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men, thanes, and churls, return thanks to thee for the directions which thou hast given us concerning the conservancy of the peace, for great is the benefit which results to all of us, both poor and rich, thereby.'

"They then state the several articles or chapters of the statute, being ten in number, seriatim, and signify the manner in which they have received and modified the same. Grateful for the legislation thus bestowed upon them, the Kentishmen speak with thankfulness and humility; yet the form of the proceeding implies that their assent, so asked, might have been refused. In proportion as the sovereign gained in prerogative, the powers of the witena-gemote of Wessex, the predominant kingdom, would gradually gain strength also. The minor states annexed to Wessex would tacitly submit to be bound by its legislation, and, from the reign of Edgar, the lesser authorities seem in most cases to have been merged in the three leading states or territories of Wessex, Mercia, and Danelaghe. Mercia clearly maintained its independence; Northumbria equally so. East Anglia seems to have been sometimes considered as annexed to Mercia, sometimes as constituting a separate state, and sometimes as classing with Danish Northumbria. The laws which Edgar enacted at the request or with the assent of the Witan of Wessex were to be implicitly observed by his own immediate subjects. As to the others, they were to be adopted according to the model enacted by the assembly. The laws were transmitted to the earls by writ: it is most probable that they were usually received without hesitation, yet there was no absolute coercive power in the crown of Wessex; and it was not until the reign of Canute that the Mercians received King Edgar's laws."

Thus we have traced the political organization of the Saxon empire, and from the hundred to the witena-gemote, we have discovered everywhere the principle of local self-control, while in the constitution of the united Saxon states, state sovereignty is manifestly seen to be the basis of their union. Though under one king, elected from the royal family by the joint suffrages of the freemen of all the kingdom, yet the witena-gemotes of the respective kingdoms had an absolute power of rejecting the decrees of the great

national witena-gemote of Wessex, and no power of coercing states was claimed for the crown.

But even before the conquest by the Norman, it is evident from the quotation given above from Palgrave, that the genuine spirit of the Saxon system had already fallen into decay. Of the original eight kingdoms, only three retained the vigorous vitality of independence. One still maintained a sickly struggle, which could hardly be deemed successful, and the remaining four had either voluntarily united with the more powerful states, or at best presented but a caput mortuum of their original defiant independence. It is also to be observed that the centralizing influences of the stationary monarchy were sapping the foundations of the Saxon institutions. As the royal prerogative gained in power, the king's original dominion of Wessex gained a preponderating influence, to the disparagement of her coequal sister states. The king was known as the king of Wessex, and the witena-gemote of the united Saxon states came to be called the Witan of Wessex. Hence, though their local liberties were still untouched by king or witan, the great body of the Saxons had become accustomed to forget the primitive idea of the sovereign independence of their several states, and to the conception of a royal central power, of which the states were merely subjects and dependants. In other words, the Saxon principle of local sovereignty had been insidiously undermined, and the imperial principle of absolute and centralized authority was gradually but surely gaining ground. The notion of imperial centralism once entertained, it mattered little who should be the tyTwo claimants, one a Norman, one a Saxon, had a contest for the crown, and when the sun set on the bloody field of Hastings, casting his last rays on the victorious banners of the Norman conqueror, the crumbling fabric of the Anglo-Saxon system fell before his feet. The men who had already sacrificed their independence to a Saxon, made no long defence against the Norman. One fierce, bloody battle, and the sun of Anglo-Saxon freedom set, to be succeeded by the Egyptian darkness of the feudal system. Thus a strife of centuries was laid up for the English people; and instead of working out their own free system through continuous and glorious spontaneous developments, by the assistance of enlight

rant.

ened Christianity and increased knowledge, they were forced to rise by slow steps, from a state of bondage, through a din of never-ceasing battle, to their ancient heritage of freedom.

NOTES.

1. PROBABLY the best illustration of the local character of the subordinate Anglo-Saxon institutions is to be found in the United States.

I have thus given a very general outline of the more important Anglo-Saxon institutions. To notice the minuter variations, special provisions, and occasional changes, would lead me into too wide a discussion, and would not aid the purposes of so elementary a work as this: enough has been said, however, to indicate those of our own legal ideas and forms which have a Saxon origin.

Prominent among these is that most important, and to us sacred principle of local self-government. This element lay at the foundation of the whole Saxon polity. It has been preserved in the English shires and ancient municipal corporations or boroughs, with their immemorial privileges. In many of the American States it is guarded with even more jealousy than in the mother country. The New England and New York divisions of towns, each with its own officers and stated convocations of citizens, and of counties, each with a local representative assembly legislating for much that concerns the welfare of the district, and a court possessing a jurisdiction co-extensive with the territorial limits, embody with much simplicity and purity the essential idea of the Saxon commonwealth."-POMEROY'S Municipal Law, p. 240, 241.

2. Few persons have an adequate conception of the degree to which the principle of local self-government is carried in England at the present day. The following extract, therefore, will be useful:

"The principle of local self-government which exists in England has doubtless exercised very great influence in the production of the freedom enjoyed under the Constitution. It is not intended to make an attempt to trace that influence through the gradual advance of the institutions, but only to suggest some facts without which the full extent of the liberty and power possessed by the people cannot be fully appreciated. The nature of the Anglo-Saxon courts and motes was favorable to self-exertion and self-reliance on the part of the people; but at a later period the chartered boroughs stand out conspicuously as institutions imbued with the spirit of freedom, and at the same time furnished with power to advance and defend it. These fought out their own independence from their feudal lords, and became the seats of self-government, on principles opposed to arbitrary or centralized power. The burgesses, with the mayor or

portreeve and aldermen as their executive officers, elected by them, regulated the affairs of their boroughs, in trade and police, independently of any direct supervision on the part of the crown or its officers, and without any appeal on the part of the inhabitants except through the courts of law, when cases arose of an illegal character. The tendency of these institutions was republican or democratic, rather than monarchical; and the election of members to the House of Commons being vested in the boroughs, they returned to Parliament, for the most part, those patriots by whom the battle of the Constitution was fought. Charles II. made an attempt to get the boroughs, returning members to Parliament, under the influence of the crown, by an attack upon their ancient charters, and by forcing or persuading the burgesses to accept new charters; but he did not disturb their municipal authority. That has now been regulated and brought under one system by the act to provide for the regulation of the municipal corporations in England and Wales. It vests in the inhabitant householders rated to the relief of the poor, the election of burgesses, from whom the mayor and alderman are elected. The mayor becomes a justice of the peace, and returning officer of the borough at elections of members of Parliament; and the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses are the council of the borough, in whom, or a majority in case of division, all authority is vested. They are empowered to make rates on the inhabitants for watching, lighting, and paving the borough, to appoint constables, to make by-laws, and, in general, to regulate the municipal affairs of the borough; and all without the control or supervision (except in the disposal of their property) of any other central authority than the courts of law and equity.

"The affairs of the counties are, in like manner, intrusted to the management of their principal inhabitants. The magistrates appointed by the crown, through the medium of the lord-lieutenant, and consisting of the principal landowners of the county, regulate the county affairs by a system of self-government. Assembled in their court of quarter sessions, they have jurisdiction to try small felonies, and to decide appeals from the several parishes of the county, in regard to rates and assessments for the relief of and the settlement of the poor. They regulate, in sessions or at county boards, the construction and repair of bridges, public roads, shire halls, prisons, and lunatic asylums; and they superintend the apprehension, conveyance, and prosecution of criminals, the expenses of witnesses, and of the county police. For these, in quarter sessions, they make county rates on the freeholders. These important duties are discharged by persons resident within the counties, and who are necessarily the most considerable contributors to the rates; and over whose acts there is no other central control than the courts of law and equity, when cases arise in which the legality of their acts is questioned.

"The several parishes of the kingdom exercise self-government in parochial affairs, by the election, from the inhabitants, of churchwardens and overseers, who administer the laws for the relief of the poor, and of boards of parishion

ers, who discharge the various duties of the acts for the repair of the highways and the sewers, and for the preservation of health. The magnitude of the funds raised and distributed for the relief of the poor, throughout the kingdom, and the effect of their distribution on the public prosperity, made it necessary to adopt a uniform system of management and relief; and therefore the functions of the parochial boards for relief of the poor are exercised under the superintendence of a supreme poor-law board, appointed by the crown, but responsible to Parliament. Its president is usually in the cabinet, and a member of the House of Commons. There is also a supreme board of health, but with these exceptions, the administration of the local affairs of each division and subdivision of the kingdom is vested in its inhabitants, with an authority controlled only by the law and the courts of justice.-ROWLAND's Manual of the English Constitution, p. 570-572.”

3. The following, from Blackstone, will serve to show the influence of the Saxon courts in establishing the present local customs of England :

"The second branch of the unwritten laws of England are particular customs, or laws which affect only the inhabitants of particular districts.

'These particular customs, or some of them, are without doubt the remains of that multitude of local customs before mentioned, out of which the common law, as it now stands, was collected at first by king Alfred, and afterward by King Edgar and Edward the Confessor; each district mutually sacrificing some of its own special usages, in order that the whole kingdom might enjoy the benefit of one uniform and universal system of laws. But, for reasons that have been now long forgotten, particular counties, cities, towns, manors, and lordships, were very early indulged with the privilege of abiding by their own customs, in contradistinction to the rest of the nation at large: which privilege is confirmed to them by several acts of Parliament.

"Such is the custom of gavelkind in Kent and some other parts of the kingdom (though perhaps it was also general till the Norman conquest), which ordains, among other things, that not the eldest son only of the father shall succeed to his inheritance, but all the sons alike; and that, though the ancestor be attainted and hanged, yet the heir shall succeed to his estate, without any escheat to the lord. Such is the custom that prevails in divers ancient boroughs, and therefore called borough-english, that the youngest son shall inherit the estate in preference to all his elder brothers. Such is the custom in other boroughs that a widow shall be entitled, for her dower, to all her husband's lands; whereas at the common daw she shall be endowed of one third part only. Such also are the special and particular customs of manors, of which every one has more or less, and which bind all the copyhold and customary tenants that hold of the said manors.—Such likewise is the custom of holding divers inferior courts, with power of trying causes, in cities and trading towns, the right of holding which, when no royal grant can be shown, depends entirely upon immemorial and

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