conditionally forfeited. The charter government was displaced, and popular representation superseded by an arbitrary commission. In 1687 similar writs were issued against the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut; when, as is well known, the people of the latter colony unsuccessfully endeavored to preserve this cherished muniment of their liberties by concealing it in the charter oak. The colonies, as a result of the English Revolution of 1688, had their charters restored. Very shortly after the accession of William and Mary a bill to restore the rights of those English corporations which had surrendered their charters to the crown during the reigns of James II. and Charles II. was introduced into parliament, and became a law, with the general applause of men of all parties.1 Reference has already been made to the fact that in the time of Elizabeth, the controlling power of corporations was virtually vested in "select bodies." The abuses in the corporations arising out of select bodies continued after the revolution of 1688, and until act of parliament in 1835, next to be mentioned. To remedy these and many other abuses, the MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS REFORM ACT (5 and 6 Will. IV. ch. 76, a. D. 1835) (referred to more fully in a subsequent chapter 3) was passed. This statute sought to restore corporations to their original design, as institutions for the local government of the place, to be controlled by those interested in it, and not by a favored few. It is undoubtedly true, as remarked by Mr. Hallam, that "no political institution can endure which does not rivet itself to the hearts of men by ancient prejudice or acknowledged interest." That is, it cannot permanently endure, although it may exist long after it ought to cease. If ever an institution outlived its usefulness-lived long after it became a positive evil — it was the municipal corporations of England, prior to the reform act of 1835. In many important places in England the number of corporators ranged as low as from ten to thirty. In a large majority of the municipalities, the corporations were close; that is, the governing body had the power to determine who should be admitted to freedom or membership; and often the privilege was conferred upon non-residents and the residents excluded. The most important franchise they possessed was that of electing members of parliament, and this, in many places, was the principal function of the corporation. Not only were the councils self-elective, but their tenure was for life. They were frequently controlled by a single party, and all Macaulay, History of England, Vol. III. chap. xv., where a graphic account of the history of its passage is given. 21 Stephen, Eng. Const. chap. vii. p. 479. 3 Chap. III., infra, §§ 53, 54 and note. persons entertaining other opinions were excluded. The corporations were not in sympathy with, nor did they reflect the wishes of, the people over whom they exercised local jurisdiction. There was no check upon maladministration. The property was wasted; extravagance characterized the expenditures of money; officers were elected by the irresponsible councils from favoritism or devotion to party. One of the first acts of the Reformed House of Commons was the overthrow, in 1835, of this intolerable system, by the passage of the above-mentioned Municipal Corporations Statute,2 to which we shall have frequent occasion to refer in the subsequent pages of this work. Lord Brougham has many claims to the regard of posterity. Few of these are stronger, however, than those which arise from his faithful and effective services in promoting the reform of the Municipal Corporations of Great Britain, by abolishing these self-elected and perpetual councils, by organizing the corporations upon a uniform model, and by establishing in the act the principle that the councils should be selected for short and fixed periods by the votes of the burgesses, thus recognizing and adopting the representative system based upon the vote of persons actually interested in the municipality. Mr. Willcock, in concluding his treatise," had recommended a Glover on Corp. xxxviii. et seq.; Report of Commissioners of Corporate Inquiry, 32 et seq. On January 1, 1883, the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882 (45 and 46 Vict. chap. 50) went into force, repealing, re-enacting, and consolidating the previous acts. Post, $ 54. 2 Post, § 54, note, where the leading provisions of this important enactment are given. 2 Willcock, Municipal Corp. 513, 514. London, with its "great and notable franchises, liberties, and customs," to treat of which, says Lord Coke (4 Inst. 250), "would require a whole volume of itself," was not embraced in the general act of 5 and 6 Will. IV. chap. 76, but there was subsequently passed an important statute known as the London Corporation Reform Act of 1849. See Supplement to Pulling's Laws, &c., of London. On the 15th day of August, 1867, after a memorable struggle between the lords and the commons, what is known as the Disraeli Reform Bill became a law, by which the right to vote for members of parliament for boroughs was greatly extended. This right was, in boroughs, extended to all occupiers of dwelling-houses which were rated to the poor rates, and to lodgers occupying lodging-houses of the annual value of £10, unfurnished. It practically enfranchised the working class. "The Representation of the People's Act of 6 Dec., 1884, established a uniform householder and a uniform lodger franchise throughout the kingdom, and increased the electorate by about 2,500,000 voters." Amer. Cyclop., Great Britain. Referring to the English system of corporate local government and administration, Mr. Gladstone declared that "Our municipalities produce qualities which are the best safeguards of England's greatness." Williams & Vine, English Munic. Code, p. 12. "Taken together these statutes" (of 1867, 1884, and the Redistribution Bill of 1885), says Ambassador Bryce, "have turned Britain into a democratic country, changing the character of her government almost as profoundly as did the Reform Act of 1832." Studies in Contemporary Biography (London, 1903), p. 442. See also Dicey, Law and Opinion in England (London, 1905), chap. ii. similar reform, but disclaimed being so visionary as to suppose it would soon be effected, since parliament would not willingly relinquish its influence over venal boroughs, and members elected by corporations would not be allowed by their constituents to abandon their ancient though unjust privileges; but within ten years from the time his language was written, the reform of which he almost despaired was accomplished. Experience has vindicated its wisdom.1 § 11 (8 a). Coming now, in this general survey, to the municipal institutions of the UNITED STATES, the great fact which first meets our view is that the common law is the basis of the laws of every State and Territory of the Union, with comparatively unimportant exceptions. It is indeed a most fortunate circumstance, that, divided as our territory is into so many States, each supreme within the limits of its power, a common and uniform general system of polity underlies and pervades them all. The common law, as well as the institutions which it developed or alongside of which it grew up, IS PERVADED BY A SPIRIT OF FREEDOM, which distinguishes it from all other systems and peculiarly adapts it to the institutions of a self-governed people. It is established by the learned researches which have been more recently made that the germs and elements of this law and of English polity are of Germanic origin. The Saxon conquerors of Great Britain were not mere bodies of armed invaders. They went to England, during two or more centuries, in families and communities. What manner of men were they? Guizot dwells upon the fact that the distinguishing character of the Germans was “their powerful sentiment of personal liberty, personal independence and individuality." He affirms and repeatedly reiterates, that it was they who "introduced this sentiment of personal independence, this love of individual liberty, into European civilization; that this was unknown among the Romans; unknown in the Christian Church; and unknown in nearly all the civilizations of antiquity. The liberty which we meet with in ancient civilizations is political liberty, — the liberty of the citizen, not the personal liberty of the man himself." 3 1 For a scholarly account of the history, development, and present character of municipal and local government in Great Britain, the reader is referred to Mr. Albert Shaw's Municipal Government, 3d edition, 1895. Infra, chap. iv. §§ 98-100. And for a like account as respects municipal government in the United States, see Goodnow, Municipal Home Rule, 1895, 1 § 12 (86). Thus conquering and colonizing England, the Saxons carried with them "from lands where the Roman eagle had never been seen, or seen only during the momentary incursions of Drusus and Germanicus," 1 their language, their religion, their customs, their laws, and their organizations. These were indigenous, homebred, without trace or tincture of the Roman law and institutions. They borrowed nothing from antiquity or from surrounding peoples. They founded, and in the course of centuries their successors and descendants, the people of England, built up their institutions on their own model. Macaulay speaks of this with his accustomed vividness. "The foundations of our Constitution," he says, "were laid by men who knew nothing of the Greeks, but that they had denied the orthodox procession and cheated the Crusaders; and nothing of Rome but that the Pope lived there. Those who followed contented themselves with improving on the original plan. They found models at home; and therefore they did not look for them abroad." This love of personal freedom and independence was impressed upon the institutions they founded, or adopted, or modified. §13 (8 c). Learned investigators differ concerning the extent to which Roman law existed and prevailed at the time of the Saxon conquest, and the extent to which it was adopted or incorporated into the English laws, usages, and institutions. But there is a general assent to these propositions, viz.: that the Saxon spirit of freedom was embodied in the various local courts; 'that it was in these popular tribunals that the principles of law and local government were cultivated and disseminated; that the Saxons breathed into the English government and institutions "a spirit of equity and freedom which has never entirely departed from them," and that in the course of time the common law intertwined its roots and fibres inseparably into the constitution, polity, local and municipal institutions, the civil and criminal jurisprudence, the family relation, and the rights of person and of property. So, as we have above seen, from an immemorial or early period the local territorial subdivisions of England, such as shires, towns, and parishes, enjoyed a degree of freedom, and were permitted to assess upon themselves their local burdens and to manage their local affairs. The ratepayers were thus dignified by being an integral part of the communal life; the foundations of municipal liberty were laid; administrative power was decentralized; 'Digby, Real Prop. 11, 12. chap. i. 3 Essay on History. Mackintosh, Hist. Eng. Vol. V. chap. i.; Reeves, Hist. Com. Law, Introduction by Finlason. knowledge of the laws and reverence for and obedience to them were constantly taught by a participation in their administration and enforcement. This was exactly the opposite of the systems which concurrently prevailed on the Continent, where the central power absorbed, governed, regulated everything, thereby destroying municipal freedom and the capacity to enjoy and exercise it, as well as the power to defend and preserve it. § 14 (8 d). Our ancestors in the settlement of this country brought with them these notions of English liberty and polity, and they found here a field of unexampled extent for their free development. Accordingly the system of intrusting the direction of local affairs to the local constituencies, has from the earliest colonial periods been carried by us to a much greater extent than in England.1 As you pass from one end of this country to the other, alike in the older regions and in the newest organized settlement, you find the affairs of each road district, school district, township, county, town, and city, locally self-managed, including the administration of local justice. Every township in the United States has a local court with power to summon a jury of the vicinage, thereby bringing justice home to the business and bosoms of the people, and making it their own affair. It is in no slight degree instructive, and certainly in the highest degree interesting, to trace the institutions of this new country back to their germs in the Saxon or Anglo-Saxon polity; for when we touch to-day, even in our frontier settlements, the electric chain wherewith Providence hath bound the ages and the generations of men together, we discover that we are in historic communion with rude and remote ancestors although separated from us by seas, mountains, and centuries. Each State binds together the local institutions which it creates and regulates independent of Federal control; thus happily preventing a concentration at the national centre of the power and duty of legislating for and regulating the affairs of local communities throughout a country of such extent, that with its exact situation, wants, and interests, it would be impossible for Congress to become adequately acquainted. So, in the ascending scale, THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION constitutes the States and the people thereof into a National Government. It defines the relations of the States to each other and to the national government, and limits the power of the States to deprive any citizen, however humble, of the great essential rights of freedom, of property, and of equality before the law. 1 Post, § 70, note. |