[Sidenote:  The county lieutenant] One other important county officer needs to be mentioned.  We have seen that in early New England each town had its train-band or company of militia, and that the companies in each county united to form the county regiment.  In Virginia it was just the other way.  Each county raised a certain number of troops, and because it was not convenient for the men to go many miles from home in assembling for purposes of drill, the county was subdivided into military districts, each with its company, according to rules laid down by the governor.  The military command in each county was vested in the county lieutenant, an officer answering in many respects to the lord lieutenant of the English shire at that period.  Usually he was a member of the governor’s council, and as such exercised sundry judicial functions.  He bore the honorary title of “colonel,” and was to some extent regarded as the governor’s deputy; but in later times his duties were confined entirely to military matters.[12]

[Footnote 12:  For an excellent account of local government in Virginia before the Revolution, see Howard, Local Const.  Hist. of the U.S., vol. i. pp. 388-407; also Edward Ingle in Johns Hopkins Univ.  Studies, III., ii.-iii.]

If now we sum up the contrasts between local government in Virginia and that in New England, we observe:—­

1.  That in New England the management of local affairs was mostly in the hands of town officers, the county being superadded for certain purposes, chiefly judicial; while in Virginia the management was chiefly in the hands of county officers, though certain functions, chiefly ecclesiastical, were reserved to the parish.

2.  That in New England the local magistrates were almost always, with the exception of justices, chosen by the people; while in Virginia, though some of them were nominally appointed by the governor, yet in practice they generally contrived to appoint themselves—­in other words the local boards practically filled their own vacancies and were self-perpetuating.

[Sidenote:  Jefferson’s opinion of township government.] These differences are striking and profound.  There can be no doubt that, as Thomas Jefferson clearly saw, in the long run the interests of political liberty are much safer under the New England system than under the Virginia system.  Jefferson said, “Those wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation[13]....As Cato, then, concluded every speech with the words Carthago delenda est, so do I every opinion with the injunction:  Divide the counties into wards!” [14]

[Footnote 13:  Jefferson’s Works, vii. 13.]

[Footnote 14:  Id., vi. 544]