then sent to the freemen at large for consideration and improvement; having thus undergone considerable revision, the proposed laws were at length formally adopted with the provision that after three years' trial they were to be revised and then become finally established. These laws were about one hundred in number. The church members were still vested with the supreme power, and while universal suffrage was not conceded, every citizen was granted a certain share in the business of any public meeting. The supreme council still possessed the power of veto. Some certain degree of liberty was granted to private churches and assemblies of different Christians, but the council had power to arbitrarily put down. any proceedings which they deemed dangerous or heterodox, and to punish or expel their authors. Such strangers and refugees as might profess the true Christian religion were to be received and sheltered. Death was to be the punishment for idolatry, witchcraft, and blasphemy, or the wilful disturbing of the established order of the state. These laws abolished slavery, villanage, or captivity, except in the case of lawful captives taken in war, or any case where slaves might be sold by others or should sell themselves. Injurious monopolies were not to be allowed. All torture was abolished, except whipping, ear-cropping and the pillory, which were retained as being necessary and wholesome. The liber

ties of women, children and servants were defined in a more benevolent spirit, in harmony with the Mosaic code.*

On April 14, 1642, New Hampshire, which was still in its infancy, was annexed to Massachusetts on most favorable terms. In 1643 the various settlements and colonies in New England, for the purpose of mutual aid and support, entered into an agreement by which this end could be effectually attained, and in May of that year formed a confederation. under the name of "The United Colonies of New England." The confederation consisted of the colonies of Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven.‡ The delegates from New Haven, Connecticut and Massachusetts signed the articles on May 19, but the Plymouth delegates were not authorized to sign until the articles had been reported to the Plymouth General Court and submitted to the towns for action and then ratified by the people, a method of procedure which formed an interesting precedent in our political history. This ratification having been given, the seal of the colony was affixed to the articles. According to

* Palfrey, History of New England, vol. i., pp. 229-282; Hildreth, vol. i., p. 273 et seq.; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 282 et seq.

For the various proceedings leading up to this see Palfrey, vol. i., pp. 215-220; Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 286–287.

Trumbull, History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 98 et seq.

|| Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, p. 39. See Appendix 1. at the end of the present chapter.

con

the articles, the several colonies entered into a bond of friendship and amity, both for offence and defence, mutual advice and succor, and for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel, as they interpreted it, and for their mutual safety and welfare. The government of each colony was to remain the same as heretofore, but none of the colonies was to receive any other plantation or colony as a federate, nor could any two confederates be united into one jurisdiction without the consent of the other colonies forming the confederation. Two persons, styled commissioners, were to be chosen from each colony to form a legislature, which was to manage the affairs of the united colonies. These commissioners were to meet annually in the colonies in succession, at which time they were to choose a president, and the determination of any six of these commissioners was to be binding on all.* The confederacy continued essentially the same until the New England colonies were deprived of their charters by James II.t

325

In this connection, Chalmers says: "The principles upon which this famous association was formed were altogether those of independency, and it cannot be easily supported upon offence and defence, not intermeddling with the

government of any of the jurisdictions, which, by the third article, is preserved entirely to themselves. The expenses of all just wars to be borne by each colony, in proportion to its number of male inhabitants, of whatever quality or condition, between the ages of sixteen and sixty. In case any colony should be suddenly invaded, on motion and request of three magistrates of such colony, the other confederates were immediately to send aid to the colony invaded, in men, Massachusetts one hundred, and the other colonies forty-five each, or for a less number, in the same proportion. The commissioners, however, were very properly directed, afterwards, to take into consideration the cause of such war or invasion, and if it should appear that the fault was in the colony invaded, such colony was not only to make satisfaction to the invaders, but to bear all the expenses of the war. The commissioners were also authorized to frame and establish agreements and orders in general cases of a civil nature, wherein all the plantations were interested, for preserving peace among themselves, and preventing, as much as may be, all occasions of war, or difference with others, as about the free and speedy passage of justice, in every jurisdiction, to all the confederates equally as to their own, receiving those that remove from one plantation to another, without due certificates. It was also very wisely provided in the articles, that runaway servants and fugitives from justice, should be returned to the colonies where they belonged, or from which they had fled. If any of the confederates should violate any of the articles, or in any way injure any one of the other colonies, such breach of agreement, or injury, was to be considered and ordered by the commissioners of the other colonies."- Pitkin, Political History, vol. i., p. 51. See also Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 289294; Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. ii., pp. 220-236; Fiske, Beginnings of New England, pp. 140-198; Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 289–296; Hurlburt, Britain and Her Colonies, pp. 12-13; Thwaites, The Colonies, pp. 154–159; Palfrey, History of New England, vol. i., pp. 259-267; Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., p. 392 et seq.; Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, pp. 33-50; Hildreth, vol. i., p. 285 et seq.

any other. The colonies of Connecticut and New Haven had at that time enjoyed no charter, and derived their title to their soil from mere occupancy, and their powers of government from voluntary agreement. New Plymouth had acquired a right to their lands from a grant of a company in England, which conferred, however, no jurisdiction. And no other authority, with regard to the making of peace, or war, or leagues, did the charter of Massachusetts convey, than that of defending itself, by force of arms, against all invaders. But if no patent legalized the confederacy, neither was it confirmed by the approbation of the governing powers in England. Their consent Their consent was never applied for, and was never given. The various colonies, of which that celebrated league was composed, being perfectly independent of one another, and having no other connection than as subjects of the same crown, and as territories of the same state, might, with equal propriety and consistency, have entered into a similar compact with alien colonies or a foreign nation. They did make treaties with the neighboring plantations of the French and Dutch; and in this light was their conduct seen in England, and at a subsequent period did not fail to attract the attention of Charles II." *

Chalmers, Political Annals, book i., chap. viii., p. 178. See also the same writer's Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the American Colonies, vol. i., pp. 86-87.

It was not long before religious dissensions arose in the colonies. There were two leaders of the Anabaptist sect who were very active in propagating their favorite tenets. These were John Clark and Obadiah Holmes. On one occasion, Clark, during a religious service, put on his hat to insult the minister as well as the people, and was subjected to a severe flagellation.* A number of his followers were also expelled from the colony. Another of the same type as Clark and Holmes, Samuel Gorton, caused the the authorities no little trouble. He entertained certain mystical views of the doctrines of Scripture peculiar to himself; to him there was there was "no heaven but in the heart of a good man, no hell but in the conscience of the wicked;" he claimed that the doctrinal formulas and church ordinances of the orthodox Puritans were human inventions, and as such were both unauthorized and mischievous. He also regarded the assumed authority of the New England theocrats as an intolerable yoke of bondage, which he was daring enough to defy and ridicule. In 1638 he was therefore expelled from Plymouth and went to Providence, where

* Isaac Backus, History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination Called Baptists, vol. i., p. 237; Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. ii., pp. 311-313; Palfrey, History of New England, vol. i., p. 382 et seq.; Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., pp. 264-269. On the treatment of the Anabaptists in general, see Brooks Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts, chap. iv.