City-State Rights, Part II: Conclusion
The city-state is the seed-bed of civilization, but the concept seems alien to the American tradition. Nonetheless, our cities once did possess, at least before the revolution, many of the same chartered rights enjoyed by English and European burgs. In the Anglo-American world, the liberties of cities was defined by the charters they received either from the Crown itself or from the Royal Governor and legislature: Williamsburg, for example, was chartered in 1695, Wilmington in 1763. Many of the older cities and towns of the Eastern Seaboard had been chartered municipal corporations, though in the decades following the revolution, the...



