Bricks Without Straw: A Novel

by Albion Winegar Tourgée

"In one word," said Le Moyne—"the 'township' system."

"Oh, yes," laughed the Congressman lightly; "the Yankee town-meeting."

"Exactly," responded Le Moyne; "yet I venture to say that the presence and absence of the town-meeting—the township system or its equivalent—in the North and in the South, constituted a difference not less vital and important than that of slavery itself. In fact, sir, I sincerely believe that it is to the township system that the North owes the fact that it is not to-day as much slave territory as the South was before the war."

"What!" said the Northerner, with surprise, "you do not mean to say that the North owes its freedom, its prosperity, and its intelligence—the three things in which it differs from the South most materially—entirely to the Yankee town-meeting?"

"Perhaps not entirely," said Le Moyne; "but in the main I think it does. And there are certain facts connected with our history which I think, when you consider them carefully, will incline you to the same belief."

"Indeed; I should be glad to know them."

"The first of these," continued Le Moyne, "is the fact that in every state in which the township system really prevailed, slavery was abolished without recourse to arms, without civil discord or perceptible evil results. The next is that in the states in which the township system did not prevail in fact as well as name, the public school system did not exist, or had only a nominal existence; and the proportion of illiteracy in those states as a consequence was, among the whites alone, something like four times as great as in those states in which the township system flourished. And this, too, notwithstanding almost the entire bulk of the ignorant immigration from the old world entered into the composition of the Northern populations. And, thirdly, there resulted a difference which I admit to be composite in its causes—that is, the difference in average wealth. Leaving out of consideration the capital invested in slaves, the per capita valuation of the states having the township system was something more than three times the average in those where it was unknown."

"But what reason can you give for this belief?" said Goodspeed. "How do you connect with the consequences, which cannot be doubted, the cause you assign? The differences between the South and the North have hitherto been attributed entirely to slavery; why do you say that they are in so great a measure due to differences of political organization?"

"I can very well see," was the reply, "that one reared as you were should fail to understand at once the potency of the system which has always been to you as much a matter of course as the atmosphere by which you are surrounded. It was not until Harvey's time—indeed, it was not until a much later period—that we knew in what way and manner animal life was maintained by the inhalation of atmospheric air. The fact of its necessity was apparent to every child, but how it operated was unknown. I do not now profess to be able to give all of those particulars which have made the township system, or its equivalent, an essential concomitant of political equality, and, as I think, the vital element of American liberty. But I can illustrate it so that you will get the drift of my thought."

"I should be glad if you would," said Goodspeed.