[Sidenote:  Shire-motes.] [Sidenote:  Earl Simon’s Parliament.] In English townships there has been from time immemorial a system of representation.  Long before Alfred’s time there were “shire-motes,” or what were afterwards called county meetings, and to these each town sent its reeve and “four discreet men” as representatives.  Thus to a certain extent the wishes of the townsfolk could be brought to bear upon county affairs.  By and by this method was applied on a much wider scale.  It was applied to the whole kingdom, so that the people of all its towns and parishes succeeded in securing a representation of their interests in an elective national council or House of Commons.  This great work was accomplished in the thirteenth century by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and was completed by Edward I. Simon’s parliament, the first in which the Commons were fully represented, was assembled in 1265; and the date of Edward’s parliament, which has been called the Model Parliament, was 1295.  These dates have as much interest for Americans as for Englishmen, because they mark the first definite establishment of that grand system of representative government which we are still carrying on at our various state capitals and at Washington.  For its humble beginnings we have to look back to the “reeve and four” sent by the ancient townships to the county meetings.

[Sidenote:  Township as unit of representation.] The English township or parish was thus at an early period the “unit of representation” in the government of the county.  It was also a district for the assessment and collection of the national taxes; in each parish the assessment was made by a board of assessors chosen by popular vote.  These essential points reappear in the early history of New England.  The township was not only a self-governing body, but it was the “unit of representation” in the colonial legislature, or “General Court;” and the assessment of taxes, whether for town purposes or for state purposes, was made by assessors elected by the townsfolk.  In its beginnings and fundamentals our political liberty did not originate upon American soil, but was brought hither by our forefathers the first settlers.  They brought their political institutions with them as naturally as they brought their language and their social customs.

[Sidenote:  The Russian village community; not represented in the national government.] Observe now that the township is to be regarded in two lights.  It must be considered not only in itself, but as part of a greater whole.  We began by describing it as a self-governing body, but in order to complete our sketch we were obliged to speak of it as a body which has a share in the government of the state and the nation.  The latter aspect is as important as the former.  If the people of a town had only the power of managing their local affairs, without the power of taking part in the management of national affairs, their political freedom would be far from