over from the interest of their natural or immediate suzerain to that of the king, by royal charters, conveying greater or lesser powers. When the royal power established itself in France and England on the ruins of the feudal system, and the great lords disappeared as a power in the state, the antagonism was changed, and the municipal power brought in contact with the throne. Cambrai (in France) was the first city which constituted herself แ commune." Here the people attempted it as early as 957. But their bishop appealed to Hugh the Great, who lent him an army, with which he reduced them to submission.* They attempted it again in 1024. They were again overcome; but early in the twelfth century they succeeded in establishing a communal government, which served as the model for all others afterwards constituted in France. "What shall I say?" exclaims an indignant feudal chronicler + "concerning the liberty of this city? Neither bishop nor emperor may there levy taxes; no tribute can be exacted from her, and no army is permitted to approach her walls, save for the defense of the commune.” Baudri de Sarchainville, Bishop of Cambray, is reputed to have been the first grantor of their communal franchises. The Crusaders, by withdrawing the nobility to a distance and increasing their necessities, favored the acquisition of communal rights by the serfs of the towns. At this period, says Orderic Vitalis, "The popular community was established by the bishops;" and, indeed, in Picardy, among a people brave, headstrong, and choleric, the country also of Calvin and many other revolutionary spirits, the commune arose. Noyon, Beauvais, and Laon, three ecclesiastical seigneuries, were the first communes. "Here the Church had laid the foundations of a powerful democracy."+ Brutalized as the people of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries were by serfdom, the establishment of these municipal governments, anomalous and isolated, in the midst of feudal oppression, was everywhere due to the daring of one or more particular citizens, "wise above their fellows;" usually, makers of armor or craftsmen, whose skill had first recommended them to the favor of some lord, and relieved them from their lowly condition. Chronicle tells us here and there of one of them; but the most are "unnamed demi *Thierry, (Augustin,) letter xvi.; and Balderici Chron. gods," whose names are absorbed in their work-"the people" -for the people are comparatively new and of late invention. It is clear, however, that, judged by any standards of greatness, these men who originated municipal power in the bosom even of feudality and superstition, were the great men of their age. Without advantage of education or position, they conquered crowned king and mitred abbot. Without prescription -even, indeed, in the teeth of it-they prescribed rules of human action, and laws of human relationship more durable than the system upon which they encroached. They created men out of slaves, and the people out of the men redeemed from the moral debasement of feudal dependency. What these men did may be seen by the comparison of their success with the failure of the "Jacquerie," and its easy dispersion by the Captal de Buche and the nobles. The same truth is salient from every succeeding era of progress even down to our own times. The municipal power, once established, and devised as a principle from generation to generation, has bred the real heroes of human rights and human progress. Every step of their on-going brought them out into antago nism with the superior power in the state. And thus the municipalities became the nurseries of free thought, and the universities of popular education. They stood up between lord and serf, crown and people, and demanded shortly to be heard as counsel for their constituents, and a little after as arbiters and judges. And what everywhere was the soul of these corporations? One man always! One man, no matter how born or bred, touched to the finer issues of humanity. Often failing; often sacrificed; often the scapegoat of popular cowardice or rage; but always great and worthy to have every minute of his life, every thought of his heart recorded by history. Now, since municipal government, taking hold with one hand of great principles of right, and holding the hand of the people clasped in the other-standing down amongst them always-is intimately blended with every thought, and wish, and want of every man in the community, the municipal man-hero-leader, if you please-who marches always with the people, not only to great battles, but in every skirmish, and lies down with them at night to talk of the day's work, "or only ruminate the morning's danger"-this man can fairly count the pulsations of the people's heart. And yet he dare never let himself grow "womanish and weak" in this intimate knowledge of their griefs: he must at once sympathize and lead, be friend and general in one. It seems, therefore, that a man must be really a greater man to be the municipal leader, than to be the leader of a nation. He must, in effect, combine all the qualities which constitute a perfect statesman, and at the same time have all those which accomplish the arbiter between the interests of man and man in the daily affairs of life. For the creators of the communes, the germ of modern municipalities, were men who argued from daily experience and the smallest things up to the life and fortunes of great states and empires, and the development of mighty and pervading principles. But the perfection of every municipal government is only attainable by intrusting the head of it with powers commensurate with the responsibilities of his position. In this country, the people have a national and educational fear of giving power to their rulers. Knowing that the head of the general government is beyond their reach, they are right in this jealousy; but they should not hesitate to intrust their munici pal ruler, who is for ever at their door, and for ever in their immediate power, with the unlimited authority which they themselves possess. The federal ruler has to deal generally with the great nation of millions: but the municipal ruler has to deal with you and me personally. The experience of every age and nation is demonstrative of the truth, that whoever exercises political power is disposed to abuse it; and conversely, whoever is deprived of every political power and right, is in danger of oppression; and it matters not, whether they who have been thus despoiled of their securities are ignored by reason of their birth, their race, their wealth, their poverty, their religion, or their party preferences.* It is not enough that a government should be merely popular. It has its tasks to perform. It is founded upon the theory of affording protection to life and property, and its design should be to promote the happiness and progress of all who submit themselves to its guardianship, whether it be a decree of the Swiss republic, or the imperial ukase of the Czar. Government, whether it be national or municipal, has its obligations to discharge, and its promises to fulfill. Prosperity, *Sismondi. without improvement, is insufficient; and that political party which directs the government, is bound to give shape not only to its internal policy but to guard against every outward attempt to circumscribe its limits, or weaken the force of its jurisdiction. Let us illustrate our position by the city of New-York. In 1642, the inhabitants of New-Amsterdam made application to the authorities of Holland, for the establishment of municipal institutions similar to those of the fatherland; but not until ten years afterwards was any definite action taken, when a separate magistracy was allowed, and the town received a quasi incorporation under the government of "a schout, two burgomasters, and five schepens." The powers of these magistrates were well defined with respect to their judicial functions, having jurisdiction of civil and criminal cases; but their municipal powers were exceedingly contracted, being subject to the controlling voice of the Direc tor-General and his Council. Still they had authority to supervise the improvement of the town, to appoint their own officers, and to make general regulations for their observance. Under this limited grant the city grew rapidly. Gov. Nichols, on the 12th June, 1665, several months after the surrender of the city to the English, issued a proclamation revoking the form of government of New-York, and changing "all names and styles, forms and ceremonies of government." The titles of schout, burgomasters, and shepens, thus gave place to those of "mayor, aldermen, and sheriff." On the 9th of August, 1673, the city was re-captured by the Dutch, and once more the names of its magistrates were altered to schout, burgomaster, and schepens, with powers and duties "conformable to the laws and statutes of the fatherland." By the treaty of peace between England and Holland, in 1674, the sixth article restored New-York to English rule, and its municipal officers to the titles of mayor, aldermen, and sheriff.* The Revolution of 1776, which so thoroughly convulsed the nation, in no wise disturbed the calm individuality of city governments; and New-York-since we have taken that for a type-maintained its old dispensation steadfastly until the commencement of the enormous European emigrations. When the weary and oppressed of foreign lands flocked to the United * Valentine's History of New-York. States as to a cave of Adullam, they came true-hearted, feal, honest, and disposed to give to the new country-that of their adoption-the loyal honor, affection, and patriotic adherence, which they were no longer able to give to their own. They came in grand armies, and peopled our Western farm-lands and our prairies. They upheld the right arm of industry, and "made the desert to blossom as the rose." But those grand armies, as is usual, had troops of worthless camp-followers, who did not adhere to the fortunes of the mass, but lounged in and over-populated our Atlantic cities, useless to God and man, abusive of both, and creative of the immense difficulty in the municipal government which at present exists: Of course in no city is this so remarkable as in New-York. New-York is no longer populated by a single nationality; for the number of foreign-born voters nearly equals that of the native-born. Now, this foreign population consists of thousands of French, Italians, and Spaniards, and of tens of thousands of Irish and Germans. These men, worthy doubtless in themselves, do not yet see this country and the equality which its constitution promises, in the same light as does the American born under that constitution. They start from a point differing widely from the starting-point of an American. Too many take the words Liberty, Freedom, Equality, in their huge, broad, foolish sense, giving unquestionable social equality with every human being they find here. They think that the fact of landing upon these shores makes them, not only the political, but the positively social equal of the best man in the land. Corduroy-clad Micky demands, once he has set foot upon our wharves, to have the right to enter Gen. Scott's drawing-room, or to sit uninvited and by "divine right" at the dining-table of Washington Irving. Alexis, Johann, Pierre, and Giovanni, are just as bad. Too many of them have heard at home that this is a free and equal country; and they suppose that to mean, that, in the United States, unworth is equal to worth, vice to virtue, merited lowliness to deseryedly-won grandeur, and utter incapacity to God-given and diligently-cultivated cleverness. Their error lies here- that the government of the United States promises and secures to them the thoroughly free and equal enjoyment of God's free air; the liberty of person; the exercise of religion; the possession of property; and every other needful political right. It does not say to them: "You, stupid peasant of the Rhine," "you, inexperienced native of Connemara," are entitled to come up and |