upon an honest and intelligent vote.

GOVERNMENT.

The township government possesses legislative, judicial, and executive
functions. It has a legislative department to make local laws, a
judicial department to apply the laws to particular cases, and an
executive department to enforce these and other laws. The three
functions are of nearly equal prominence in the Eastern States, but in
the West the executive function is more prominent than the legislative
and the judicial.

CORPORATE POWER.--Each township is a corporation; that is, in any
business affair it may act as a single person. In its corporate
capacity it can sue and be sued; borrow money; buy, rent, and sell
property for public purposes. When it is said that the township
possesses these powers, it is meant that the people of the township,
acting as a single political body, possess them.

OFFICERS.--The officers of the township are more numerous, and their
functions are more extensive than those of the civil district. Many
officers are the same in name, and others have the same duties as those
of the county in the Southern States.

LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT; THE PEOPLE.--In the Eastern States the
legislative department of the township government has more extensive
functions than in the West. In the New England States most local
affairs belong to the township government, and the county is of minor
importance. In these and a few other States the people make their own
local laws instead of delegating this power to representatives. The
electors of the township meet annually at a fixed place, upon a day
appointed by law, discuss questions of public concern, elect the
township officers, levy township taxes, make appropriations of money
for public purposes, fix the salaries and hear the reports of officers,
and decide upon a course of action for the coming year. Thus the
people themselves, or more strictly speaking, the qualified voters, are
the government. In some States special town meetings may be called for
special purposes. The town meeting places local public affairs under
the direct control of the people, and thus gives them a personal
interest in the government, and makes them feel a personal
responsibility for its acts. Another benefit of the system is that it
trains the people to deal with political matters, and so prepares them
to act intelligently in all the affairs of the State and the nation.

In the Western States the county government