Excerpt from History of Worcester, Massachusetts It is true that local self-government, in a modified form, had been known both in Germany and England before the earliest colonization of America. But long before that colonization commenced the Crown had, by repeated encroachments, deprived the people of their ancient right of self-control, and that right or power had been vested in municipal councils or other local boards, and which were self-perpetuating bodies.3 But when removed from the presence of that domi nating power of the few over the many, the colonists at once returned to what has been called the natural order of society in the establishment of government. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.