[Sidenote:  Virginia parishes.] [Sidenote:  The vestry of a close corporation.] In Virginia there were no town-meetings.  The distances between plantations cooperated with the distinction between classes to prevent the growth of such an institution.  The English parish, with its churchwardens and vestry and clerk, was reproduced in Virginia under the same name, but with some noteworthy peculiarities.  If the whole body of ratepayers had assembled in vestry meeting, to enact by-laws and assess taxes, the course of development would have been like that of the New England town-meeting.  But instead of this the vestry, which exercised the chief authority in the parish, was composed of twelve chosen men.  This was not government by a primary assembly, it was representative government.  At first the twelve vestrymen were elected by the people of the parish, and thus resembled the selectmen of New England; but after a while “they obtained the power of filling vacancies in their own number,” so that they became what is called a “close corporation,” and the people had nothing to do with choosing them.  Strictly speaking, that was not representative government; it was a step on the road that leads towards oligarchical or despotic government.

[Sidenote:  Powers of the vestry.] It was the vestry, thus constituted, that apportioned the parish taxes, appointed the churchwardens, presented the minister for induction into office, and acted as overseers of the poor.  The minister presided in all vestry meetings.  His salary was paid in tobacco, and in 1696 it was fixed by law at 16,000 pounds of tobacco yearly.  In many parishes the churchwardens were the collectors of the parish taxes.  The other officers, such as the sexton and the parish clerk, were appointed either by the minister or by the vestry.

With the local government thus administered, we see that the larger part of the people had little directly to do.  Nevertheless in these small neighbourhoods government was in full sight of the people.  Its proceedings went on in broad daylight and were sustained by public sentiment.  As Jefferson said, “The vestrymen are usually the most discreet farmers, so distributed through the parish that every part of it may be under the immediate eye of some one of them.  They are well acquainted with the details and economy of private life, and they find sufficient inducements to execute their charge well, in their philanthropy, in the approbation of their neighbours, and the distinction which that gives them.” [8]

[Footnote 8:  See Howard, Local Constitutional History of the United States, vol. i. p. 122.]