1 by the state board of education; the land surveyor and the superintendent of the poor, by the county judge; the coroner, by the governor from a double number nominated by the county court; and the county judge, by a joint vote of the two houses of the general assembly. The latter holds his office for six years. The sheriff, it may be noted, continued to act as collector and custodian of the county funds until 1870, when the treasurership was created.5 (c).—Rise of Democratic County Government in other States of the South. Elsewhere in the southern and southwestern states county organization has developed along the same lines as in Virginia. Everywhere there is a tendency to introduce the elective principle and to lodge the administration of finance in the hands of a county board. But there is much variation in the degree of development and in constitutional details. Maryland has elective county commissioners with the usual powers; and there the judicial functions of the old justices' tribunals are relegated to the circuit court, which holds at least two terms annually in each county, and "when in session is styled the county court."6 In Delaware, as elsewhere shown, the old levy court, composed of commissioners elected in the various hundreds, still manages the county affairs. The treasurer is nominated by the commissioners; but the sheriff and coroner are chosen by ballot. 1 Code of Va., 1887, p. 388. 2 Code of Va., 1887, pp. 88-9. But they are nominated on recommendation of the board of supervisors. 3 Code of Va., 1887, p. 270. * Code of Va., 1887, p. 731; Const., Art. VI, & 13: Ib., 42. 5 See the notes by Mr. Munford in the Code of Va., 1873, pp. 90, 87. * Wilhelm, Local Inst. of Md., 92–3. 7 See Chap. V, IV, (c). 8 Const., Art. VII: Laws of Del., 1874, p. xli. 8 2 Alabama has adopted a commissioner system, with elective officers;1 and her free county government is similar to that of many western states. In Mississippi all the principal county officers are chosen by the people; and the board is composed of five supervisors elected each for a particular district every two years. And every county in Arkansas has three commissioners chosen in the same manner.3 Similar powers are exercised by the commissioners' court in Texas; while in Louisiana the administrative area is styled a parish; but its organization is on the general model of the county elsewhere in the South. Three county commissioners are elected biennially in South Carolina, with jurisdiction over roads, bridges and ferries, and in all matters relating to taxation. Moreover in this state a singular plan for taking the assessment has been adopted. For each county the governor, with the approval of the senate, appoints an auditor to whom the general management of the assessment is given. But the work of assessment is performed in each township or tax district by a board of three assessors nominated by the auditor. The town board chooses its own chairman; and the chairmen of all the town boards of the county constitute the county board of equalization. The president of the latter body is the county member of the board of equalization for the state." But it is in North Carolina that the ancient constitution of the southern county survives with greatest tenacity. Here 1 Code of Alabama, 1886, I, 123, 253 ff. But the county board is styled the court of county commissioners," and is composed of the probate judge and four other members: Ib., 240. This plan is similar to that existing in Oregon: see Chap. X, III, (a). 2 Const., Art. VI, 20: Code of Miss., 1880, pp. 29–30, 77. 3 Arkansas Digest, 1874, p. 235. * Revised Statutes of Texas, 1879, pp. 156 ff. 5 General Statutes of S. C., 1882, pp. 183 ff. new methods have been introduced without abrogating the old. Each county has a board of from three to five commissioners; but they possess little independent power. They are appointed biennially by the justices, with whom they are required to meet in joint session. The commissioners may audit claims and accounts, and they have the management of highways.' But they may levy taxes only with assent of a majority of the justices. The officers are all elective,3 except the judges of the inferior court and the superintendent of schools: the former" are appointed by the justices; and the latter,5 by the justices acting jointly with the county board of education. Among the officers of the North Carolina county two primitive functionaries have survived. These are the processioner and the ranger; but the former is now an ordinary land surveyor, whose principal duty is the determination of disputed boundaries; while the duties of the ranger as recorder of strays devolve ex officio upon the register of deeds, and, in every township, upon the justices of the peace. In this state, likewise, the sheriff retains his ancient character as a fiscal officer. He is the collector of taxes; and the justices, whenever they see fit, may abolish the office of treasurer and vest its duties in the sheriff. And, finally, it may be noted that the constitution of the county of North Carolina has been reproduced in Tennessee, whose territory long formed a part of the dominion of the older commonwealth.9 1 Code of N. C., 1883, I, 287-92, 773, 777, 781, etc. 2 Code of N. C., 1883, I, 312. 3 Code of N. C., 1883, II, 177. Code of N. C., 1883, I, 315. 5 The commissioners are constituted the board of education: Code of N. C., 1883, II, 135, 137-8. • Code of N. C., 1883, I, 728–30. "Code of N. C., 1883, II, 569 ff. 8 Code of N. C., 1883, I, 290, 304. See the interesting sketch of local government in North Carolina and Tennessee, in Phelan's History of Tennessee, 203–14. VI. THE ELECTIVE COUNTY BOARD A SURVIVAL OF THE SHIREMOOT. At the close of the last chapter it was pointed out that the county courts of the colonial era were the representatives of the English quarter sessions; and that the earlier shiremoot had survived in the electoral assemblies. Now, however, with the results of another century's history before us, we are able to see that already in that period a process had begun which has finally resulted in a more complete restoration of the ancient body. And here we encounter a most remarkable example of the alternate integration and differentiation of institutional organisms. Mr. Freeman has shown us that the English monarchy ends, as it began, with the acknowledged source of its authority in the will of the people. In a manner somewhat analogous, the "cycle has come round" in the government of the shire. There was first a long era of gradual dissolution. We have already seen how, after Edward I, the functions of the county court slowly decreased in importance; and how, after Edward III, the justices of the peace in their various capacities absorbed all of its remaining administrative powers, while receiving back more than the original criminal jurisdiction which the court had surrendered to the royal judges. was not without regret that the democratic constitution of the shire was overthrown. In the seventeenth century, we find writers lamenting the neglect of the curia comitatus and pleading for its restoration.3 3 1 Growth of the English Constitution, particularly, pp. 144–59. 2 See Chap. VI, v. But it 3 See, for example, the little treatise printed in London during the Protectorate, 1657, entitled Curia Comitatus Rediviva, or the Pratique Part of the County Court Revived. In his preface the author, W. Greenwood, evidently a young lawyer, thus addresses the reader: "Considering the utilitie and profit a peece of this nature would produce to the Countrey, prest me forwards (out of profound and authentick Authors) to demonstrate the anti But that restoration was to be first realized on American soil. And the process by which it has been accomplished is precisely the reverse of that which has just been described. Now it is the justices' court which gradually decays, giving up its civil authority to the people's representatives. Everywhere, in the beginning, we behold the same phenomenon. In New York and Pennsylvania, in early Michigan and the Northwest Territory, in Massachusetts and the southern states, a dual authority arises. On the one hand there is a popular board, whose powers slowly expand; on the other a court, whose members are usually nominated by the central authority, and whose functions tend more and more to become strictly judicial. Furthermore it is significant that, in almost every instance, it is the management of finance of which the quarter sessions are at first wholly or in part deprived. And thus, in the county as in the nation, the revival of popular government has its genesis in the control of taxation. The highest results of this process of readjustment have been attained in the West. Here the quarter sessions have been dissolved; yielding their judicial authority, partly to the county judge, and partly to the circuit or district court.2 The fiscal board, on the contrary, has absorbed all of the general quitie, justness, and Iurisdiction of this Court; for the more the Country knows it, and the practice thereof, the more they will love and affect it.” And elsewhere he adds: "This Court continuing (untill the time of William the Conqueror, and ever since during the times and raigns of the antient Kings) and doth yet continue (in manner) the same forme, and substance that it then was, . . . the Pleas ought no more to be taken from it, now in our dayes (without cause) than they ought then to have been," etc.: Curia Com. Red., 4-5. The work contains a full discussion of the officers, jurisdiction, and procedure of the court, with citations from the early statutes. 1 But similar results have been already reached in New England; while throughout the south the process is fairly begun, and in some instances it is far advanced. 2 The circuit or district court is the American counterpart of the ancient plenus comitatus, or full county court held by the royal justices. |