Even as judges expanded the right to demand an accounting to people other than a member of a corporation, legal theorists proposed new definitions of the powers and authority of incorporated municipalities. Two conflicting theories of municipal government authority emerged in the 1870s: the treatises of judges John F. Dillon and Thomas M. Cooley. Dillon’s theory of subordination to a state legislature and Cooley’s that there is an inherent right of local self-government reflected the different experiences of young lawyers in distinctive parts of the Middle West (Iowa and Michigan). Over time, however, the two men’s views tended to converge toward a view that was essentially Dillon’s. The complexities of managing growing communities led both men, and their followers, to distrust the unchecked power of municipalities to run their own affairs.