Elements of Civil Government / A Text-Book for Use in Public Schools, High Schools and Normal Schools and a Manual of Reference for Teachers

by Alexander L. Peterman

PURPOSES.--The county organization brings justice near the people, enables them to attend to local affairs too extensive for a smaller community, and affords a medium by which they may transact business with the State. It serves as a convenient basis of apportioning members of the legislature among the people. It maintains local officers, such as sheriff and prosecuting attorney, whose duties would be too narrow if confined to a township. It secures a competent and higher tribunal than the justice's court for the trial of suits at law. This was the original purpose, and is still the controlling reason for the division of the States into counties.

FORMATION, AREA.--Counties are formed, their rights are conferred, and their duties imposed, by act of the State legislature. In most States counties vary greatly in shape and size, but in some of the Western States they have a regular form. The average area of counties in the United States is eight hundred and thirty square miles; the average area of those east of the Mississippi River is only three hundred and eighty square miles.

COUNTY SEAT.--The county government resides at the county seat, county town, or shire town, as it is variously called. The court-house, the jail, the public offices, and sometimes other county buildings are located at the county seat. Here are kept the records of the courts; also, usually copies of the deeds, wills, mortgages, and other important papers of the people.

COUNTY GOVERNMENT.

The county, like the United States, the State, and the township, has a republican form of government; that is, it is governed by representatives elected by the people. In nearly all States the county government has three departments, legislative, executive, and judicial; but the functions of making, of executing, and of explaining the laws, are not always kept separate and distinct. In a few States the county does not have a judicial department.

OFFICERS.--County officers and township officers have duties similar in kind, but the former have charge of the larger interests. The usual officers of the county are the commissioners or supervisors, the county attorney or prosecuting attorney, the county superintendent of schools or school commissioner, the sheriff, the treasurer, the auditor, the county clerk or common pleas clerk, the surveyor, the coroner, and the county judge and surrogate, or probate judge. In the counties of many States one or more of these officers are lacking, and others have different names from those here given. In the Western and the Southern States county officers are elected by the direct vote of the people; in most of the New England States some of them are chosen in other ways. The terms of county officers vary in different parts of the Union, being usually two, three, or four years; but in some States certain officers are elected for a longer term.

LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT: COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, OR BOARD OF SUPERVISORS.--In most States the public interests of the county are intrusted to a board of officers, three or five in number, called county commissioners. In some States the board consists of one or more supervisors from each township, and is called the board of supervisors. In a few States the board consists of all the justices of the county, with the county judge as presiding officer.

The county commissioners, or board of supervisors, have charge of the county property, such as the court-house, the jail, and the county infirmary; make orders and raise funds for the erection of county buildings, and for the construction and improvement of highways and bridges; provide polling-places; make appropriations of money for public purposes; and act as the chief agents of the county in its corporate capacity. In some States they fix the salaries of county officers; in others they have power to form new townships and to change the township boundaries. In several States the functions of the board are almost wholly executive.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT: COUNTY ATTORNEYS, OR PROSECUTIN ATTORNEYS.--The county attorney, or prosecuting attorney, is the county's counsellor at law, and when requested gives legal advice to all the county officers. It is his duty to prosecute the accused in the trial of crimes and offences, in the justice's court, the county court, and in some States in the circuit court or district court; to represent the county in all civil suits to which it is a party; and to act for it in all cases in which its legal interests are involved.

COUNTY SUPERINDENTENT OF SCHOOLS.--In some States there is no county superintendent of schools. In most States there is such an officer elected by the township school directors or by the people of the county, or appointed by the State superintendent of public instruction. In a few States the county is divided into two or more districts, each having a commissioner of schools.