The Commission Plan of City Government

In: American political science review, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 38-56

Abstract

To appreciate the real significance in municipal affairs of the lately inaugurated movement toward city government by commission some knowledge of the general trend of American municipal development is necessary; for it is as a phase of a general tendency and not as an isolated experiment that the movement is to be properly regarded. Like most of our institutions, our city government, both in form and substance, was transplanted from England to the colonies, where it underwent the usual differentiation under the influence of changed conditions. This differentiation, however, did not proceed to any marked degree during the colonial period, and at the beginning of the national era the general form of municipal government, with the exception of the New England town-meeting system, was that of the English borough. Then began a new period, during which the influence of the federal and state governments dominated the organic development of the municipalities. That the "federal analogy" should have thus become the controlling factor in this development was due partly to a widespread belief in the efficacy of the governmental principles which it involved, and partly to a misconception of the functions of the municipality. A cardinal feature of the federal plan was Montesquieu's principle of the separation of powers, having for its object to safeguard the interests of the people against the arbitrary and ill-advised acts of public officers.