THE TOWNSHIP.


Section 1. _The New England Township_.

Of the various kinds of government to be found in the United States,
we may begin by considering that of the New England township. As
we shall presently see, it is in principle of all known forms of
government the oldest as well as the simplest. Let us observe how the
New England township grew up.

[Sidenote: New England was settled by church congregations.]
When people from England first came to dwell in the wilderness of
Massachusetts Bay, they settled in groups upon small irregular-shaped
patches of land, which soon came to be known as townships. There were
several reasons why they settled thus in small groups, instead of
scattering about over the country and carving out broad estates for
themselves. In the first place, their principal reason for coming to
New England was their dissatisfaction with the way in which church
affairs were managed in the old country. They wished to bring about a
reform in the church, in such wise that the members of a congregation
should have more voice than formerly in the church-government, and
that the minister of each congregation should be more independent than
formerly of the bishop and of the civil government. They also wished
to abolish sundry rites and customs of the church of which they had
come to disapprove. Finding the resistance to their reforms quite
formidable in England, and having some reason to fear that they might
be themselves crushed in the struggle, they crossed the ocean in order
to carry out their ideas in a new and remote country where they might
be comparatively secure from interference. Hence it was quite natural