government," and that as late as 1764 in Massachusetts Bay the proposition to establish aristocracy, as a form of government, was rejected, only because it involved "the abandonment of the requirement of church membership for the exercise of suffrage!" (Italics always mine.)

Merriam adds that the "Puritans did not preach or practice religious toleration, nor did they become enthusiastic about the inherent rights of man." The equality which they believed in was spiritual equality; that is, equality among the saints the elect. Of course, in this connection, the distinction between the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritans must be kept in mind; they are generally confused. The practice and theory of the former were perfectly democratic and much more conducive to equality of citizens in the state. The political ideas of the Quakers were much more nearly those which were finally stamped as American and national by the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and much more nearly like those which were advocated by Roger Williams and Jefferson, than were those of the early settlers in New England. William Penn's definition of free government is not a bad one. It is this: "Any government is free to the people under it . . . where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws." Compare this with Jefferson's definition of a "Pure Republic," which see later. The two constitute not a bad definition of the theory of the true, not the play-acting, "progressives" of today. Mr. Jefferson, when he left Congress and went home to be elected to the House of Burgesses, had said, that he did it because the "laboring oar was really at home."

It was eminently in keeping with all of his opinions and all of his future life, that he should have begun the work of democratizing American institutions, educationally and socially and industrially, in the State raising a standard for the other States- because the State was, as he later expressed it, the "surest safeguard of republican institutions."

2. AN APOSTLE OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT Jefferson has long been regarded as the apostle of local self-government. In his first inaugural address, in all his state papers, and in all of his letters, where there was any relevancy to the question, and in the Kentucky Resolutions, his apostleship is displayed; but for the most part, people have only the idea of States' Rights in their minds in connection with his position. Jefferson went further than that. Notwithstanding the Kentucky Resolutions, which were in content mainly, and in intent altogether, a State protest only, two men were never in all history really further apart than he and John C. Calhoun. He was very much enamoured with the old Saxon Communal Government, and he became early in life, and continued to his death, enamoured with the New England Township System, a system which brings the direct government of the people, upon a small scale, into more perfect operation than any other institution in America.

On May 26, 1810, after he had retired from the Presidency, he said in a letter to Governor Tyler:

"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength. 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds,

of such size that all the children of each will be within a central school in it. . . . These little republics would be the main strength of the great one. We owe to them the vigor given to our revolution in its commencement in the Eastern States."

To Joseph C. Cabell, on January 31, 1814, he writes:

"There are two subjects, indeed, which I claim a right to further as long as I breathe the public education and the subdivision of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government, as absolutely hanging on these two hooks."

In another letter he says, to the same correspondent: "My friend, the way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to." Then follows his subdivision, beginning with the national government and its proper functions, continuing through the state governments and a general description of what should concern them, to the counties, and then the "wards," as he called them, or "townships," as they were called in New England. Of them he says:

"The elementary republics of these wards, the county republics, the State republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting truly a system of fundamental balances and checks. Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward republic, or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day;

he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his

power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte."

Then he exclaims:

"How powerfully did we feel the energy of this organization in the case of the Embargo? I felt the foundations of the government

shaken under my feet by the New England township . . . and, although the whole of the other States were known to be in favor of the measure, yet, the organization of this little selfish minority enabled it to override the Union. As Cato once concluded every speech with the words, 'Carthago delenda est,' so do I every opinion with the injunction, 'divide the counties into wards.' Begin them only for a single purpose, they will soon show for what others they are the best instruments."

Again, to Samuel Kercheval, on July 12, 1816:

"These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their government, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of men, for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation."

Jefferson's definition of "a pure republic" is this: “A government by the citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to the rules established by the majority." (See Penn's definition on a previous page.) He acknowledges that these "pure republics" can exist only on areas so small that all citizens may readily meet together.

With regard to local self-government, in another place, he says:

"Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens, and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public servants to corruption, plunder and waste. You have seen the practices by which the public servants have been able to cover their conduct, or, where that could not be done, the delusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constituents. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating,

plundering, office building and office hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government."

Whether the States are to remain indestructible and whether the precious blessing of local self-government upon smaller areas is to be perpetuated, depends upon the degree of concentration of governmental power at Washington. If it is carried too far, of course, the cords some day must snap, and if they do, one of "the two hooks" upon which our destinies hang will have disappeared, "the balance" will be lost, and no man is wise enough to foresee the ultimate result. The real balance in this Government is that between the States and the counties and the townships, on one side, and the Federal Government, on the other. These "lesser republics" have jurisdiction over nine-tenths of the questions which concern the individual in his daily life. It is even of more importance that the government of them should be wise and pure and free and enlightened, than it is that the National Government should be so. It is their not being so, which gives pretext for Federal usurpation. The ship has thus far weathered the gale, though with some broken spars and shredded sails.

Montesquieu had written and Montesquieu was a name held in high reverence in that day by all except Thomas Jefferson - that a republic was adapted only for a small territory, but Jefferson's conviction was precisely the contrary, if only it were a Federal Republic of limited, delegated powers. "A Republic of Republics!" That is the name which Sage, of New Orleans, in a book by that title gave to our dual government.

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