TOWNSHIP AND COUNTY.

Section 1. Various Local Systems.

We have now completed our outline sketch of town and county government as illustrated in New England on the one hand and in Virginia on the other. There are some important points in the early history of local government in other portions of the original thirteen states, to which we must next call attention; and then we shall be prepared to understand the manner in which our great western country has been organized under civil government. We must first say something about South Carolina and Maryland.

Wherever men have been placed, the problem of forming civil society has been in its main outlines the same; and in its earlier stages it has been approached in pretty much the same way by all.

Section 2. Settlement of the Public Domain.

“Market, Arch, Race, and Vine,
Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine,” etc.

The cross streets are not named but numbered, as First, Second, etc. The houses on one side of the street have odd numbers and on the other side even numbers, as is the general custom in the United States. With each new block a new century of numbers begins, although there are seldom more than forty real numbers in a block. For example, the corner house on Market Street, just above Fifteenth, is 1501 Market Street. At somewhere about 1535 or 1539 you come to Sixteenth Street; then there is a break in the numbering, and the next corner house is 1601. So in going along a numbered street, say Fifteenth, from Market, the first number will be 1; after passing Arch, 101; after passing Race, 201, etc. With this system a very slight familiarity with the city enables one to find his way to any house, and to estimate the length of time needful for reaching it. St. Louis and some other large cities have adopted the Philadelphia plan, the convenience of which is as great as its monotony. In Washington the streets running in one direction are lettered A, B, C, etc., and the cross streets are numbered; and upon the checkerboard plan is superposed another plan in which broad avenues radiate in various directions from the Capitol, and a few other centres. These avenues cut through the square system of streets in all directions, so that instead of the dull checkerboard monotony there is an almost endless variety of magnificent vistas.]

Nothing could be more unlike the jagged, irregular shape of counties in Virginia or townships in Massachusetts, which grew up just as it happened. The contrast is similar to that between Chicago, with its straight streets crossing at right angles, and Boston, or London, with their labyrinths of crooked lanes. For picturesqueness the advantage is entirely with the irregular city, but for practical convenience it is quite the other way. So with our western lands the simplicity and regularity of the system have made it a marvel of convenience for the settlers, and doubtless have had much to do with the rapidity with which civil governments have been built up in the West. “This fact,” says a recent writer, “will be appreciated by those who know from experience the ease and certainty with which the pioneer on the great plains of Kansas, Nebraska, or Dakota is enabled to select his homestead or ‘locate his claim’ unaided by the expensive skill of the surveyor.”

Section 3. The Representative Township-County System in the West.

The other system, was that which we have seen beginning in Michigan, under the influence of New York and New England. Here the town-meeting, with legislative powers, is always present. The most noticeable feature of the Michigan system is the relation between township and county, which was taken from New York. The county board is composed of the supervisors of the several townships, and thus represents the townships. It is the same in Illinois. It is held by some writers that this is the most perfect form of local government, but on the other hand the objection is made that county boards thus constituted are too large. We have seen that in the states in question there are not less than 16, and sometimes more than 20, townships in each county. In a board of 16 or 20 members it is hard to fasten responsibility upon anybody in particular; and thus it becomes possible to have “combinations,” and to indulge in that exchange of favours known as “log-rolling,” which is one of the besetting sins of all large representative bodies. Responsibility is more concentrated in the smaller county boards of Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

The general tendency toward the spread of township government in the more recently settled parts of the United States is unmistakable, and I have already remarked upon the influence of the public school system in aiding this tendency. The school district, as a preparation for the self-governing township, is already exerting its influence in Colorado, Nevada, California, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

The historical reason why the suffrage has so generally been restricted to men is perhaps to be sought in the conditions under which voting originated. In primeval times voting was probably adopted as a substitute for fighting. The smaller and presumably weaker party yielded to the larger without an actual trial of physical strength; heads were counted instead of being broken. Accordingly it was only the warriors who became voters. The restriction of political activity to men has also probably been emphasized by the fact that all the higher civilizations have passed through a well-defined patriarchal stage of society in which each household was represented by its oldest warrior. From present indications it would seem that under the conditions of modern industrial society the arrangements that have so long subsisted are likely to be very essentially altered.