CHAPTER II.

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 that they should come in congregations, led by their favourite ministers,—­such men, for example, as Higginson and Cotton, Hooker and Davenport.  When such men, famous in England for their bold preaching and imperiled thereby, decided to move to America, a considerable number of their parishioners would decide to accompany them, and similarly minded members of neighbouring churches would leave their own pastor and join in the migration.  Such a group of people, arriving on the coast of Massachusetts, would naturally select some convenient locality, where they might build their houses near together and all go to the same church.

[Sidenote:  Land grants.] This migration, therefore, was a movement, not of individuals or of separate families, but of church-congregations, and it continued to be so as the settlers made their way inland and westward.  The first river towns of Connecticut were founded by congregations coming from Dorchester, Cambridge, and Watertown.  This kind of settlement was favoured by the government of Massachusetts, which made grants of land, not to individuals but to companies of people who wished to live together and attend the same church.

In the second place, the soil of New England was not favourable to the cultivation of great quantities of staple articles, such as rice or tobacco, so that there was nothing to tempt people to undertake extensive plantations.