1853. COUNTIES, Administration of.—
I have two great measures at heart, without
which no republic can maintain itself in
strength. 1. That of general education, to
enable every man to judge for himself what
will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To
divide every county into hundreds, of such
size that all the children of each will be
within reach of a central school in it. But
this division looks to many other fundamental
provisions. Every hundred, besides a school,
should have a justice of the peace, a constable,
and a captain of militia. These officers, or
some others within the hundred, should be a
corporation to manage all its concerns, to take
care of its roads, its poor, and its police by
patrols, &c. (as the selectmen of the Eastern
townships). Every hundred should elect one
or two jurors to serve where requisite, and
all other elections should be made in the
hundreds separately, and the votes of all the
hundreds be brought together. Our present
captaincies might be declared hundreds for
the present, with a power to the courts to
alter them occasionally. These little republics
would be the main strength of the great
one. We owe to them the vigor given to our
Revolution in its commencement in the Eastern
States, and by them the Eastern States
were enabled to repeal the Embargo in opposition
to the Middle, Southern, and Western States, and their large and lubberly division
into counties which can never be assembled.
General orders are given out from a centre
to the foreman of every hundred, as to the
sergeants of an army, and the whole nation
is thrown into energetic action, in the same direction
in one instant and as one man, and
becomes absolutely irresistible. Could I once
see this I should consider it as the dawn of
the salvation of the republic, and say with old
Simeon,
“nunc dimittas, Domine.” But our
children will be as wise as we are, and will
establish in the fulness of time those things
not yet ripe for establishment.—
To John Tyler. Washington ed. v, 525.
Ford ed., ix, 277.
(M.
1810)
