Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-03-28
NEW ENGLAND STATE AND LOCAL
LEGISLATION.


least an interest for Southern readers.
The Cincinnati Enquirer points out
some characteristics of the New Eng
land States In regard to their State and
local organizations, which differ mate.
rally from the rest of the Union. "In
all ofthem," says that journal, 'the
Governors are elected for a single year,
and, a v IN Massachusetts, they are
paid but nominal salaries. In Yer
mont the Governor has a thousand dol
lars, and In Rhode Island, we believe,
four hundred dollars per annum. We
know of no other State where the Gov
ernor is annually elected. In all of
them the Legislatures-that is. the
lower branches-are exceedingly nu-
merous. They are chosen by towns,
(civil districts in the South, instead of
counties, which is elsewhere the case.
In New Hampshire, a State whose pop-
ulation is not equal to-day to
that Of Hamilton county, Ohio,
there is a House of Representatives of
about three hundred and fifty members.
There a town, if it chooses not to send
a member, having no especial business
OF a local character, can do so by pass
ing a resolution to that effect. While
the Lower House is so numerous. the
Senate consists simply of twelve mem
bers. Much Of what passes for Execu-
tive business the Governor can only
transact by and with the consent of a
small council chosen by the people. In
Maine they have a small Senate and a
very large House. So it is In Massachu-
sets, where the House of Representa-
tives is between three and four
hundred In number. In Connecticut
there are but twenty-one Senators and
two hundred and fifty members of the
House. Every town which was organ
lied before the year 1900 sends two
members, and alltowns organized since,
one member. Is not that an odd basis
for a representative body? There are
cities with fifty thousand people, like
New Haven, which have no more legis-
islative representation than little towns
with one thousand people, which hap
pened to be organized seventy-fve
years ago. This is nearly as bad as
the old rotten borough system o choos-
ing members of the British House of
Commons, in which. some reforms were
effected by the Reform Bill Of 1884. In
Rhode Island a property qualif-
cation in land of the value of one
hundred and thirty-four dollars is re-
quired of all foreigners. Negroes can
vote without it, and are, there
fore, a privileged class. The conse-
quence is that it only polls a small
vote of from one-third to one-balf as
large as other States or other counties
with equal population, where universal
suffrage prevails. Up to 1874 that
State continued to be governed by a
Royal Charter given by His Majesty
King Charles II, in 1864. 1t was not
until a popular revolution by violence
was threatened that a republican gov
eminent was substituted for that char
ter. In New Hampshire and, we be-
lieve, In other New England States,
each town can impose its poll-tax, and
it has sometimes been fixed at a rate
which has made the right of suffrage
for the poor an impossible luxury. All
through New England we see numer-
Gus traces in their constitutions and
laws of the old union of
Church and State, which
used to prevail there. In New
Hampshire there is an anti Catholic
test for Office, that State being nearly
half a century behind Great Britain,
which removed it in 1880. In some of
the New England States maiorities for
Governor are required over all other
candidates, or there is no choice, and
in that event the election goes to the
lower branch of the Legislature. In
that body really all practical power is
vested. That is according to the prac-
tees of old Colonial days, when a Gov
ernor, appointed by the Grown and in
vested with an absolute veto, frequent
ly found himself confronted by a hos
tile assembly. The people have MT
forgotten this. Their own Executives
they have given little power either to
use or abuse. The town now, as ever,
is the New England local organization.
Whether large or small, it has about
the same representation, Just as
the little States have in
the United States Senate, where all
New England, with one million less
people than New York, has twelve Uni
ted States Senators to the latter's two.
While claiming to be the greatest of
democracies, New England, as we have
ohown, is really ruled by an oligarchy
of towns. There is one thing that JUS
tice demands should be mentioned.
The number of their Legislators has
conduced TO official purity, and the dis
graceful bribery we have seen in New
York and Pennsylvania has never yet
been notorious in New England. There
are too many votes to buy. Save in
Massachusetts, no New England Leg
islature is ever in session over thirty
or forty days, for which each member
is paid at the rate of two dollars per
dom