The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-14
City,
Self Government IDdIvidua
state, National.
From the World.

State, National.
From the World.
The Union League Club, which few weeks
ago denounced the Wholesale corruptions of
the Albany Legislature, in which their own
friends hold large majority, has just pub
lished a report on municipal Reform, espe-
pecially in the city of New York, +" to per-
suade the citizens of this metropolis that they
have no rights of local self-government worth
mentioning, and that they should content
| edly resign all their municipal affairs to the
supreme direction of the Legislature.
The report of the Clubs Committee is a
considerable pamphlet of a hundred and forty
| four pages, and is an elaborate assault upon
that democratic theory of local selfgovern-
ment which has been cherished by nearly
| every American statesman of eminence from
| the foundation of the Government, and to
| which less free Governments than our own are
universally tending throughout the civilized
world. Whatever De Tocqueville saw to
admire in the institutions of the United States
the philosophers of Union Square select for
their especial disapprobation.
They deem it, for example, no "part of the
theory of the Government of the mother coun-
try that cities were a source of political power,
nor was such theory adopted at the period
of our Revolution, nor has it any sanction in
our subsequent legislation"
IndJ 'ClLleS are source OF pOllJlcal power
no American citizen has ever cOntended if the
phrase be taken to signify insubordination to
the sovereignty of the State in all matters per-
tanning to the State, or to the sovereignty of
the nation in every matter of national concern.
But that cities are source of political power,
each one for itself, in all matters OF purely
civic concern, is the doctrine which the argu-
ments of the Union League Club scarcely
touch, which is imbedded in the foundation of
our history, lives in the very essence of our
national democratic principles, and which can
only be successfully overthrown by the same
logic which can overthrow the right of every
State of this Union, within its sphere, to
govern itself, and the right of the people of the
Union themselves to govern themselves-by
the logic, namely, of force.
That ''cltles are source OF political power"
no man contends who has the truth of Demo-
cratic doctrine in him, if the phrase be taken
to signify any participation in or control over
the local affairs of the citizens of the rural dis
tricts, or if it be taken to signify any share in
the control of affairs of common concern to
every citizen of the State, beyond and above
that share which is exactly proportional to
their numerical weight in the representation
of the entire Commonwealth. But they are
ga source of political power" in their own
affairs, for precisely the same reason that the
counties and towns are a source OF political
power in their county and town affairs
namely, because we are Tree people and
govern ourselves. Indeed, every argument of
the Union League Club is as good for an
assault upon the selfgovemment of the ooun-
try as upon the selfgovernment of the crowded
town.
Now of selfgovernment by any people, free
dom itself is the cornerstone, and local self
government its foundation walls. Undermine
these, and the superstructure falls in crum-
bling ruin.
The people of cities and of towns and of
not slaves; by virtue of pursuing happiness
at their own Yoltion, suffering by their own
failures and profting by their own successes;
by virtue of experience organized inio faculty
! in each man for himself by virtue OF each