liabilities as such, capable of suing and subject to be sued in the courts of justice, in disputes with any parties individual or corporate. Once a year the corporation chooses the administrators of its affairs, and determines the amount of money with which it will intrust them, and how this shall be raised. If the State levies a general tax, it is the town treasuries that must pay it; and the State fixes the proportion due from each town, leaving it to the town to distribute the burden of its share in the assessment among its own people. As to matters of their own interest, the towns present their petitions, and as to matters of general concern they send their advice to the central authorities. By their magistrates they exercise a responsible supervision of the elections of officers of the town, the county, the State, and the nation." And he very justly adds: "The experience of later times dictated improve ments of detail in the municipal system of New England; but its outline was complete when it was first devised." Hist. of New England, II. 11-13.

The political organizations under the State were less perfectly formed, less completely endowed with corporate life and vigor, and brought local affairs less generally under local control in the Southern colonies than in the Northern; but the same principle of decentralization was recognized, and the difference of application was due to a difference of circumstances; in Virginia the county was the unit. So far as there was difference Mr. Jefferson lamented it, and sought to put an end to it in Virginia through a division of the counties into hundreds. These little repub lics," he says, "would be the main strength of the great one. We owe to them the vigor given to our Revolution in its commencement in the Eastern States." Letter to Governor Tyler, Jefferson's Works, V. 527. In this Mr. Jefferson was historically and literally correct. The effective resistance to the inroads of tyranny in New England was through the local municipalities, and the first hostile blow struck by

the crown was aimed at the liberties possessed and exercised by Boston and the other towns in the meetings of their freemen. Pitkin, Hist. of United States, I. 265-267; Bancroft Hist. of United States, VI. 518; Life of Samuel Adams, II. 142. The earlier attempts under the Stuarts to introduce arbitrary authority through taking away the colonial charters proved wholly ineffectual while the lower municipal governments remained. When the charter of Rhode Island was suspended it is said that "the American system of town governments, which necessity had compelled Rhode Island to initiate fifty years before, became the meaus of preserving the liberty of the individual citizen when that of the State or colony was crushed." Arnold, Hist. of Rhode Island, ch. 7. In Massachusetts, where the civil polity had a theological basis, it was even insisted by the deputies that to surrender local government was contrary to the Sixth Commandment; for, said they, "Men may not destroy their political any more than their natural lives." So they clung to "the civil liberties of New England" as

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'part of the inheritance of their fathers." Palfrey, Hist. of New England, III. 301303; Bancroft, Hist. of United States, II. 125-127; Mass. Hist. Coll. XXI. 74-81. The contest with Andros, as well in New England as in New York and New Jersey, was a struggle of the people in defence of the right of local government. "6 Everywhere the people struggled for their rights and deserved to be free." Dunlap, Hist. of New York, I. 133. See Trumbull, Hist. of Connecticut, I. 15.

If we question the historical records more closely we shall find that this right of local regulation has never been understood to be a grant from any central authority, but it has been recognized as of course from the first just as much of course, and just as much a necessary part of the civil polity, as the central authority itself. Sometimes it was one and sometimes the other which first assumed form and organized vitality, but the precedence

:

was determined by the circumstances which made the one or the other the more immediate need. For all practical purposes they may be regarded as having been simultaneous in origin, and as having sprung from an unquestioning conviction among the people that each was essential, and that both were to run parallel to each other indefinitely.

Such was the system which was found in force when the Constitution of the United States superseded the Articles of Confederation. Thirteen States were in existence, each of which had its subdivisions of counties, towns or parishes, cities, boroughs, and villages; and all these possessing powers of local control more or less extensive. The most of the States had established new constitutions which recognized these subdivisions, without, however, as a rule, making their perpetuation in express terms imperative. With this recognition they remained and still remain a part of the American system as in colonial times.

It may be well now to see what is the theory of State constitutional law regarding these political entities. Upon this subject it has not often been needful to examino very closely the limitations, if any there are, upon State power, because the State has generally abstained from asserting any unusual authority, and has confined itself to that immemorially exercised. Certain principles, however, have been often laid down by the courts, to which attention may be here directed.

1. The federal government is one of enumerated powers, the Constitution being the measure thereof, and the powers not delegated thereby being reserved to the individual States or to the people. This we need not enlarge upon here, or cite other authority for than the book before

us.

2. The powers of sovereignty not thus delegated rest in the people of the individual States, who confer the same for ordinary exercise, with such exceptions and limitations and under such regulations

as they see fit to establish, upon the departments and officers of government which by their constitutions they create for the States respectively.

3. The municipal organizations exercise a delegated authority under the State, and may also be regarded as governments of enumerated powers. The State legisla tive authority shapes their charters according to its view of what is proper and politic, and it determines their territorial extent. And upon both these subjects it exercises a discretion to enlarge, diminish, or wholly take away what it has conferred.

In the eye of the law they are mere agencies of the State, created and employed for the convenience of government, and the State may therefore set aside their action when the purpose of their creation is being disregarded, or exercise a compulsory authority over them whenever duties are neglected or unwisely, negligently, or dishonestly performed. See Booth v. Woodbury, 32 Conn. 118; Frost v. Belmont, 6 Allen, 152; Petersburg v. Metzker, 21 Ill. 205; Ottawa v. Walker, 21 Ill. 605; Commonwealth v. Pittsburg, 34 Penn. St. 496; Abendroth v. Greenwich, 29 Conn. 356; New London v. Brainard, 22 Conn. 552; Bailey v. New York, 3 Hill, 531; People v. Draper, 15 N. Y. 532; Weeks v. Milwaukee, 10 Wis. 242; Indianapolis v. Geisel, 19 Ind. 344; State v. St. Louis County Court, 34 Mo. 572; St. Louis v. Allen, 13 Mo. 400; State v. Cowan, 29 Mo. 330; McKim v. Odorn, 3 Bland, 407; Harrison Justices v. Holland, 3 Grat. 247; Mills v. Williams, 11 Ired. 558; Langworthy v. Dubuque, 16 Iowa, 271; State v. Branin, 3 Zab. 484; Aspinwall v. Commissioners, 22 How. 364. In none of the States, however, has it been hitherto understood that when a municipal charter was taken away, the exercise of local authority terminated with it; on the contrary, some general rule for local government has been universal; the special charters have only conferred special privileges, which when taken away romitted the corporators to their previous condition,

which was one in which they exercised under well-understood principles the usual powers of local regulation. For a State wholly to take away from any of its people these powers would be not only unprecedented, but would be so entirely opposed to the common understanding of the manner in which the powers of government were to be apportioned and exercised within the State, that the authority to do so could not justly be regarded as within any grant which the people of the State have made of the legislative authority to their representatives. In other words, the right of local self-government is so universally understood and conceded; its exercise has always been so entirely without question; to dispense with it would require and accomplish so complete a revolution in the public administration, involving, as thoughtful men believe, the destruction of the chief prop and support of our liber ties, that its purposed continuance must be regarded as having been within the contemplation of the people of every State, when they framed their Constitution, and that instrument must be read and interpreted accordingly. Local self-government is consequently matter of constitutional right, and the State cannot abolish it and regulate the local affairs through agents of its own appointment.

4. Considered as corporations, the municipalities have a two-fold aspect. They are agents of the State in government, and they also have capacity to make contracts and acquire property, as may be needful or desirable in providing such local conveniences for their corporators as may be contemplated by the laws under which they exist. 2 Kent, 275; Ang. & A. on Corp. § 145; Reynolds v. Stark County, 5 Ohio, 204. As mere corporations, buying, contracting, holding, and improving property, they are entitled to the same protection as all other corporations, and the State cannot take away what they acquire, nor devote to foreign uses that which they have provided for the convenience of their people. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4

Wheat. 663, 694, 695; Trustees v. Tatman, 13 Ill. 30. A change in corporate bounds, a modification of corporate authority, and sometimes other circumstances may make it necessary for the State to intervene, and by virtue of its sovereign power to take possession of corporate property with a view to its proper appropriation or division; but when she shall do so, it will be as trustee merely, and her duty will be to make the appropriation, not arbitrarily, but with due regard to the purposes of its acquisition, so that the people concerned shall still reap the benefit thereof so far as the circumstances and the nature of the case will admit.

But while the corporations exist, though the State may lay down rules for the regulation of their affairs and the management of their property, it is nevertheless a part of the right of self-government that the people concerned should choose their own officers who are to administer such rules and have the care of such property, and the State cannot appoint such officers, as it might those who are to perform duties of a more general nature for the public at large, such as mustering or disciplining the State militia, enforcing the State health and police laws, and the like. See Warner v. People, 2 Denio, 275; People v. Blake, 49 Barb. 9; State v. Kenyon, 7 Ohio, N. S. 546.

Such we believe to be the true doctrine regarding these municipalities. Instances have perhaps occurred in which legislative bodies, under the belief that interference in local matters was essential to the correction of local abuses, have disregarded the usual bounds which limit their action in this direction, and taken upon themselves the performance of duties not properly pertaining to the central authority. Whether, if this might rightfully be done, it would be likely to result in correcting more abuses than it would create, is not for us to speculate; it is enough that our institutions rest upon an acceptance of the doctrine that matters purely local are best, most economically, honestly, and efficiently

managed by the people immediately concerned, who can see and know and comprehend and personally supervise them, and that the local communities should be expected to rely upon themselves for the correction of local evils, and not upon any distant, imperfectly informed, and slightly

interested body, which, while open to the same temptations as the local authorities, would be neither under the like restraint of interest, nor subject to have its doings exposed to the same watchful observation of the parties concerned. C.