficient police, with its officers always vigilent, always on the alert; and a police court to be almost constantly in session. Other courts will be necessary, but one will be indispensably so, in a large and populous city-a city court of common law, for the trial and decision of all such causes, civil and criminal, as shall be submitted to their jurisdiction. The court ought to be of great respectability, and the judges to be appointed, not by the city powers, but by the appointing power of the state, to hold their offices during good behavior, with fixed and adequate salaries, and subordinate to the Supreme Court of the state.

It has not been my design to enter into minute details on the subject, but to exhibit a brief view of these institutions, their organization, and the powers with which they ought to be entrusted. Enough has been said to evince their general utility, and even necessity; and that they may be better adapted to the management of the several local interests and concerns, frequently varying with situation and circumstances, than can be effected by any provisions of law under the general administration; and that they may be so ordered and directed as to render important services, and give efficient aid to the general government of the state, of which they are always to be considered constituent, though subordinate parts.

But there is another view, perhaps not less important, to be taken of these institutions. In the several districts of their establishment, which, taken together, are supposed to cover the

whole surface of the state, and to embrace all the inhabitants, the exercise of political power is brought down to the people, themselves. Here are held the primary assemblies of the people, severally empowered to manage the affairs of their little communities. These assemblies are, in fact, the primary schools, in which the people practically learn what may, in a political sense, be called the science of self-government. Here the future statesman learns to exercise his powers of deliberation and discussion—and here the people acquire the habit of submitting private to public opinion, to acquiesce in the decisions of the majority, so necessary to the well being of a free government, without which all turns to faction, rushes into anarchy and finally into despotism, the last desperate remedy for more intolerable evils.