DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA I97 



ing a palatinate under the all but royal rule of Lord Baltimore. 

 Again I must resist a temptation : the temptation, namely, to 

 give you a glimpse of the system of manors and hundreds pre- 

 vailing throughout the Province, and to tell you the very inter- 

 esting story of the early assemblies of the freemen, their make- 

 up, proceedings and the rest. It must suffice, however, that I 

 point out to you the fact that, in the absence of the Lord Pro- 

 prietary of the Province, the general executive powers were 

 vested in the Governor or Lieutenant General, while the gen- 

 eral legislative powers (subject to the approval of the Lord 

 Proprietary and liable to the disapp4|-oval of the crown), were 

 vested in the general assembly of the freemen of the Province ; 

 and quite from the beginning there was a Lord Chief Justice of 

 the Province. The affairs of the Province were managed by 

 these various officials and the Assembly, but as early as the 

 Session of 1638-9 a system of Government of the Counties was 

 inaugurated, and in this system began the local government of 

 the District of Columbia. 



For in March of that year, more than two hundred and sixty 

 years ago, there was introduced into the Assembly the bill out 

 of which grew the Maryland County Court, the predecessor in 

 certain of its features of the Levy Court so familiar to those of 

 of us of the District who are not sensitive about our ages : for 

 the Levy Court of the County of Washington and District of 

 Columbia was a living body until the first day of June, 1871, 

 less than twenty-eight years ago. 



The bill so introduced into the Assembly so many years ago, 

 and which ultimately became a law, is a perfect illustration of 

 the way in which all Anglo-Saxon institutions have grown up. 

 You will recall that in the beginning of the English judicial sys- 

 tem the King, as the fountain of justice, was the ultimate 

 judge, and that he first appointed justiciars or justices to aid 

 him in his judicial work, and then, in the person of that very 

 greatest of all English monarchs, Henry 11, sent certain per- 

 sons, constituted justices for that purpose, into the several shires 

 or counties of England to hold court and administer justice for 

 him. Similarly, our legal ancestors of Maryland, sitting in 

 that early assembly at St. Mary in 1638-9, provided that all 



