1176. CENTRALIZATION, Local Government vs.—
It is not by the consolidation,
or concentration of powers, but by their distribution,
that good government is effected.
Were not this great country already divided
into States, that division must be made, that
each might do for itself what concerns itself
directly, and what it can so much better do
than a distant authority. Every State again
is divided into counties, each to take care of
what lies within its local bounds; each county
again into townships or wards, to manage
minuter details; and every ward into farms,
to be governed each by its individual proprietor.
* * * It is by this partition of cares,
descending in gradation from general to particular,
that the mass of human affairs May
be best managed, for the good and prosperity
of all.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 82.
Ford ed., i, 113.
(1821)
