In the country beyond the Northwest Territory, the clash of New England and southern influences was met by an interesting compromise. In Illinois, for instance, the earliest settlement had been made under southern auspices. The county type of local government was therefore established, but of the style employed in Ohio and Indiana rather than in Kentucky. In 1826, however, the justices were made elective by precincts and later the township was made a corporation for the purposes of school, road, justice and poor relief administration. By 1848 the “town idea” had grown strong enough to force the adoption of a provision in the new constitution for a plan to afford each county an option between the two systems. The northern counties quickly adopted the township plan, while the southern ones clung to the original forms. Wisconsin at an even earlier date (1841) had effected a similar compromise which, however, was swept away seven years later when the township system was made mandatory by the constitution. At a later period Missouri (1879), Nebraska (1883), Minnesota (1878) and Dakota (1883) permitted the adoption of similar optional laws. In the new Southwest, the Northwest, the Rocky Mountain region and the far West, owing in part to the comparative sparsity of settlement and in part to the thinning out of the definite historical influences, the county has acquired a greater importance than anywhere in the country and the towns or townships, while they have been erected in a number of the states, play but an insignificant part in local government. When Texas became an independent republic, the American county system was substituted for the earlier Mexican local government. Before the middle of the nineteenth century counties had been established in New Mexico, Utah and Oregon; ten years later in Nebraska and Washington; by 1870 in Colorado, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and Arizona. And so, the institution of the county has been driven westward in obedience to precedent and through the instinct for imitation. Of thoughtful foresight, of definite planning for a serviceable career, about the same measure was applied as in the case of Topsy, who “jest growed.” It could not be otherwise. Local government in pioneer days had to be thrown together more or less on the “hurry-up” plan. On the western prairies as in colonial Virginia, public needs were so limited that it really mattered comparatively little what agencies were employed.