In what, then, is the New England town-house more than, or different from, the English town-house?  In this, that it is the state-house of a little democratic republic which came into existence of and by itself of a natural necessity, and not merely governs itself, making all the laws of local need and executing them—­levying taxes, maintaining schools, and taking charge of its own poor, of roads, bridges, and all matters pertaining to the health, peace, and safety of all within its bounds, in a word, all things which it can do for itself,—­but also in confederation with other little democratic republics has called into being, and clothed with all the power it has for those matters of common need which the town cannot do, the State.  The State of Massachusetts, from the day that the people created the General Court the body it still is, by electing deputies from the towns,—­representatives we now call them,—­to sit instead of the whole body of freemen, with the governor and council, for the performance of all acts of legislation for the common good, is the outgrowth of and exists only by virtue of the towns.  The towns created it, compose it, send up to it its heart-and-life blood.  This it is which makes the New England town unique, attracting the attention and interest of intelligent foreigners who visit our shores.  Judge Parker says:  “I very well recollect the curiosity expressed by some of the gentlemen in the suite of Lafayette, on his visit to this country in 1825, respecting these town organizations and their powers and operations.”  In the same connection he adds that “a careful examination of the history of the New England towns will show that,” instead of being modeled after the town of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, or the free cities of the continent of the twelfth century, “they were not founded or modeled on precedent” at all.  Mr. E.A.  Freeman, however, puts it more truthfully in saying:  “The circumstances of New England called the primitive assembly (that is, the Homeric agora, Athenian ekklesia, Roman comitia, Swiss landesgemeinde, English folk-moot) again into being, when in the older England it was well-nigh forgotten.  What in Switzerland was a survival was in New England rather a revival."[A]

[Footnote A:  Introduction to American Institutional History, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science.]

Our New England town-house, therefore, is a symbol of institutions, partly original with our fathers, partly a priceless inheritance from Old England the land of our fathers, and nearly in the whole, if not quite, a regermination and new growth of old race instincts and practices on a new soil.

The New England town is not an institution of all the States, but its principle has invaded the majority.  To the West and Northwest it has been carried by the New Englander himself, and is being carried by him both directly and indirectly into the South and Southwest, and will show there in no great length of time its prevailing and vitalizing power.