Excerpt from The Genesis of the Massachusetts Town, and the Development of Town-Meeting Government England, I found absolutely nothing in the case of this town (braintree) to support the theories referred to. While nu doubtedly, as Mr. Freeman has observed in another connec tion, the institutions of every one of the older Massachusetts towns are part of the general institutions of the English people, as those again are part of the general institutions of the Teutonic race, and those are again part of the general institu tions of the whole Aryan family yet, while a general re semblance, however striking, is in itself no evidence of descent, it is easy to give altogether too great weight to simili tudes and analogies. In approaching an investigation of this sort, therefore, it is well to bear in mind a remark of Sir Henry Maine in his first lecture on Village Communities, that it is the characteristic error of the direct observer of nu familiar social or juridical phenomena: to compare them too hastily with familiar phenomena apparently of the same kind; and Sir Henry further adds that the greatest cau tion must be observed in all speculations on the inferences derivable from parallel usages. But while the Braintree records afforded no support to re mote genetic theories, the examination of them soon made it apparent that, for reasons presently to be stated, Braintree was not one of the towns in the history of which the subject could be advantageously studied. It was equally clear that it could be studied only in the original records of some properly selected towns; for the indications all were that the advo cates of remote descent had fallen into the not uncommon error of looking too far afield for that which was in fact close at hand. Accordingly, in order to secure a sufficiently wide basis for generalization, I examined the original records, church as well as town, of Hingham, Weymouth, Dorchester, Ded ham, and Cambridge, as well as those of Boston. All of the towns named, organized prior to 1636, are among the original Massachusetts towns; and the evidence on the subject of the genesis of the town and town-meeting government, to be de rived from their records, it is the object of this paper to set forth in detail. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Relying on an astounding collection of more than three decades of firsthand research, Frank M. Bryan examines one of the purest forms of American democracy, the New England town meeting. At these meetings, usually held once a year, all eligible citizens of the town may become legislators; they meet in face-to-face assemblies, debate the issues on the agenda, and vote on them. And although these meetings are natural laboratories for democracy, very few scholars have systematically investigated them. A nationally recognized expert on this topic, Bryan has now done just that. Studying 1,500 town meetings in his home state of Vermont, he and his students recorded a staggering amount of data about them—238,603 acts of participation by 63,140 citizens in 210 different towns. Drawing on this evidence as well as on evocative "witness" accounts—from casual observers to no lesser a light than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—Bryan paints a vivid picture of how real democracy works. Among the many fascinating questions he explores: why attendance varies sharply with town size, how citizens resolve conflicts in open forums, and how men and women behave differently in town meetings. In the end, Bryan interprets this brand of local government to find evidence for its considerable staying power as the most authentic and meaningful form of direct democracy. Giving us a rare glimpse into how democracy works in the real world, Bryan presents here an unorthodox and definitive book on this most cherished of American institutions.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

An in-depth look at trends in North American internal migration. This volume gathers established and new scholars working on North American immigration, transmigration, internal migration, and citizenship whose work analyzes the development of migrant and state-level institutions as well as migrant networks. With contemporary migration research most often focused on the development of transnational communities and the ways international migrants maintain relationships with their sending region that sustain the circularflow of people, ideas, and traditions across national boundaries it is useful to compare these to similar patterns evident within the terrain of internal migration. To date, however, international and internal migration studies have unfolded in relative isolation from one another with each operating within these distinct fields of expertise rather than across them. Although there has been some important linking, there has not been a recent major consideration of human migration that works across and within the various borders of the North American continent. Thus, the volume presents a variety of chapters that seek to consider human migration in comparative perspective across the internal/international divide. Marc S. Rodriguez is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University; Donna R. Gabbaccia is the Mellon Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh; James R. Grossman is theVice President of Research and Education at the Newberry Library, Chicago. Contributors: Josef Barton, Wallace Best, Donna Gabbaccia, James Gregory, Tobias Higbie, Mae Ngai, Walter Nugent, Annelise Orleck, Kunal Parker, Kimberly Phillips, Bruno Ramirez, Marc Rodriguez Repositioning North American Migration History is a volume in Studies in Comparative History, sponsored by Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center forHistorical Studies.