ocal affairs in Virginia were badly managed,
for the leading men were on the whole intelligent and public-spirited;
and in the years of the Revolution they were among the foremost in the
defense of American liberties. In New England, however, it was
noticeable that the mass of voters were intelligent and understood the
practical management of political affairs--a result which doubtless
came largely from their training in the town meeting.

The Three Types of Local Organization.--We have now seen that in
New England the town had the most important functions of local
government, and this is called, therefore, the _town type_; while in
Virginia the county had the greater share of governing powers, and there
we find the _county type_. Virginia influenced the colonies that lay
south of her, so that the county type was found also in the Carolinas
and Georgia. In the middle colonies there existed both counties and
towns, and here there was a much more equal division of powers between
these organizations. Hence we call theirs the _mixed_ or
_township-county type_ of local government.

Local Government in the West.--The people who migrated to the new
States west of the Alleghenies carried with them the forms of local
government which have just been described as growing up in the colonies.
This statement needs some modification, for nowhere in the West was the
pure town type adopted. Everywhere in the North we find the mixed type,
while the Southern States have, in general, the county type. In the
latter the county commissioners, elected at large or from precincts,
together with other county officers, exercise most of the local powers
of government.

Two Forms in the North.--In the greater number of the States that
have the mixed type, the county is governed by a board of commissioners
elected by either of the methods just mentioned as prevailing in the
South. In a few States (such as Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin), the
county board is composed of _supervisors_, who represent the towns,
villages, and wards of the county. Here we find the town meeting, copied
after that of New England or New York, and the town government has more
functions than in those States where commissioners compose the town
board.

Local Self-Government.--Such is the way in which local government
has come about in the various States of the Union. Rooted in the systems
that Englishmen have developed through the centuries, adapted to the new
life and