[Sidenote: Jefferson's opinion of township government.]
These differences are striking and profound. There can be no doubt
that, as Thomas Jefferson clearly saw, in the long run the interests
of political liberty are much safer under the New England system
than under the Virginia system. Jefferson said, "Those wards,
called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their
governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever
devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government,
and for its preservation[13]....As Cato, then, concluded every speech
with the words _Carthago delenda est_, so do I every opinion with
the injunction: Divide the counties into wards!" [14]
[Footnote 13: Jefferson's _Works_, vii. 13.]
[Footnote 14: _Id_., vi. 544]
[Sidenote: "Court Day."]
We must, however, avoid the mistake of making too much of this contrast.
As already hinted, in those rural societies where people generally knew
one another, its effects were not so far-reaching as they would be in
the more complicated society of to-day. Even though Virginia had not the
town-meeting, it had its familiar court-day, which was a holiday for
all the country-side, especially in the fall and spring.
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