w England.]
During the last two centuries the constitution of the English parish
has undergone some modifications which need not here concern us. The
Puritans who settled in New England had grown up under such parish
government as is here described, and they were used to hearing the
parish called, on some occasions and for some purposes, a township. If
we remember now that the earliest New England towns were founded
by church congregations, led by their pastors, we can see how town
government in New England originated. It was simply the English
parish government brought into a new country and adapted to the new
situation. Part of this new situation consisted in the fact that the
lords of the manor were left behind. There was no longer any occasion
to distinguish between the township as a manor and the township as a
parish; and so, as the three names had all lived on together, side by
side, in England, it was now the oldest and most generally descriptive
name, "township," that survived, and has come into use throughout a
great part of the United States. The townsfolk went on making by-laws,
voting supplies of public money, and electing their magistrates in
America, after the fashion with which they had for ages been familiar
in England. Some of their offices and customs were of hoary antiquity.
If age gives respectability, the office of constable may vie with that
of king; and if the annual town-meeting is usually held in the month
of March, it is because in days of old, long before Magna Charta was
thought of, the rules and regulations for the village husbandry were
discussed and adopted in time for the spring planting.

[Sidenote: Building up states.]
To complete our sketch of the origin of the New England town, one
point should here be briefly mentioned in anticipation of what will
have to be said hereafter; but it is a point of so much importance
that we need not mind a little repetition in stating it.

[Sidenote: Representation.]
We have seen what a great part taxation plays in the business of
government, and we shall presently have to treat of county, state, and
federal governments, all of them wider in their sphere than the town
government. In the course of history, as nations have gradually been
built up, these wider governments have been apt to absorb or supplant
and crush the narrower governments, such as the parish or township;
and this process has too often been destructive to political freedom.
Such a r