The vestry a close corporation.
In view of this group of circumstances we need not wonder that in Old Virginia there were no town meetings. The distances between plantations coöperated with the distinction between classes to prevent the growth of such an institution. The English parish, with its churchwardens and vestry and clerk, was reproduced in Virginia under the same name, but with some noteworthy peculiarities. If the whole body of ratepayers had assembled in vestry meeting, to enact by-laws and assess taxes, the course of development would have been like that of the New England town meeting. But instead of this the vestry, which exercised the chief authority in the parish, was composed of twelve chosen men. This was not government by a primary assembly, it was representative government. At first the twelve vestrymen were elected by the people of the parish, and thus resembled the selectmen of New England; but in 1662 “they obtained the power of filling vacancies in their own number,” so that they became what is called a “close corporation,” and the people had nothing to do with choosing them. Strictly speaking, that was not representative government; it was a step on the road that leads towards oligarchical or despotic government. It was, as we shall see, one of the steps ineffectually opposed in Bacon’s rebellion.
Powers of the vestry.
It was the vestry, thus constituted, that apportioned the parish taxes, appointed the churchwardens, presented the minister for induction into office, and acted as overseers of the poor. The minister presided in all vestry meetings. His salary was paid in tobacco, and in 1696 it was fixed by law at 16,000 pounds of tobacco yearly. In many parishes the churchwardens were the collectors of the parish taxes. The other officers, such as the sexton and the parish clerk, were appointed either by the minister or by the vestry.
With the local government thus administered, we see that the larger part of the people had little directly to do. Nevertheless, in those small neighbourhoods government could be kept in full sight of the people, and so long as its proceedings went on in broad daylight and were sustained by public sentiment, all was well. As Jefferson said, “The vestrymen are usually the most discreet farmers, so distributed through the parish that every part of it may be under the immediate eye of some one of them. They are well acquainted with the details and economy of private life, and they find sufficient inducements to execute their charge well, in their philanthropy, in the approbation of their neighbours, and the distinction which that gives them.”[25]
The county was the unit of representation.
The difference, however, between the New England township and the Virginia parish, in respect of self-government, was striking enough. We have now to note a further difference. In New England, the township was the unit of representation in the colonial legislature; but in Virginia the parish was not the unit of representation. The county was that unit. In the colonial legislature of Virginia the representatives sat, not for parishes but for counties. The difference is very significant. As the political life of New England was in a manner built up out of the political life of the towns, so the political life of Virginia was built up out of the political life of the counties. This was partly because the vast plantations were not grouped about a compact village nucleus like the small farms at the North, and partly because there was not in Virginia that Puritan theory of the church according to which each congregation is a self-governing democracy. The conditions which made the New England town meeting were absent. The only alternative was some kind of representative government, and for this the county was a small enough area. The county in Virginia was much smaller than in Massachusetts or Connecticut. In a few instances the county consisted of only a single parish; in some cases it was divided into two parishes, but oftener into three or more.
The county court was virtually a close corporation.
In Virginia, as in England and in New England, the county was an area for the administration of justice. There were usually in each county eight justices of the peace, and their court was the counterpart of the quarter sessions in England. They were appointed by the governor, but it was customary for them to nominate candidates for the governor to appoint, so that practically the court filled its own vacancies and was a close corporation, like the parish vestry. Such an arrangement tended to keep the general supervision and control of things in the hands of a few families.
The county seat or Court House.