“CONSTITUTING
AMERICA” SERIES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
America is built on local
government. The future of our nation
depends on local communities remaining at the core of representative democracy.
In 1831, the Frenchman,
Alexis Clerel, the Vicount de Tocqueville, along with his colleague Gustave de
Beaumont, was sent by the French government to study America. While their mission was officially to review
prisons, their nine-month journey produced one of the great classics on
America’s civic culture.
“Democracy in America” was
published in two volumes (1835 and 1840).
It remains a foundational document describing American exceptionalism.
At its core is de
Tocqueville’s description of local government:
The
village or township is the only association which is so perfectly natural that
wherever a number of men are collected it seems to constitute itself. The town,
or tithing, as the smallest division of a community, must necessarily exist in
all nations….
….local assemblies of citizens
constitute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what
primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they
teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of
free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot
have the spirit of liberty.
America has always been a
nation of communities. Its pattern of
settlement, through Royal Charters, gave wide latitude for establishing local
governance. Being over 5,500 miles from
London, made detailed oversight of colonies impossible. By necessity, and by desire, colonists
embraced local authority over distant rule from a capitol or nation. When distant rulers attempted to increase their
control, colonists ignited a Revolution.
As
de Tocqueville explains:
The revolution of the United States was
the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or
ill-defined craving for independence.
The first form of government
was the Articles of Confederation, which created a very weak national
government. External threats and
internal dysfunction led to the U.S. Constitution, with extensive safeguards
for local sovereignty.
America established a
federal government, which means power is shared between national and state
government, and the majority of governmental actions take place at the local
level. This is institutionalized in the
Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people.
Today, America is governed
by 87,576 local units. This includes
3,034 counties, 19,429 municipalities (cities, towns, villages), 16,504
townships, 13,506 school districts, and 35,052 special districts (such as water
& sewer, fire, and conservation).
These independent, and
interdependent, local governments reflect the diversity that is unique to
America. In America, the preferred
government is one closest to those its serves.
de Tocqueville links local government to being fundamental to a
free people:
In the township, as well as everywhere
else, the people are the only source of power; but in no stage of government
does the body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence. In America ‘the
people’ is a master whose exigencies demand obedience to the utmost limits of
possibility.
Municipal independence is therefore a
natural consequence of the principle of the sovereignty of the people in the
United States: all the American republics recognize it more or less;
de
Tocqueville uses the townships of New England as his primary example of the
effectiveness of local government and their role in establishing America’s
unique democracy:
The native of New England is attached to
his township because it is independent and free: his co-operation in its
affairs ensures his attachment to its interest; the well-being it affords him
secures his affection; and its welfare is the aim of his ambition and of his
future exertions: he takes a part in every occurrence in the place; he practices
the art of government in the small sphere within his reach; he accustoms
himself to those forms which can alone ensure the steady progress of liberty;
he imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for order, comprehends the union
or the balance of powers, and collects clear practical notions on the nature of
his duties and the extent of his rights.
While
discourse over major national and global issues attract the most attention, it
is local government that most directly affects our daily lives. The quality of the school children attend,
the condition of roads driven, the safety of neighborhoods, the taste and
pressure of water coming from the tap, saving lives and property from fire or
accident, are locally governed and provided.
de
Tocqueville noted the benefits of locally focused government in America:
In no country in the world do the
citizens make such exertions for the common weal; and I am acquainted with no
people which has established schools as numerous and as efficacious, places of
public worship better suited to the wants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in
better repair.
He
saw local government promoting individual initiative while restraining growth
of a centralized state:
As the administrative authority is
within the reach of the citizens, whom it in some degree represents, it excites
neither their jealousy nor their hatred; as its resources are limited, everyone
feels that he must not rely solely on its assistance…This action of individual
exertions, joined to that of the public authorities, frequently performs what
the most energetic central administration would be unable to execute.
Thanks
to the strength of local government, America remains an inspiration for all
those who seek free and open societies.
While
chronicling America in its early years, de Tocqueville recognized how the
United States’ embrace of local governance already served as a model for a
better world:
I believe that provincial [local] institutions
are useful to all nations, but nowhere do they appear to me to be more
indispensable than amongst a democratic people.
The only nations which deny the utility
of provincial [local] liberties are those which have fewest of them; in other
words, those who are unacquainted with the institution are the only persons who
pass a censure upon it.
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