[Footnote 1:  B. J. Ramage, in Johns Hopkins Univ.  Studies, I., xii.]

[Sidenote:  The district system.] In order to put a stop to this lynch law, the legislature in 1768 divided the back country into districts, each with its sheriff and court-house, and the judges were sent on circuit through these districts.  The upland region with its districts was thus very differently organized from the lowland region with its parishes, and the effect was for a while almost like dividing South Carolina into two states.  At first the districts were not allowed to choose their own sheriffs, but in course of time they acquired this privilege.  It was difficult to apportion the representation in the state legislature so as to balance evenly the districts in the west against the parishes in the east, and accordingly there was much dissatisfaction, especially in the west which did not get its fair share.  In 1786 the capital was moved from Charleston to Columbia as a concession to the back country, and in 1808 a kind of compromise was effected, in such wise that the uplands secured a permanent majority in the house of representatives, while the lowlands retained control of the senate.  The two sections had each its separate state treasurer, and this kind of double government lasted until the Civil War.

[Sidenote:  The modern South Carolina county.] At the close of the war “the parishes were abolished and the district system was extended to the low country.”  But soon afterward, by the new constitution of 1868, the districts were abolished and the state was divided into 34 counties, each of which sends one senator to the state senate, while they send representatives in proportion to their population.  In each county the people elect three county commissioners, a school commissioner, a sheriff, a judge of probate, a clerk, and a coroner.  In one respect the South Carolina county is quite peculiar:  it has no organization for judicial purposes.  “The counties, like their institutional predecessor the district, are grouped into judicial circuits, and a judge is elected by the legislature for each circuit.  Trial justices are appointed by the governor for a term of two years.”

[Sidenote:  The counties are too large.] This system, like the simple county system everywhere, is a representative system; the people take no direct part in the management of affairs.  In one respect it seems obviously to need amendment.  In states where county government has grown up naturally, after the Virginia fashion, the county is apt to be much smaller than in states where it is simply a district embracing several township governments.  Thus the average size of a county in Massachusetts is 557 square miles, and in Connecticut 594 square miles; but in Virginia it is only 383 and in Kentucky 307 square miles.  In South Carolina, however, where the county did not grow up of itself, but has been enacted, so to speak, by a kind of afterthought, it