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power of the king over municipal charters manifested at first an inclination to concede to the city the right to a measure of local self-government. Thus "the city of New York received from the English kings during the colonial period a charter which, on the Declaration of the Independence of the colony of New York, and the establishment of the new state of New York, was confirmed by the first Constitution of the state. For a considerable period after the adoption of this constitution, changes in that charter were made upon the initiation of the people of the city, which initiation took place through the medium of charter conventions whose members were elected by the people of the city, and no statute which was passed by the legislature of the state relative to the affairs of the city of New York took effect within the city until it had been approved by the city."[160] But as Professor Goodnow observes, American cities "have very largely lost their original powers of local self-government."[161] The original conception of the city charter as a contract which established certain rights of local self-government which the legislature was bound to respect, merely recognized municipal corporations as entitled to the same exemption from unreasonable legislative interference, as the courts have since the Dartmouth College decision enforced in favor of private corporations. If this view had prevailed cities could not have been deprived arbitrarily of rights once recognized by the legislature, but they could have enforced the recognition of no rights not thus granted. The recognition of this doctrine would have prevented many of the abuses that have characterized the relation between state and municipal government in this country, but it would have guaranteed no rights which the legislature had not seen fit to confer. Any liberal interpretation of the theory of democracy must of necessity go farther than this, and make municipal self-government a fundamental right which the central authority of the state can, not only neither abridge nor destroy, but can not even withhold, since it is a right having its source not in a legislative grant, but in the underlying principles of popular government. The failure to recognize the right of local self-government as fundamental in any scheme of democracy was unfortunate. Some of the worst evils of municipal government would have been avoided, however, if authority once granted to munic
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