In the War of 1812, New England, as a section, was not very enthusiastic, but her quota of troops was, nevertheless, forthcoming. In the Civil War, 1861-65, her troops were the first to respond to the call of President Lincoln, and, out of 2,778,304 men who enlisted, 363,161 came from New England. Of these, Massachusetts furnished 146,730, Maine 70,107, Connecticut 55,864, New Hampshire 33,937, Vermont 33,288, and Rhode Island 23,236. In fact, surveying the history of New England towns from the time when they contributed their quota of men and money to the aid of the Mother Country in her fight with France to decide who should be supreme on the North American continent, down to the recent contest between the United States and Spain, it can truthfully be said of their democratic form of government that it “is the most powerful and flexible in history. It has proved to be neither violent, cruel, nor impatient, but fixed in purpose, faithful to its own officers, tolerant of vast expense, of enormous losses, of torturing delays, and strongest at the very points where fatal weakness was most suspected.” And this, be it remembered, where “the poorest and most ignorant of every race ... are the equal voters with the richest and most intelligent.” This, too, where the newly landed, propertyless immigrant from Italy or Russia, if able to comply with the generous provisions governing naturalization and the exercise of the franchise, has the same potentiality at the polls as the thrifty, well-to-do, heavily taxed citizen whose ancestors, perchance, may have come over with the Pilgrims on _The Mayflower_. Considered either in its origin or its development, the New England town-meeting merits the study of all who are interested in the extension of principles of democracy. The English settlers of New England were, as Mr. Bryce says, “largely townsfolk, accustomed to municipal life and to vestry meetings.” They brought with them, as an inheritance from their Teutonic ancestors, a habit of self-rule which the peculiar isolation of the colonies and the separate communities in the colonies strengthened; hence a form of government in which the town was the unit evolved inevitably.