Local self-government

“ Local Self-Government.—Such is the way in which local government has come about in the various States of the Union. Rooted in the systems that Englishmen have developed through the centuries, adapted to the new life and the peculiar conditions of the colonial period, it has spread with the population throughout the land. The management of local affairs by the people and their chosen representatives is a sound principle of government which holds a firm place in every part of our country. ”

“ It demanded, in the name of self-government, that if a State, by its assumed authority, made local self-government a sham and a mockery, no national authority should have a right to prevent or correct the mischief. ”

“ Local self-government, which is the pride of our institutions, will be reconciled with the national supremacy in maintenance of human rights, and the two together will constitute the elemental principles of the Republic. ”

“ If these powers are exercised in an enlightened spirit the problem of Local Self-Government will be, in a great measure, settled, but the difficulties in the way are so numerous and formidable that nothing short of the strenuous and zealous exertions of the intelligent and wealthy classes of the community, acting in concert for the public welfare, will render Local Government an immediate success. ”

“ Under its local self-government, government plainly becomes no more than the management of what are wholly public interests. The justice of lopping off from government all matters not the common affairs of the citizens then becomes apparent. The character of every man in the community being known, public duties are intrusted with men who truly represent the citizens. ”

“ The tyranny of departmentalism, and the servitude of the individual as now practised, are not only unnecessary in the interests either of the Government or the people, but are positively injurious to both. The remedy for present evils lies in local self-Government, which—rightly understood—is the greatest blessing that could be conferred on the country. ”

“ But if, in response to a call nowadays frequently heard, the many incipient parties should decide to unite on one or a few things, is it not clear that in natural order the first reforms needed are direct legislation and local self-government? ”

“ And the special purpose of the decentralization and local self-government measures now being brought forward, is to substitute the best kind of native agency for the worst ; to revive the ancient activity of rural municipal life, and to entrust the village management to the decent quiet villagers themselves instead of leaving it to a swarm of greedy underlings attracted to the Government service, not by the scanty pay, but by the power they enjoy, and the unlimited opportunities for exaction. ”

“ The local self-government shall provide for an independent decision according to the law and on its responsibility by the population of the issues of local importance, possession, use and management of the municipal property. ”

“ How local self-government should be organized and how it is possible to do without a bureaucracy has been demonstrated to us by America and the first French Republic, and is still being demonstrated by Canada, Australia and other British Dominions. ”

“ It is simply nowhere. The land is there and the people are there, but the form of local government over it and them has been changed from local self-government to a Congressional or a Presidential agency, as the case may be. ”

“ Legal protection of local self-government Local authorities shall have the right of recourse to a judicial remedy in order to secure free exercise of their powers and respect for such principles of local self-government as are enshrined in the constitution or domestic legislation. ”

“ Aware that the safeguarding and reinforcement of local self-government in the different European countries is an important contribution to the construction of a Europe based on the principles of democracy and the decentralisation of power ”

“ Local self-government, with impartial suffrage, will guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, and the freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus. We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent with public order, for the state self-government, and for the nation a return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limitations of power. ”

“ But no such wish has been expressed, and until it is expressed, a thoughtful observer may fairly believe that Local Self-Government will not flourish in a country where are presented none of the conditions on which its prosperity depends, and he may conjecture that in Ireland, as in France, an honest centralised administration of impartial officials, and not Local Self-Government, would best meet the real wants of the people. ”

“ I ask that in our own case we should practise with firm and fearless hand what we have so often preached—the doctrine which we have so often inculcated upon others—namely, that the concession of local self-government is not the way to sap or impair, but the way to strengthen and consolidate, unity. ”

“ The local self-government shall be exercised by citizens through a referendum, elections, other forms of direct expression of the will of the people, through elected and other bodies of the local self-government and officials of the local self-government. ”

“ If we wish to destroy the life of the city, make it impotent to discharge the functions for which it was organized, then, and then only, it might be feasible to place over it a commission.
But, Honorable Judges, authorities are agreed that cities must be allowed greater freedom of action in local affairs, that municipal home rule is indispensable. The governments of our large cities have been dominated to such an extent by the state legislatures, usually partisan and irresponsible to the locality concerned, that in many cases self-government has become a term, hollow and without meaning. ”

“ Local self-government bodies shall independently manage municipal property, form, adopt and implement the local budgets, introduce local taxes and dues, ensure the protection of public order, and also resolve other issues of local importance. ”

“ The tax burden would be impossible by any other plan.
It urges also that local self-government in social centers will be a mere pretense unless it be accompanied with the power to disburse funds. Self-government is desired primarily because it means that the local center will, through self-government, begin to take on individuality, to develop a neighborhood policy, to seek the fulfillment of neighborhood needs. ”

“ In a country with a great expanse of territory, with peoples of widely differing customs and ideas, local self government in local matters is essential to the peace and happiness of the people in the several communities as well as to the strength and unity of the country as a whole. ”

“ By his cautious yet comprehensive scheme of local self-government he has gone to the root of the whole matter, restoring life to the ancient village and municipal institutions, under which, with due guidance, the real needs of the people can be supplied, cheaply and without oppression, by and through the people themselves. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose that anything novel or newfangled is being introduced. ”

“ We should move toward a greater measure of local self-government consistent with the constitutional status of the District. We should take adequate steps to assure that citizens of the United States are not denied their franchise merely because they reside at the Nation's Capital. ”

“ It is probable that the area is too vast and the population too scattered and transitory to make it wise at the present time to provide for an elective legislative body, but the conditions calling for local self-government will undoubtedly very soon exist, and will be facilitated by the measures which I have recommended. ”

“ Nothing but an efficient system of popular local self-government could secure good administration under such conditions, and the rule of such a public opinion as England and the United States possess becomes almost impossible, because people know little either of one another, or of current questions, or of the conduct of their representatives sent to the capital. ”

“ These restrictions upon the powers of cities indicate a fear that too much local self-government might jeopardize the interests of the propertied classes. This attitude on the part of those who have framed and interpreted our state constitutions is merely an expression of that distrust of majority rule which is, as we have seen, the distinguishing feature of the American system of government. It is in the cities that the non-possessing classes are numerically strongest and the inequality in the distribution of wealth most pronounced. ”

“ The author arrives at the conclusion that local self-government, pure and simple, has been proved inefficient, and that it is possible to establish a system of central administrative control which does not destroy local autonomy, but which secures efficient administration while not encroaching upon those ideas and principles for which Anglican institutions have so long been prized. ”

“ It is therefore a fact of cardinal importance that in the United States the local governments of township, county, and city are left to administer themselves instead of being administered by a great bureau with its head at the state capital. In a political society thus constituted from the beginning it has proved possible to build up our Federal Union, in which the states, while for certain purposes indissolubly united, at the same time for many other purposes retain their self-government intact. ”

“ Undoubtedly regional self-government is in entire accord with the spirit of democracy and is a great need of our nation. But a true regional self-government can be realized only when our national independence is won, for without national freedom, local freedom is impossible.... Many social, economic and political problems facing the individual provinces can be solved only by the nation as a whole. ”

“ Observe now that the township is to be regarded in two lights. It must be considered not only in itself, but as part of a greater whole. We began by describing it as a self-governing body, but in order to complete our sketch we were obliged to speak of it as a body which has a share in the government of the state and the nation. The latter aspect is as important as the former. If the people of a town had only the power of managing their local affairs, without the power of taking part in the management of national affairs, their political freedom would be far from complete. ”

“ The freedom which England enjoys to-day is largely owing to the habits of self-government fostered by local institutions, the origin of which is as old as our civilization, and the roots of which have sunk deeply into the soil. And seeing how our towns have thriven since their government was taken from a privileged few and given to the whole body of their inhabitants, is there not fair reason to hope that the county districts will similarly be benefitted by institutions equally representative and equally free? ”

“ A municipal government responsive to public opinion might be too much inclined to make the public interests a pretext for disregarding property rights. State control of cities, then, may be regarded as a means of protecting the local minority against the local majority. Every attempt to reform this system must encounter the opposition of the property-owning class, which is one of the chief reasons why all efforts to establish municipal self-government have thus far largely failed. ”

“ Out of the League's efforts grew a “municipal programme” the fundamental features of which were that every community should have the right of self-government in local affairs without the interference of outside governmental or party machinery; that the city's public property in land, and especially its franchise rights, should be preserved unimpaired; that all barriers should be removed which prevented the popular will from expressing itself freely and effectively ”

“ Formerly the provincial president, who stood in as close relations with the people as with the State, formed the lowest step in the State bureaucracy. Below him were local authorities, who were no doubt subject to control, but not in the same measure as nowadays to the disciplinary powers of the district, or the ministerial, bureaucracy. The rural population enjoys today, by virtue of the measure of self-government conceded to it, an autonomy, not perhaps similar to that which the towns had long ago ”

“ What would thus be likely to happen in our typical city of 50,000 inhabitants would also, in greater or less degree, be possible in all industrial towns and cities. In every such place, self-government and direct legislation could solve the more pressing immediate phases of the labor question and create the local conditions favorable to remodeling, and as far as possible abolishing, the superstructure of government. ”