enterprise that it could no longer be fitly called a Dorchester Company. The new name was significantly taken from the New World. The charter created a corporation under the style of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The freemen of the Company were to hold a meeting four times a year; and they were empowered to choose a governor, a deputy governor, and a council of eighteen assistants, who were to hold their meetings each month. They could administer oaths of supremacy and allegiance, raise troops for the defence of their possessions, admit new associates into the Company, and make regulations for the management of their business, with the vague and weak proviso that in order to be valid their enactment must in no wise contravene the laws of England. Nothing was said as to the place where the Company should hold its meetings, and accordingly after a few months the Company transferred itself and its charter to New England, in order that it might carry out its intentions with as little interference as possible on the part of the crown. Whether this transfer of the charter was legally justifiable or not is a question which has been much debated, but with which we need not here vex ourselves. The lawyers of the Company were shrewd enough to know that a loosely-drawn instrument may be made to admit of great liberty of action. Under the guise of a mere trading corporation the Puritan leaders deliberately intended to found a civil commonwealth in accordance with their own theories of government. After their arrival in Massachusetts, their numbers increased so rapidly that it became impossible to have a primary assembly of all the freemen, and so a representative assembly was devised after the model of Government of Massa chusetts; the General the Old English county court. The representatives sat for townships, and were called deputies. At first they sat in the same chamber with the assistants, but in 1644 the legislative body was divided into two chambers, the deputies forming the lower house, while the upper was composed of the assistants, who were sometimes called magistrates. In elections the candidates for the upper house were put in nomination by the General Court and voted on by the freemen. In general the assistants represented the common or central power of the colony, while the deputies represented the interests of popular self-government. The former was comparatively an aristocratic and the latter a democratic body, and there were frequent disputes between the two. It is worthy of note that the governing body thus constituted was at once a legislative and a judicial body, like the English county court which served as its model. Inferior courts were organized at an early date in Massachusetts, but the highest judicial tribunal was the legislature, which was known as the General Court. It still bears this name to-day, though it long ago ceased to exercise judicial functions. Now as the freemen of Massachusetts directly chose their governor and deputy-governor, as well as their chamber of deputies, and also took part in choosing their council of assistants, their government was virtually that of an independent republic. The crown could interpose no effective check upon its proceedings except by threatening to annul its charter and send over a viceroy who might be backed up, if need be, by military force. Such threats were sometimes openly made, but oftener hinted at. They served to make the Massachusetts government somewhat wary and circumspect, but they did not prevent it from pursuing a very independent policy in many respects, as when, for example, it persisted in allowing none but members of the Congregational church to vote. This measure, by which it was intended to preserve the Puritan policy unchanged, was extremely distasteful to the British government. At length in 1684 the Massachusetts charter was annulled, an attempt was made to suppress town-meetings, and the colony was placed under a military viceroy, Sir Edmund Andros. After a brief period of despotic rule, the Revolution chusetts. in England worked a change. In 1692 Mas- New charter sachusetts received a new charter, quite dif- of Massaferent from the old one. The people were allowed to elect representatives to the General Court, as before, but the governor and lieutenant-governor were appointed by the crown, and all acts of the legislature were to be sent to England for royal approval. The general government of Massachusetts was thus, except for its possession of a charter, made similar to that of Virginia. Connecticut Island. The governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island were constructed upon the same general plan as the first government of Massachusetts. Governors, councils, and assemblies were elected and Rhode by the people. These governments were made by the settlers themselves, after they had come out from Massachusetts; and through a very singular combination of circumstances,1 they were confirmed by charters granted by Charles II. in 1662, soon after his return from exile. So thoroughly republican were these governments that they remained without change until 1818 in Connecticut and until 1842 in Rhode Island. 1 See my Beginnings of New England, pp. 192-196. We thus observe two kinds of state government in the American colonies. In both kinds the people choose a representative legislative assembly; but in the one kind they also choose their governor, while in the other kind the governor is appointed by the crown. We have now to observe a third kind. Counties palatine in England. After the downfall of the two great companies founded in 1606, the crown had a way of handing over to its friends extensive tracts of land in America. In 1632 a charter granted by Charles I. to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, founded the palatinate colony of Maryland. To understand the nature of this charter, we must observe that among the counties of England there were three whose rulers from an early time were allowed special privileges. Because Cheshire and Durham bordered upon the hostile countries, Wales and Scotland, and needed to be ever on the alert, their rulers, the earls of Chester and the bishops of Durham, were clothed with almost royal powers of command, and similar powers were afterwards granted through favouritism to the dukes of Lancaster. The three counties were called counties palatine (i. e. “palace counties "). Before 1600 the earldom of Chester and the duchy of Lancaster had been absorbed by the crown, but the bishopric of Durham remained the type of an almost independent state, and the colony palatine of Maryland was modelled after it. The charter of Maryland conferred upon Lord Baltimore the most extensive privileges ever bestowed by the British crown upon any subject. He " was made absolute lord of the land and water within his boundaries, could erect towns, cities, and ports, make war or peace, call the whole fighting population to arms and declare martial law, levy tolls and duties, estab Charter of lish courts of justice, appoint judges, magistrates, and other civil officers, execute the laws, and pardon offenders. He could erect manors, with courts-baron and courts-leet, and confer titles and dignities, so that they differed from those of England. He could make laws with the assent of the freemen of the province, and, in cases of emergency, ordinances not impairing life, limb, or property, without their assent. He could found churches and chapels, have them consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England, and appoint the incumbents."1 For his territory and these royal powers Lord Baltimore was to send over to the palace at Windsor a tribute of two Indian arrows yearly, and to reserve for the king one fifth part of such gold and silver as he might happen to get by mining. "The king furthermore bound himself and his successors to lay no taxes, customs, subsidies, or contributions whatever upon the people of the province, and in case of any such demand being made, the charter expressly declared that this clause might be pleaded as a discharge in full." Maryland was thus almost an independent state. Baltimore's title was Lord Proprietary of Maryland, and his title and powers were made hereditary in his family, so that he was virtually a feudal king. His rule, however, was effectually limited. The government of Maryland was carried on by a governor and a twochambered legislature. The governor and the members of the upper house of the legislature were appointed by the lord proprietary, but the lower house of the legislature was elected, here as elsewhere, by the people; and in accordance with time-honoured English custom all taxation must originate in the lower house, which represented the people. 1 Browne's Maryland: the History of a Palatinate, p. 19. |