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New Hampshire Gazette, Portsmouth, August, 1756.*

In the charters which were granted to companies and individuals to encourage the settlement of America, were included the governmental systems under which the colonists were expected to live and develop their communities. All these were of English origin, save that of New York, which first was from Holland, although later from England. In the charter of the Plymouth and London Company in 1606 the king declared that the colonists and their descendants should have and enjoy all liberties, franchises and immunities to which any subjects of the crown were entitled. The rights under Magna Charta and the right to popular participation in government, as in the House of Commons, were the governmental rights to which the American settlers as English subjects were thus fully entitled, as also to the habeas corpus, and other rights subsequently granted. Although some of the charters were afterward annulled or changed as suited kingly disposition, the principles in them virtually fixed the character of colonial government. As they finally existed, these governments were of dual character: of the people, and of the king represented by the royal governors. At the outset control was entirely in the hands of the king's governors, proprietors

*Isaac Thomas, History of Printing (2 vols. Worcester, 1810); Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, p. 129. See also Doyle, Colonies Under Hanover, p. 231 et seq.

or councillors, but without much delay the people claimed their rights as English subjects, and proceeded to establish representative government which steadily grew in proportions and influence until it finally succeeded in making the king's prerogative little more than a name.

Three distinct forms of colonial government existed, as far as supreme authority in the political system went. In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, the governors were appointed by the crown. In Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland the governors were appointed by the proprietors of those colonies, the Penns and the Calverts. Under the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, the people elected the governors and that at one time was also the status of Massachusetts. A legislative assembly elected by the people was the popular branch of the government in each of the colonies. Attached to the gubernatorial office was a council. This council was constituted by different methods in different colonies, by appointment of the king, or the lord proprietor, by the election of the legislature, or by popular election as in Connecticut. The Council was the governor's cabinet, but generally it had also the right to take part in legislation and by reason of the powers of revision and amendment accorded to it, it became practically the higher legislative body.

GOVERNMENT.

In 1619 the Virginians secured a representative government, an elected assembly being associated with the governor and council appointed in England. The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629 granted to the freemen the right to choose their governor, deputy-governor and council of eighteen assistants. With this charter the Puritans came over to found a commonwealth to their own liking. Soon they instituted an elective assembly of deputies as the lower house of their legislatures of which the assistants were the upper house. Thus Massachusetts was virtually an independent republic and its General Court, as the legislature was called, was at once a legislative and judicial body. But this charter was annulled in 1684 and when it was regranted in 1692, it carried provisions for the appointment of the governor and lieutenantgovernor by the crown and the submission to the king's representative of all acts of the legislature.

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153

directors-general constituted the legal

code of the colony.

code of the colony. The people had

nothing to do with making the laws or with governing themselves. All authority except that over life and death was vested first in the director general. Afterward it rested in the director general and his council, but, inasmuch as the members of the council were chosen by the director general, he had no difficulty in retaining his power. Under the patroonship system similar legislative, judicial and executive powers were granted to the patroons. Forms of legal procedure were instituted, but as the director general and his council were the only judicial tribunal, while the laws were ready-made, not much was gained thereby.

As early as the time of Minuit the colonists were restive, and under Kieft in 1641 they were successful in securing for the commonalty the right to share in the colonial administration. The Board of Twelve Men a body of representative citizenswhich Kieft was forced to ask the people to chose to "aid him in the direction of the affairs of the country "-constituted the first form of representative government on the island of Manhattan. In the years immediately following, under Kieft and Stuyvesant, other representative bodies came similarly into existence. Under Stuyvesant, in 1653, a burgher government, with combined municipal and judicial functions, was instituted, and in November, 1653, delegates from

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the various settlements of New legislature elected by the people, the Netherland met in New Amsterdam

and organized the first provincial assembly.

When the English arrived in 1664 and took New Netherland from the Dutch, they found the principles of representative government well established in the form of delegate assemblies, and municipal government and courts in New Amsterdam and in the towns of Long Island and on the Hudson. The new-comers retained many of the Dutch institutions, laws and methods of governmental administration. In place of the Dutch control of the West India Company, a proprietary principality under the proprietorship of the Duke of York was established. This lasted until the Duke of York succeeded to the throne as King James II., in 1685. New York then became a royal province and so continued until the Revolution, with its governor and council appointed by the crown. The right to elect a popular assembly was enjoyed after 1683.

The governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island were similar to that of Massachusetts, and were retained under the republic in Connecticut until 1818, and in Rhode Island until 1842. In Maryland, under Lord Baltimore and his successors, the government consisted of a governor and a two chambered legislature, the lower house being elected by the people. In Pennsylvania and Delaware there was a one-chambered

governor's council taking no part in legislation, as in other colonies. The Carolinas started, in 1670, with a constitution called the "Grand Model." It was certainly a grandiose model, an intricate scheme, establishing eight hereditary proprietaries, two orders of nobility, lords of manor, hereditary leetmen or tenants, a court of proprietors, and an admiral, chamberlain, chancellor, chief justice, high steward, treasurer and councillor. The people had no share in executive, judicial or legislative authority. From the first the settlers looked upon this constitution with abhorrence and made war upon it, with the result that a popular assembly was secured in North Carolina in 1677 and a few years later in South Carolina, while the "Grand Model " constitution was abrogated in 1693.

The colonial judiciary was modelled on that of England. In each colony the governor sat as the court of admiralty, the court of equity and the probate court. At the bottom of the judicial system was the county with its justices of the peace, who collectively held court after the manner of the quarter sessions in England; the justices in some cases also held court individually. Justices and sheriffs were appointed by the governor. There was a superior court of common law, generally termed the Supreme Court, from which appeals could be taken to the governor and council and then to the king. The

POLITICAL LIFE.

judges of these courts were appointees of the king through his representative, the governor. The exercise of the king's prerogative in determining the complexion of the judiciary, was one of the principal causes of the opposition to the government during the three quarters of a century preceding the Revolution, after the people had attained to a considerable degree of representative government in their legislative assemblies.*

*

155

Political power in the South rested principally with the aristocratic planters, who were ably backed by the middle classes of farmers and tradesmen. The system of government was patterned after that of England; and the governor was often despotic in his rule. The revenues consisted of quit-rents for the king or proprietaries, export or port duties for the colonial government, whatever duties the assembly might impose for its own benefit, and the regular

Richard Frothingham, Rise of the Republic of parish, county and provincial levies, the United States (Boston, 1872); Eben G. Scott, Development of Constitutional Liberty in the English Colonies of America (New York, 1882); John Fiske, Civil Government in the United States (Boston, 1890); Howard W. Preston, Documents Illustrative of American History (New York, 1886); A. W. Small, The Beginnings of American Nationality, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, series vii., nos. 1, 11 (Baltimore, 1890); G. L. Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660 (New York, 1908); G. L. Beer, British Colonial Policy (New York, 1907); C. M. Andrews, Colonial Self Government,

1652-1689, in A. B. Hart (ed.), The American Nation, vol. v. (New York, 1904); Alexander Brown, First Republic in America (Boston, 1886); George Chalmers, Political Annals of the Present United Colonies (4 vols., London, 1780); Justin Winsor (ed.), Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., Boston and New York, 1889); Calendar of State Papers, Colonial (13 vols., 1574-1699, London, 1860-1908); E. B. O'Callaghan (ed.), Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (11 vols., Albany, 1856-1861); J. A. Doyle, English Colonies in America (5 vols., New York, 18891907); H. L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols., New York, 1904-1907); E. Hazard, Historical Collections (2

which were payable in tobacco. The
taxes as a rule were moderate and
the system simple, being based
chiefly on the possessions of lands and
negroes. As the salaries of the offi-
cials were meagre, they considered.
themselves justified in replenishing
their purses by farming the quit-
rents, charging exorbitant fees for
patenting lands, and assessing office-
holders, the members of the councils
frequently
frequently sharing in the large
amount of spoils thus obtained.

As the Eighteenth century wore on,
there was
a continual contest for
supremacy between Virginia and the
Southern colonies on the one hand and
New England and New York on the
other. The aristocratic class which
ruled in Virginia had strongly

vols., Philadelphia, 1792-1794); C. F. Bishop, imprinted its ideas upon North Caro

History of Elections in the American Colonies, in
Columbia College Publications (New York, 1893);
E. B. Greene, The Provincial Governor in the
English Colonies of North America, in Harvard
University Publications (New York, 1898); H. L.
Osgood, Classifications of Colonial Governments,
VOL. II-11

in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1905 (Washington, 1906).

On the relations between the colonial governments and the people in general, see Bancroft, vol. ii., pp. 391–407.

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lina, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and New England had greatly influenced New York. South Carolina remained independent. But the general body of the people of Virginia had been wearied by the border warfares and alienated from the mother country by the enactment of the Navigation Acts, the constant quarrels with the royal governors, and the impressment of seamen. Consequently, when the time came for the revolt of the colonies against the rule of England, Virginia was able to send out some soldiers and statesmen who were thoroughly experienced in fighting and constitutional agitation. In Maryland continued intolerance on the part of the Church of England weakened the affection of the colonists for the mother country. North Carolina was rent by internal dissensions, and morals, religion and education continued at a low ebb. There was a considerable element of Tories among the population in this State, as in South Carolina, but in the latter State the strongest and best of the slaveholding class were favorable to the colonial contentions.

In New England, up to 1700, the course of the political life had been comparatively smooth, when the colonies were not interfered with by outsiders. The town was the political unit, and the colonial government dealt chiefly with interests of a general nature, such as legislation upon

*

*On page 18 of the Essay upon the Government of the English Plantations, etc. By an Ameri

property and contracts, the judicial affairs of the people, the apprehension of criminals, the laying of taxes, etc. Being frugal in their personal affairs, the New Englanders watched the public expenditure so carefully that taxes did not become onerous, and the principal cause of dissension with the governors was the attempt of the latter to draw higher salaries. The home government was considerably exercised as to the probable designs of the New Englanders at this time, feeling that there was a desire

can (London, 1701), occurs the following regarding colonial law: "It is a great unhappiness that no one can tell what is law and what is not in the plantations. Some hold that the law of England is chiefly to be respected, and where that is deficient, the laws of the several colonies are to take place; others are of opinion that the laws of the colonies are to take first place, and that the law of England is of force only where they are silent; others there are who contend for the laws of the colonies, in conjunction with those that were in force in England at the first settlement of the colony, and lay down that as the measure of our obedience, alleging that we are not bound to observe any late acts of parliament in England, except such only where the reason of the law is the same here that it is in England. But, this leaving too great a latitude to the judge, some others hold that no late act of the parliament of England do bind the plantations, but only those wherein the plantations are particularly named. Thus are we left in the dark in one of the most considerable points of our rights; and, the case being so doubtful, we are too often obliged to de-. pend upon the crooked cord of a judge's discretion in matters of the greatest moment and value."- Quoted from Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, p. 109, footnote.

*

For a good description of the executive and judiciary in Massachusetts in the Seventeenth century, see Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., pp. 167-199; Winthrop's History of New England, vol. ii.; Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i.; Washburn, Judicial History of Massa

chusetts.

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