By J.B. SEWALL.
A Recollection of my boyhood is a large unpainted barnlike building
standing at a point where three roads met at about the centre of the
town. When all the inhabitants of the town were of one faith
religiously, or at least the minority were not strong enough to divide
from the majority, and one meeting-house served the purposes of all,
this was the meeting-house. To this, the double line of windows all
round, broken by the long round-topped window midway on the back side,
and the two-storied vestibule on the front, and, more than all, the old
pulpit still remaining within, with the sounding-board suspended above
it, bore witness. Here assembled every spring, at the March meeting, the
voters of the town, to elect their selectmen and other town officers for
the ensuing year, to vote what moneys should be raised for the repair of
roads, bridges, maintaining the poor, etc., and take any other action
their well-being as a community demanded; in the autumn, to cast their
votes for state representative, national representative, governor of the
State, or President of the United States, one or all together, as the
case might be.
Many such town-houses, probably, are standing to-day in the New England
States,--I know there are such in Maine,--and they are existing
witnesses to what was generally the fact: towns, at the first, when
young and small, built the meeting-house for two purposes; first, for
use as a house of worship; second, for town meetings; and when in
process of time a new church or churches were built for the better
accommodation of the people, or because different denominations had come
into existence, or because the young people wanted a smarter building
with a steeple, white paint, green blinds, and a bell, the old building
was sold to the town for purely town purposes.
When the settlements were made, the first public building erected was
generally the meeting-house, and this in the case of the earlier
settlements was very soon. In Plymouth, the first building was a house
twenty feet square for a storehouse and "for common occupation," then
their separate dwellings.
The "common" building was used for religious and other meetings until
the meeting-house with its platform on top for cannon, on Burial Hill,
was built in 1622. "Boston seems to have had no special building for
public worship until, during the year 1632, was erected the small
thatched-roof, one-story building which stood on State Street, where
Brazer's building now stands."[A] This was in the second year, the
settlement having been made in the autumn of 1630. In Charlestown, "The
Great House," the first building erected that could be called a house,
was first used as the official residence of the governor, and the
sessions of the Court of Assistants appear to have been held in it until
the removal to Boston, but when the church was formed, in 1632, it was
used for a meeting-house.
[Footnote A: Memorial History of Boston, vol. i, p. 119.]
Dorchester had the first meeting-house in the Bay, built in 1631, the
next year after settlement, and by the famous order passed "mooneday
eighth of October, 1633," it appears that it was the regular
meeting-place of the inhabitants of the plantation for general purposes.
The Lynn church was formed in 1632, and the meeting-house appears to
have been built soon after, and was used for town meetings till 1806. It
was the same in towns of later settlement. In Brunswick, Maine, which
became a township in 1717, the first public building was the
meeting-house, and this also was the town-house for almost one hundred
years. Belfast, Maine, incorporated in 1773, held its first two town
meetings in a private house, afterwards, for eighteen years, "at the
Common on the South end of No. 26" (house lot),[A] whether under cover
or in open air is not known, after that, in the meeting-house generally,
till the town hall was built. In Harpswell, Maine, the old
meeting-house, like that described, when abandoned as a house of
worship, was sold to the town for one hundred dollars and is still in
use as a town-house.
[Footnote A: Williamson's History of Belfast.]
The town-house, therefore, though it cannot strictly be said to have
been coëval with the town, was essentially so, the meeting-house being
generally the first public building, and used equally for town meetings
and public worship.
How early, then, was the town? When the settlement at Plymouth took
place, in one sense a town existed at once. It was a collection of
families living in neighborhood and united by the bonds of mutual
obligation common in similar English communities. But it was a town as
yet only in that sense. In fact, it was a state. The words of the
compact signed on board the Mayflower were, in part: "We, whose names
are underwritten ... do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the
presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves
together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and
preservation, ... and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame
such just and equal laws, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to
time, as shall be most meet and convenient for the general good of the
colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."
These words were the constitution of more than a town government. They
erected a democratic state--a commonwealth. It was a general government
separate from and above the town governments which were afterwards
instituted. It enacted general laws by an assembly of deputies in which
the eight plantations in the colony, which afterwards became towns, were
represented. These laws were executed by a governor and an assistant,
and were of equal binding force in all the plantations after, as well as
before, these plantations became towns.
The Massachusetts Colony came over as a corporation with a royal charter
which gave power to the freemen of the company to elect a governor,
deputy-governor, and assistants, and "make laws and ordinances, not
repugnant to the laws of England, for their own benefit and the
government of persons inhabiting their territory." The colonists divided
themselves into plantations, part at Naumkeag (Salem), at Mishawum
(Charlestown), at Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic, and
Saugus (Lynn), and while the General Court, as the governor,
deputy-governor, and assistants were called, made general "laws and
ordinances" for the whole, the plantations were at liberty to manage
their own particular affairs as they pleased. They called meetings and
took action by themselves, as at Watertown, when, in 1632, the people
assembled and expressed their discontent with a tax laid by the court,
and at Dorchester as previously referred to. To Dorchester, however,
belongs the honor of leading the way to that form of town government
which has prevailed in New England ever since. It came about in this
way. The settlement was begun in June, 1630, and for more than three
years the people seem to have managed their affairs under the
administration of the Court of Assistants by means of meetings. At such
a meeting, held October 8, 1633, it was ordered "for the generall good
and well ordering of the affaires of the plantation," that there should
be a general meeting of the inhabitants at the meeting-house every
Monday morning before the court, which was four times a year, or became
so the next year, "to settle & sett downe such orders as may tend to the
general good as aforesayd, & every man to be bound thereby without
gainsaying or resistance." This very interesting order is given entire
in the Memorial History of Boston.[A] There were also appointed _twelve
selectmen_, "who were to hold monthly meetings, & whose orders were
binding when confirmed by the Plantation."
[Footnote A: Vol. i, p. 427.]
Here was our New England town almost exactly as it is to-day. The
inhabitants met at stated times and voted what seemed necessary for
their own local order and welfare, and committed the execution of their
will to twelve selectmen, who were to meet monthly. Our towns now have
an annual meeting for the same purpose, and elect generally three
selectmen, who meet at stated times,--sometimes as often as once a week.
Watertown followed, about the same time, selecting three men "for the
ordering of public affairs." Boston appears to have done the same thing
in 1634, and Charlestown in the following year, the latter being the
first to give the name _Selectmen_ to the persons so chosen, a name
which soon was generally adopted and has since remained.
The reason of this action it is easy to conjecture, but it is fully
stated in the order of the inhabitants of Charlestown at the meeting in
which the action for the government of the town by selectmen was taken:
"In consideration of the great trouble and charge of the inhabitants of
Charlestown by reason of the frequent meeting of the townsmen in
general, and that, by reason of many men meeting, things were not so
easily brought into a joint issue; it is therefore agreed, by the said
townsmen, jointly, that these eleven men ... shall entreat of all such
business as shall concern the townsmen, the choice of officers excepted;
and what they or the greater part of them shall conclude of, the rest of
the town willingly to submit unto as their own proper act, and these
eleven to continue in this employment for one year next ensuing the date
hereof."
Town government, thus instituted, was recognized the next year--1636--by
the General Court, and thereafter the towns were corporations lawfully
existing and endowed with certain fixed though limited powers.
The plantations of the Plymouth Colony followed the example. In 1637,
Duxbury was incorporated, and at the General Court of the colony, in
1639, deputies were in attendance from seven towns.
"Thus," says Judge Parker,[A] "there grew up a system of government
embracing two jurisdictions, administered by the same people; the
Colonial government, having jurisdiction over the whole colony,
administered by the great body of the freemen, through officers elected
and appointed by them; and the town governments, having limited local
jurisdiction, such as was conceded to them by the Colonial government,
administered by the inhabitants, through officers and agents chosen by
them."
[Footnote A: Origin, Organization, etc., of the Towns of New England.]
By this change,--the invention of the colonists themselves without copy
or pattern,--the colonies were transformed from pure democracies into a
congeries of democratic republics; and each town-house, or whatever
building was used for such, became the state-house of a little republic.
And this is what it is in every New England town to-day.
Was not, then, the New England town-house a thing of inheritance at all?
Yes, so far as it was a building for the common meeting of the
inhabitants of the town, and so far as it was a place for free
discussion and the ordering of purely local affairs. The colonists came
from their English homes already familiar with the town-hall and its
uses so far. If one will turn to any gazetteer or encyclopædia which
gives a description of Liverpool, England, he will find the town-hall
described as one of the noble edifices of that town. The present
structure was opened in 1754, but it was the successor of others, the
first of which must have dated back somewhere near the time when King
John gave the town its charter--1207. Or he may turn to the town of
Hythe in the county of Kent. In its corporation records, it is said, is
the following entry, bearing date in the year 1399: "Thomas Goodeall
came before the jurats _in the common hall_ on the 10th day of October,
and covenanted to give for his freedom 20_d_., and so he was received
and sworn to bear fealty to our Lord the King and his successors, and to
the commonalty and liberty of the port of Hethe, and to render faithful
account of his lots and scots[A] as freeman there are wont." In another
entry, in the same year, the building is mentioned again as the "Common
House."
[Footnote A: The "lot" was the obligation to perform the public services
which might fall to the inhabitants by due rotation. "Scot" means tax.]
We may go further back than this. History tells us that "the boroughs
(towns) of England, during the period of oppression, after the Norman
invasion, led the way in the silent growth and elevation of the English
people; that, unnoticed and despised by prelate and noble, they had
alone preserved the full tradition of Teutonic liberty; that, by their
traders and shopkeepers, the rights of self-government, of free speech
in free meeting, of equal justice by one's equals, were brought safely
across the ages of Norman tyranny."[A] The rights of self-government and
free speech in free meeting, then, were rights and practices of our
Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and we are to go back with them across the English
channel to their barbarian German home, and to the people described by
Tacitus in his Germania, for the origin, as far as we can trace it, of
this part of our inheritance. These people were famed for their spirit
of independence and freedom. The mass are described as freemen, voting
together in the great assemblies of the tribe, and choosing their own
leaders or kings from the class of nobles, who were nobles not as
constituting a distinct and privileged caste. "It was their greater
estates and the greater consequence which accompanied these that marked
their rank." When we first learn of these assemblies, they are
out-of-doors, under the broad canopy of heaven alone, but the time came,
as the rathhaus of the German town to-day attests, when they built the
common hall or town-house; and we, to-day, in this remote and then
unknown and unconjectured land of the West, are in this regard their
heirs as well as descendants.[B]
[Footnote A: Green's Short History of the English People, chap. ii, sec.
6.]
[Footnote B: The present rathhaus of the quaint old city of Nuremberg,
built in 1619, is a notable building, much visited by travelers. Around
the wall of the hall within runs the legend: "Eins manns red ist eine
halbe red, man soll die teyl verhören bed,"--"One man's talk is a half
talk; one should hear both sides."]
In what, then, is the New England town-house more than, or different
from, the English town-house? In this, that it is the state-house of a
little democratic republic which came into existence of and by itself of
a natural necessity, and not merely governs itself, making all the laws
of local need and executing them--levying taxes, maintaining schools,
and taking charge of its own poor, of roads, bridges, and all matters
pertaining to the health, peace, and safety of all within its bounds, in
a word, all things which it can do for itself,--but also in
confederation with other little democratic republics has called into
being, and clothed with all the power it has for those matters of common
need which the town cannot do, the State. The State of Massachusetts,
from the day that the people created the General Court the body it still
is, by electing deputies from the towns,--representatives we now call
them,--to sit instead of the whole body of freemen, with the governor
and council, for the performance of all acts of legislation for the
common good, is the outgrowth of and exists only by virtue of the towns.
The towns created it, compose it, send up to it its heart-and-life
blood. This it is which makes the New England town unique, attracting
the attention and interest of intelligent foreigners who visit our
shores. Judge Parker says: "I very well recollect the curiosity
expressed by some of the gentlemen in the suite of Lafayette, on his
visit to this country in 1825, respecting these town organizations and
their powers and operations." In the same connection he adds that "a
careful examination of the history of the New England towns will show
that," instead of being modeled after the town of our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors, or the free cities of the continent of the twelfth century,
"they were not founded or modeled on precedent" at all. Mr. E.A.
Freeman, however, puts it more truthfully in saying: "The circumstances
of New England called the primitive assembly (that is, the Homeric
agora, Athenian ekklesia, Roman comitia, Swiss landesgemeinde, English
folk-moot) again into being, when in the older England it was well-nigh
forgotten. What in Switzerland was a _sur_vival was in New England
rather a _re_vival."[A]
[Footnote A: Introduction to American Institutional History, Johns
Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science.]
Our New England town-house, therefore, is a symbol of institutions,
partly original with our fathers, partly a priceless inheritance from
Old England the land of our fathers, and nearly in the whole, if not
quite, a regermination and new growth of old race instincts and
practices on a new soil.
The New England town is not an institution of all the States, but its
principle has invaded the majority. To the West and Northwest it has
been carried by the New Englander himself, and is being carried by him
both directly and indirectly into the South and Southwest, and will show
there in no great length of time its prevailing and vitalizing power.
It was Jefferson, himself a Virginian, reared in the midst of another
system, aristocratical and central in its character, who said: "These
wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their
governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever
devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government
and for its preservation."
The New England town-house, therefore, is significant of more than its
predecessor in England or Germany. While with them it means freedom in
the management of local affairs, beyond them it means a relation to the
State and the National government which they did not. It means not
merely a broad basis for the general government in the people, that the
people are the reason and remote source of governing power, but that
they are themselves the governors. Every man who enters a New England
town-house and casts his vote knows that that expression of his will is
a force which reaches, or may reach, the Legislature of his State, the
governor in his chair, the National Congress, and the President in the
White House at Washington. He feels an interest therefore, and a
responsibility which the voter in no other land in the world feels, and
the town-house is an education to him in the art of self-government
which no other country affords, and because of it the town is an
institution teaching how to maintain government, local, state, and
general, and so bases that government in self-interest and beneficial
experience, that it is a pledge of security and perpetuity as regards
socialism, communism, and as it would seem every other revolutionary
influence from within. It is in strong contrast with the commune of
France. France is divided for the purposes of local government into
departments; departments into arrondissements; and arrondissements into
communes, the commune being the administrative unit. The department is
governed by a préfet and a conseil-général, the préfet being appointed
by the central government and directly under its control, and the
conseil-général an elective body. The arrondissement is presided over by
a sous-préfet and an elective council. The commune is governed by a
maire and a conseil-municipal.
The conseil-municipal is an elective body, but its duties "consist in
assisting and to some extent controlling the maire, and in the
management of the communal affairs," but the maire is appointed by the
central government and is liable to suspension by the préfet.
The relation of the citizen to the general government in France is
therefore totally different from that of the citizen of the United
States to his general government, and the town organization is a school
of free citizenship which the commune is not, and so far republican
institutions in America have a guaranty which in France they have not.
* * * * *