ber require a belief in God; while Tennessee insists on a belief in a future state of rewards and punishments. Idaho declares persons who are disfranchised as bigamists or polygamists ineligible to office and also disqualified to sit as jurors.

Formerly office-holding was often limited by property qualifications. The only remaining vestige of this usage is in Delaware, where a senator must be the owner of a freehold of 200 acres of land, or a personal or real estate of not less than £1,000 value; but it was as late as 1892 that Massachusetts struck from her constitution the provision that no person should be eligible to election as Governor unless, at the time of his election, he should be seized, in his own right, of a freehold within the Commonwealth of the value of one thousand pounds.

CHAPTER LV.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

REFERENCES.

The best historical work on this subject is Howard, An Introduction to the Local Constitutional History of the United States, Vol. I. Development of the Township, Hundred, and Shire, (Vol. II., Municipal Government, has not been published). Johns Hopkins University, Studies in the Historical and Political Sciences, edited by H. B. Adams, Vol. I., Local Institutions. (Additional matter relating to the same subject is found in Vols. II., III.; there are also papers on municipal government in Vols. IV., V., VII.) Fiske, Civil Government in the United States Considered with Reference to its Origins; Galpin, Statistical Atlas of the United States, with Maps, the Seventh Census; Conkling, City Government in the United States; Shaw, Municipal Government in England; Jenks, An Outline of English Local Government.

Attention has been drawn to the fact that the National Constitution and laws form but one-half of the American Government, and that we must resort to the State constitutions and laws for the other half. But the State governments, properly so-called, by no means exercise all the remaining powers that are necessary to the peace and good order of society. A multitude of legislative and executive acts can be named that the General Assembly and the State Executive never touch. Besides, these are the very acts in which the average citizen is most interested. The State constitutions and laws do indeed provide for their performance, but only in an indirect way. These facts bring before us some of the most characteristic political ideas and institutions of the English-speaking race.

These ideas and institutions relate to local government. Their origin in England was dealt with in Chapter II. of this work; also the three types of local government that, in obedience to English influence and American conditions,

sprang up in the United States. We must now return to the subject, for the purpose of describing these types as they exist at the present time.

I. THE TOWN SYSTEM.

716. Continuity of New England Life.-The political institutions that first rooted in New England, local as well as central, proved to be permanent. The Town system of government has, with time, undergone minor modifications, but it still exists in its principal original features. It is not possible, or even necessary, to follow its history, or fully to describe it, as found in any one State, and much less in all the States; but it is important to state its characteristic features.

717. The New England Town.-The town receives a charter from the State Legislature, and is a body politic and corporate. It elects its own officers, and manages its local concerns in its own way. It imposes and collects its own taxes, expends its own money, and lends to the county and State the use of its local machinery for levying and collecting county and State taxes. Every town was once represented in the Legislature, but town representation is found now only in New Hampshire and Vermont.

718. Town-Meeting.- Once a year, or oftener, the electors of the town meet in town-meeting, as their Saxon ancestors met in town-moot. The assembly chooses its own moderator, and any member can make and discuss motions as well as vote. The business transacted may be thus grouped :

I. The affairs of the town are canvassed; reports are made and accounts presented and discussed.

2. The town taxes are voted, care being taken to designate the objects for which money shall be expended.

3.

Town officers are chosen. The annual meeting at which this is done is held in February, March, or April.

Town-meetings, or elections, for selecting county, State, or National officers are held at such times as the law may fix.

719. Town Officers. The selectmen, three, five, seven, or nine in number, are the general managers of the town business. They issue warrants calling the townmeetings; preside at those held for county, State, or National purposes, canvassing the votes and declaring the result; grant licenses, impanel jurors, listen to complaints about public matters, lay out town roads, "speak for the town' in county or State matters, register the voters, and attend to many other things besides. The school committee has general oversight of the town schools. The duties of the other officers are sufficiently indicated by their titles; the clerk, treasurer, assessor of taxes, overseers of the poor, surveyors of highways, fence-viewers, etc.

720. The County.-The New England county is also a corporation. It is mainly a judicial, and not a political, division of the State; in Rhode Island there are no county officers but the judicial officers. The three county commissioners, elected by the people, build and manage the county buildings, lay out new highways leading from one town to another, estimate the annual county taxes, and apportion them among the several towns and cities, audit the accounts of the treasurer, and perform a variety of other business. Other officers are the clerk of the court, the treasurer, the register of deeds, and the register of probate, who is the clerk of the Probate Court.

II. THE COUNTY SYSTEM.

721. Its Extent. The example of Virginia, in which it first grew up, and the influence of similar material and social conditions, firmly fixed the County system in all the old South Atlantic States. Moreover, it was an overflow of the population of these States that created the new ones west of the Alleghany Mountains and south of the Ohio River. As these people carried their old ideas and in

stitutions with them, and as they found in the West physical conditions similar to those that they had left behind, it would be strange indeed if the County system had not taken firm root in the old South Central States. More than this, Southern men from both of the old sections pushed into the Northwest and the farther West, and planted the same system wherever their influence was predominant. Accordingly, it is found to-day, not only in the Southern States west of the Mississippi, but also in California and in Oregon as well.

722. The County.-Where the County system prevails the conditions of the Town system are wholly reversed. The County is the political unit, and is clothed with all local political powers. It receives its charter from the Legislature, and, as in olden times, is responsible to the State for its quota of the State taxation. "The area of the County," says Professor Galpin, "forbids any general gathering of its inhabitants vested with the legislative and executive functions of the town-meeting, as well as any intimate mutual acquaintance between the inhabitants of its different sections. Of necessity, therefore, the administration of all local affairs is intrusted wholly to the county officers, and the political duty and privilege of the citizen begins and ends on election day. The duly authorized officers of the county are thus charged with the care and control of the county property, the levy and collection of State and county taxes, the division of the county into election districts, the laying out and repairing of roads and bridges, the care of the poor, the police of the county, and in general, all county and local affairs." The officers charged with these duties are elected or appointed in different ways and for different times, and are not uniform in number. The common name of the body is County Board or County Court. Other officers are the collector, assessor, superintendent of schools, apportioners of roads, sheriff, etc. There is also a Probate Court as well as the State courts.