[Footnote 1: It is not intended to deny that there may be instances in which the state government may advantageously participate in the government of cities. It may be urged that, in the case of great cities, like New York or Boston, many people who are not residents either do business in the city or have vast business interests there, and thus may be as deeply interested in its welfare as any of the voters. It may also be said that state provisions for city government do not always work badly. There are many competent judges who approve of the appointment of police commissioners by the executive of Massachusetts. There are generally two sides to a question; and to push a doctrine to extremes is to make oneself a doctrinaire rather than a wise citizen. But experience clearly shows that in all doubtful cases it is safer to let the balance incline in favour of local self-government than the other way.]
Moreover, even if legislatures were otherwise competent to manage the local affairs of cities, they have not time enough, amid the pressure of other duties, to do justice to such matters. In 1870 the number of acts passed by the New York legislature was 808. Of these, 212, or more than one fourth of the whole, related to cities and villages. The 808 acts, when printed, filled about 2,000 octavo pages; and of these the 212 acts filled more than 1,500 pages. This illustrates what I said above about the vast quantity of details which have to be regulated in municipal government. Here we have more than three fourths of the volume of state-legislation devoted to local affairs; and it hardly need be added that a great part of these enactments were worse than worthless because they were made hastily and without due consideration,—though not always, perhaps, without what lawyers call a consideration.[13]
[Footnote 13: Nothing could be further from my thought than to cast any special imputation upon the New York legislature, which is probably a fair average specimen of law-making bodies. The theory of legislative bodies, as laid down in text-books, is that they are assembled for the purpose of enacting laws for the welfare of the community in general. In point of fact they seldom rise to such a lofty height of disinterestedness. Legislation is usually a mad scramble in which the final result, be it good or bad, gets evolved out of compromises and bargains among a swarm of clashing local and personal interests. The "consideration" may be anything from log-rolling to bribery. In American legislatures it is to be hoped that downright bribery is rare. As for log-rolling, or exchange of favours, there are many phases of it in which that which may be perfectly innocent shades off by almost imperceptible degrees into that which is unseemly or dishonourable or even criminal; and it is in this hazy region that Satan likes to set his traps for the unwary pilgrim.]
[Sidenote: Tweed Ring in New York.] The experience of New York thus proved that state intervention and special legislation did not mend matters. It did not prevent the shameful rule of the Tweed Ring from 1868 to 1871, when a small band of conspirators got themselves elected or appointed to the principal city offices, and, having had their own corrupt creatures chosen judges of the city courts, proceeded to rob the taxpayers at their leisure. By the time they were discovered and brought to justice, their stealings amounted to many millions of dollars, and the rate of taxation had risen to more than two per cent.
[Sidenote: New experiments.] The discovery of these wholesale robberies, and of other villainies on a smaller scale in other cities, has led to much discussion of the problems of municipal government, and to many attempts at practical reform. The present is especially a period of experiments, yet in these experiments perhaps a general drift of opinion may be discerned. People seem to be coming to regard cities more as if they were huge business corporations than as if they were little republics. The lesson has been learned that in executive matters too much limitation of power entails destruction of responsibility; the "ring" is now more dreaded than the "one-man power;" and there is accordingly a manifest tendency to assail the evil by concentrating power and responsibility in the mayor.
[Sidenote: New government of Brooklyn.] The first great city to adopt this method was Brooklyn. In the first place the city council was simplified and made a one-chambered council consisting of nineteen aldermen. Besides this council of aldermen, the people elect only three city officers,—the mayor, comptroller, and auditor. The comptroller is the principal finance officer and book-keeper of the city; and the auditor must approve bills against the city, whether great or small, before they can be paid. The mayor appoints, without confirmation by the council, all executive heads of departments; and these executive heads are individuals, not boards. Thus there is a single police commissioner, a single fire commissioner, a single health commissioner, and so on; and each of these heads appoints his own subordinates; so that the principle of defined responsibility permeates the city government from top to bottom,[14] In a few cases, where the work to be done is rather discretionary than executive in character, it is intrusted to a board; thus there is a board of assessors, a board of education, and a board of elections. These are all appointed by the mayor, but for terms not coinciding with his own; "so that, in most cases, no mayor would appoint the whole of any such board unless he were to be twice elected by the people." But the executive officers are appointed by the mayor for terms coincident with his own, that is for two years. "The mayor is elected at the general election in November; he takes office on the first of January following, and for one month the great departments of the city are carried on for him by the appointees of his predecessor. On the first of February it becomes his duty to appoint his own heads of departments, and thus each incoming mayor has the opportunity to make an administration in all its parts in sympathy with himself."
[Footnote 14: Seth Low on "Municipal Government," in Bryce's American Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 626.]
With all these immense executive powers entrusted to the mayor, however, he does not hold the purse-strings. He is a member of a board of estimate, of which the other four members are the comptroller and auditor, with the county treasurer and supervisor. This board recommends the amounts to be raised by taxation for the ensuing year. These estimates are then laid before the council of aldermen, who may cut down single items as they see fit, but have not the power to increase any item. The mayor must see to it that the administrative work of the year does not use up more money than is thus allowed him.
[Sidenote: Some of its merits.] This Brooklyn system has great merits. It ensures unity of administration, it encourages promptness and economy, it locates and defines responsibility, and it is so simple that everybody can understand it. The people, having but few officers to elect, are more likely to know something about them. Especially since everybody understands that the success of the government depends upon the character of the mayor, extraordinary pains are taken to secure good mayors; and the increased interest in city politics is shown by the fact that in Brooklyn more people vote for mayor than for governor or for president. Fifty years ago such a reduction in the number of elective officers would have greatly shocked all good Americans. But In point of fact, while in small townships where everybody knows everybody popular control is best ensured by electing all public officers, it is very different in great cities where it is impossible that the voters in general should know much about the qualifications of a long list of candidates. In such cases citizens are apt to vote blindly for names about which they know nothing except that they occur on a Republican or a Democratic ticket; although, if the object of a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and efficient municipal government, to elect a city magistrate because he is a Republican or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because he believes in homoeopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums.[15] To vote for candidates whom one has never heard of is not to insure popular control, but to endanger it. It is much better to vote for one man whose reputation we know, and then to hold him strictly responsible for the appointments he makes. The Brooklyn system seems to be a step toward lifting city government out of the mire of party politics.
[Footnote 15: Of course from the point of view of the party politician, it Is quite different. Each party has its elaborate "machine" for electing state and national officers; and in order to be kept at its maximum of efficiency the machine must be kept at work on all occasions, whether such occasions are properly concerned with differences in party politics or not. To the party politician it of course makes a great difference whether a city magistrate is a Republican or a Democrat. To him even the political complexion of his mail-carrier is a matter of importance. But these illustrations only show that party politics may be carried to extremes that are inconsistent with the best interests of the community. Once in a while it becomes necessary to teach party organizations to know their place, and to remind them that they are not the lords and masters but the servants and instruments of the people.]
This system went into operation in Brooklyn in January, 1882, and seems to have given general satisfaction. Since then changes in a similar direction, though with variations in detail, have been made in other cities, and notably in Philadelphia.
[Sidenote: Notion that the suffrage ought to be restricted.] In speaking of the difficulties which beset city government in the United States, mention is often (and perhaps too exclusively) made of the great mass of ignorant voters, chiefly foreigners without experience in self-government, with no comprehension of American principles and traditions, and with little or no property to suffer from excessive taxation. Such people will naturally have slight compunctions about voting away other people's money; indeed, they are apt to think that "the Government" has got Aladdin's lamp hidden away somewhere in a burglar-proof safe, and could do pretty much everything that is wanted, if it only would. In the hands of demagogues such people may be dangerous, they are supposed to be especially accessible to humbug and bribes, and their votes have no doubt been used to sustain and perpetuate most flagrant abuses. We often hear it said that the only way to get good government is to deprive such people of their votes and limit the suffrage to persons who have some property at stake. Such a measure has been seriously recommended in New York, but it is generally felt to be impossible without a revolution.
[Sidenote: Testimony of Pennsylvania Municipal Commission.] Perhaps, after all, it may not be so desirable as it seems. The ignorant vote has done a great deal of harm, but not all the harm. In 1878 it was reported by the Pennsylvania Municipal Commission, as a remarkable but notorious fact, that the accumulations of debt in Philadelphia and other cities of the state have been due, not to a non-property-holding, irresponsible element among the electors, but to the desire for speculation among the property-owners themselves. Large tracts of land outside the built-up portion of the city have been purchased, combinations made among men of wealth, and councils besieged until they have been driven into making appropriations to open and improve streets and avenues, largely in advance of the real necessities of the city. Extraordinary as the statement may seem at first, the experience of the past shows clearly that frequently property-owners need more protection against themselves than against the non-property-holding class.[16] This is a statement of profound significance, and should be duly pondered by advocates of a restricted suffrage.
[Footnote 16: Allinson and Penrose, Philadelphia, 1681-1887; a
History of Municipal Development, p. 278.]
[Sidenote: Dangers of a restricted suffrage.] It should also be borne in mind that, while ignorant and needy voters, led by unscrupulous demagogues, are capable of doing much harm with their votes, it is by no means clear that the evil would be removed by depriving them of the suffrage. It is very unsafe to have in any community a large class of people who feel that political rights or privileges are withheld from them by other people who are their superiors in wealth or knowledge. Such poor people are apt to have exaggerated ideas of what a vote can do; very likely they think it is because they do not have votes that they are poor; thus they are ready to entertain revolutionary or anarchical ideas, and are likely to be more dangerous material in the hands of demagogues than if they were allowed to vote. Universal suffrage has its evils, but it undoubtedly acts as a safety-valve. The only cure for the evils which come from ignorance and shiftlessness is the abolition of ignorance and shiftlessness; and this is slow work. Church and school here find enough to keep them busy; but the vote itself, even if often misused, is a powerful educator; and we need not regret that the restriction of the suffrage has come to be practically impossible.
[Sidenote: Baneful effects of mixing city politics with national politics.] The purification of our city governments will never be completed until they are entirely divorced from national party politics. The connection opens a limitless field for "log-rolling," and rivets upon cities the "spoils system," which is always and everywhere incompatible with good government. It is worthy of note that the degradation of so many English boroughs and cities during the Tudor and Stuart periods was chiefly due to the encroachment of national politics upon municipal politics. Because the borough returned members to the House of Commons, it became worth while for the crown to intrigue with the municipal government, with the ultimate object of influencing parliamentary elections. The melancholy history of the consequent dickering and dealing, jobbery and robbery, down to 1835, when the great Municipal Corporations Act swept it all away, may be read with profit by all Americans.[17] It was the city of London only, whose power and independence had kept it free from complications with national politics, that avoided the abuses elsewhere prevalent, so that it was excepted from the provisions of the Act of 1835, and still retains its ancient constitution.
[Footnote 17: See Parliamentary Reports, 1835, "Municipal Corporations Commission;" also Sir Erskine May, Const. Hist., vol. ii. chap, xv.]
In the United States the entanglement of municipal with national politics has begun to be regarded as mischievous and possibly dangerous, and attempts have in some cases been made toward checking it by changing the days of election, so that municipal officers may not be chosen at the same time with presidential electors. Such a change is desirable, but to obtain a thoroughly satisfactory result, it will be necessary to destroy the "spoils system" root and branch, and to adopt effective measures of ballot reform. To these topics I shall recur when treating of our national government. But first we shall have to consider the development of our several states.
QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.
Give an account of city government in the United States, under the following heads:—
1. The American city:—
a. The mayor. b. The heads of departments. c. The city council. d. The judges. e. Appropriations.
f. The power of committees.
2. The practical workings of city governments:—
a. The contrast they show between theory and practice.
b. Various complaints urged against city governments.
c. Their effect upon the old-time confidence in the perfection of our
institutions.
3. The growth of American cities:—
a. The cities of Washington's time and those of to-day. b. The population of cities in 1790 and their population to-day. c. City growth since 1840.
4. Some consequences of rapid city growth:—
a. The pressure to construct public works.
b. The incurring of heavy debts.
c. The wastefulness due to a lack of foresight.
d. The increase in government due to the complexity of a city.
e. An illustration of this complexity in Boston.
f. The consequent mystery that enshrouds much of city government.
5. Some evils due to the fear of a "one-man" power:—
a. The objection to such power a century ago.
b. Restrictions imposed upon the mayor's power.
c. The division and weakening of responsibility.
d. The lack of unity in the administration of business.
e. The inefficiency of committees for executive purposes.
f. The alarming increase in city debts.
6. Attempts to remedy some of the evils of city government:— a. The power of veto granted to the mayor. b. The limitation of city indebtedness. c. State control of some city departments.
7. Difficulties inherent in state control of cities:— a. Lack of familiarity with city affairs. b. The tendency to "log-rolling." c. Lack of time due to the pressure of state affairs. d. The failure of state control as shown in the rule of the Tweed ring.
8. The government of the city of Brooklyn:— a. The elevation of the "one-man" power above that of the "ring." b. Officers elected by the people. c. Officers appointed by the mayor. d. The principle of well-defined responsibility. e. The appointment of certain boards by the mayor. f. The holding of the purse-strings. g. The inadequacy of the township elective system, in a city like Brooklyn.
9. Restriction of the suffrage:—
a. The dangers from large masses of ignorant voters.
b. The responsibility for the debt of Philadelphia and other cities.
c. The dangers from large classes who feel that political rights are
denied them.
d. Suffrage as a "safety-valve."
10. The mixture of city politics with those of the state or nation:
a. The degradation of the English borough. b. The exemption, of London from the Municipal Corporations Act. c. The importance of separate days for municipal elections. d. The importance of abolishing the "spoils system."
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.
(Chiefly for pupils who live in cities.)
1. When was your city organized?
2. Give some account of its growth, its size, and its present population. How many wards has it? Give their boundaries. In which ward do you live?
3. Examine its charter, and report a few of its leading provisions.
4. What description of government in this chapter comes nearest to that of your city?
5. Consider the suggestions about the study of town government (pp. 43, 44), and act upon such of them as are applicable to city government.
6. What is the general impression about the purity of your city government? (Consult several citizens and report what you find out.)
7. What important caution should be observed about vague rumours of inefficiency or corruption?
8. What are the evidences of a sound financial condition in a city?
9. Is the financial condition of your city sound?
10. When debts are incurred, are provisions made at the same time for meeting them when due?
11. What are "sinking funds"?
12. What wants has a city that a town is free from?
13. Describe your system of public water works, making an analysis of important points that may be presented.
14. Do the same for your park system or any other system that involves a long time for its completion as well as a great outlay.
15. Are the principles of civil service reform recognized in your city? If so, to what extent? Do they need to be extended further?
16. Describe the parties that contended for the supremacy in your last city election and tell what questions were at issue between them.
17. What great corporations exact an influence in your city affairs? Is such influence bad because it is great? What is a possible danger from such influence?
18. In view of the vast number and range of city interests, what is the most that the average citizen can reasonably be asked to know and to do about them? What things is it indispensable for him to know and to do is he is to contribute to good government?
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
Section 1. DIRECT AND INDIRECT GOVERNMENT.—The transition from direct to indirect government, as illustrated in the gradual development of a township into a city, may be profitably studied in Quincy's Municipal History of Boston, Boston, 1852; and in Winsor's Memorial History of Boston, vol. iii. pp. 189-302, Boston, 1881.
Section 2. ORIGIN OF ENGLISH BOROUGHS AND CITIES.—See Loftie's History of London, 2 vols., London, 1883; Toulmin Smith's English Gilds, with Introduction by Lujo Brentano, London, 1870; and the histories of the English Constitution, especially those of Gneist, Stubbs, Taswell-Langmead, and Hannis Taylor.
Section 3. GOVERNMENT OF CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES.—J.H.U. Studies, III., xi.-xii., J.A. Porter, The City of Washington; IV., iv., W.P. Holcomb, Pennsylvania Boroughs; IV., x., C.H. Lovermore, Town and City Government of New Haven; V., i.-ii., Allinson and Penrose, City Government of Philadelphia; V., iii., J.M. Bugbee, The City Government of Boston; V., iv., M.S. Snow, The City Government of St. Louis; VII., ii.-iii., B. Moses, Establishment of Municipal Government in San Francisco; VII., iv., W.W. Howe, Municipal History of New Orleans; also Supplementary Notes, No. 4, Seth Low, The Problem of City Government (compare No. 1, Albert Shaw, Municipal Government in England.) See, also, the supplementary volumes published at Baltimore,—Levermore's Republic of New Haven, 1886, Allinson and Penrose's Philadelphia, 1681-1887: a History of Municipal Development, 1887.
CHAPTER VI.
THE STATE.
Section 1. The Colonial Governments.
[Sidenote: Claims of Spain to the possession of North America.] In the year 1600 Spain was the only European nation which had obtained a foothold upon the part of North America now comprised within the United States. Spain claimed the whole continent on the strength of the bulls of 1493 and 1494, in which Pope Alexander VI. granted her all countries to be discovered to the west of a certain meridian which, happens to pass a little to the east of Newfoundland. From their first centre in the West Indies the Spaniards had made a lodgment in Florida, at St. Augustine, in 1565; and from Mexico they had in 1605 founded Santa Fé, in what is now the territory of New Mexico.
[Sidenote: Claims of France and England.] France and England, however, paid little heed to the claim of Spain. France had her own claim to North America, based on the voyages of discovery made by Verrazano in 1524 and Cartier in 1534, in the course of which New York harbour had been visited and the St. Lawrence partly explored. England had a still earlier claim, based on the discovery of the North American continent in 1497 by John Cabot. It presently became apparent that to make such claims of any value, discovery must be followed up by occupation of the country. Attempts at colonization had been made by French Protestants in Florida in 1562-65, and by the English in North Carolina in 1584-87, but both attempts had failed miserably. Throughout the sixteenth century French and English sailors kept visiting the Newfoundland fisheries, and by the end of the century the French and English governments had their attention definitely turned to the founding of colonies in North America.
[Sidenote: The London and Plymouth Companies.] In 1606 two great joint-stock companies were formed in England for the purpose of planting such colonies. One of these companies had its headquarters at London, and was called the London Company; the other had its headquarters at the seaport of Plymouth, in Devonshire, and was called the Plymouth Company. To the London Company the king granted the coast of North America from 34° to 38° north latitude; that is, about from Cape Fear to the mouth of the Rappahannock. To the Plymouth Company he granted the coast from 41° to 45°; that is, about from the mouth of the Hudson to the eastern extremity of Maine. These grants were to go in straight strips or zones across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Almost nothing was then known about American geography; the distance from ocean to ocean across Mexico was not so very great, and people did not realize that further north it was quite a different thing. As to the middle strip, starting from the coast between the Rappahannock and the Hudson, it was open to the two companies, with the understanding that neither was to plant a colony within 100 miles of any settlement already begun by the other. This meant practically that it was likely to be controlled by whichever company should first come into the field with a flourishing colony. Accordingly both companies made haste and sent out settlers in 1607, the one to the James River, the other to the Kennebec. The first enterprise, after much suffering, resulted in the founding of Virginia; the second ended in disaster, and it was not until 1620 that the Pilgrims from Leyden made the beginnings of a permanent settlement upon the territory of the Plymouth Company.
[Sidenote: Their common charter.] These two companies were at first organized under a single charter. Each was to be governed by a council in England appointed by the king, and these councils were to appoint councils of thirteen to reside in the colonies, with powers practically unlimited. Nevertheless the king covenanted with his colonists as follows: Also we do, for us, our heirs and successors, declare by these presents that all and every the persons, being our subjects, which shall go and inhabit within the said colony and plantation, and every their children and posterity, which shall happen to be born within any of the limits thereof, shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities of free denizens and natural subjects within any of our other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England, or in any other of our dominions. This principle, that British subjects born in America should be entitled to the same political freedom as if born in England, was one upon which the colonists always insisted, and it was the repeated and persistent attempts of George III. to infringe it that led the American colonies to revolt and declare themselves independent of Great Britain.
[Sidenote: Dissolution of the two companies.] [Sidenote: Settlement of the three zones.] Both the companies founded in 1606 were short-lived. In 1620 the Plymouth Company got a new charter, which made it independent of the London Company. In 1624 the king, James I., quarreled with the London Company, brought suit against it in court, and obtained from the subservient judges a decree annulling its charter. In 1635 the reorganized Plymouth Company surrendered its charter to Charles I. in pursuance of a bargain which need not here concern us.[1] But the creation of these short-lived companies left an abiding impression upon the map of North America and upon the organization of civil government in the United States. Let us observe what was done with the three strips or zones into which the country was divided: the northern or New England zone, assigned to the Plymouth Company; the southern or Virginia zone, assigned to the London Company; and the central zone, for which the two companies were, so to speak, to run a race.
[Footnote 1: See my Beginnings of New England, p. 112.]
[Sidenote: 1. the northern zone.] [Sidenote: 2. The southern zone.] In 1663 Charles II. cut off the southern part of Virginia, the area covering the present states of North and South Carolina and Georgia, and it was formed into a new province called Carolina. In 1729 the two groups of settlements which had grown up along its coast were definitively separated into North and South Carolina; and in 1732 the frontier portion toward Florida was organized into the colony of Georgia. Thus four of the original thirteen states—Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia—were constituted in the southern zone.
To this group some writers add Maryland, founded in 1632, because its territory had been claimed by the London Company; but the earliest settlements in Maryland, its principal towns, and almost the whole of its territory, come north of latitude 38° and within the middle zone.
[Sidenote: 3. The middle zone.] Between the years 1614 and 1621 the Dutch founded their colony of New Netherland upon the territory included between the Hudson and Delaware rivers, or, as they quite naturally called them, the North and South rivers. They pushed their outposts up the Hudson as far as the site of Albany, thus intruding far into the northern zone. In 1638 Sweden planted a small colony upon the west side of Delaware Bay, but in 1655 it was surrendered to the Dutch. Then in 1664 the English took New Netherland from the Dutch, and Charles II. granted the province to his brother, the Duke of York. The duke proceeded to grant part of it to his friends, Berkeley and Carteret, and thus marked off the new colony of New Jersey. In 1681 the region west of New Jersey was granted to William Penn, and in the following year Penn bought from the Duke of York the small piece of territory upon which the Swedes had planted their colony. Delaware thus became an appendage to Penn's greater colony, but was never merged in it. Thus five of the original thirteen states—Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware—were constituted in the middle zone.
As we have already observed, the westward movement of population in the United States has largely followed the parallels of latitude, and thus the characteristics of these three original strips or zones have, with more or less modification, extended westward. The men of New England, with their Portland and Salem reproduced more than 3000 miles distant in the state of Oregon, and within 100 miles of the Pacific Ocean, may be said in a certain sense to have realized literally the substance of King James's grant to the Plymouth Company. It will be noticed that the kinds of local government described in our earlier chapters are characteristic respectively of the three original zones: the township system being exemplified chiefly in the northern zone, the county system in the southern zone, and the mixed township-county system in the central zone.
[Sidenote: House of Burgesses in Virginia.] The London and Plymouth companies did not perish until after state governments had been organized in the colonies already founded upon their territories. In 1619 the colonists of Virginia, with the aid of the more liberal spirits in the London Company, secured for themselves a representative government; to the governor and his council, appointed in England, there was added a general assembly composed of two burgesses from each "plantation," [2] elected by the inhabitants. This assembly, the first legislative body that ever sat in America, met on the 30th of July, 1619, in the choir of the rude church at Jamestown. The dignity of the burgesses was preserved, as in the House of Commons, by sitting with their hats on; and after offering prayer, and taking the oath of allegiance and supremacy, they proceeded to enact a number of laws relating to public worship, to agriculture, and to intercourse with the Indians. Curiously enough, so confident was the belief of the settlers that they were founding towns, that they called their representatives "burgesses," and down to 1776 the assembly continued to be known as the House of "Burgesses," although towns refused to grow in Virginia, and soon after counties were organized in 1634 the burgesses sat for counties. Such were the beginnings of representative government in Virginia.
[Footnote 2: The word "plantation" is here used, not in its later and ordinary sense, as the estate belonging to an individual planter, but in an earlier sense. In this early usage it was equivalent to "settlement." It was used in New England as well as in Virginia; thus Salem was spoken of by the court of assistants in 1629 as "New England's Plantation."]
[Sidenote: Company of Massachusetts Bay.] The government of Massachusetts is descended from the Dorchester Company formed in England in 1623, for the ostensible purpose of trading in furs and timber and catching fish on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. After a disastrous beginning this company was dissolved, but only to be immediately reorganized on a greater scale. In 1628 a grant of the land between the Charles and Merrimack rivers was obtained from the Plymouth Company; and in 1629 a charter was obtained from Charles I. So many men from the east of England had joined in the 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.
[Sidenote: Government of Massachusetts; the General Court] 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 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.
[Sidenote: New charter of Massachusetts] 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 in England worked a change. In 1692 Massachusetts received a new charter, quite different 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.
[Sidenote: Connecticut and Rhode 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 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[3] 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.
[Footnote 3: 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.
[Sidenote: Counties palatine in England] [Sidenote: Charter of Maryland] 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, establish 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.[4] 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 two-chambered 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.
[Footnote 4: Browne's Maryland: the History of a Palatinate, p. 19.]
[Sidenote: Charter of Pennsylvania.] [Sidenote: Mason and Dixon's line] Half a century after the founding of Maryland, similar though somewhat less extensive proprietary powers were granted by Charles II. to William Penn, and under them the colony of Pennsylvania was founded and Delaware was purchased. Pennsylvania and Delaware had each its house of representatives elected by the people; but there was only one governor and council for the two colonies. The governor and council were appointed by the lord proprietary, and as the council confined itself to advising the governor and did not take part in legislation, there was no upper house. The legislature was one-chambered. The office of lord proprietary was hereditary in the Penn family. For about eighty years the Penns and Calverts quarrelled, like true sovereigns, about the boundary-line between their principalities, until in 1763 the matter was finally settled. A line was agreed upon, and the survey was made by two distinguished mathematicians, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. The line ran westward 244 miles from the Delaware River, and every fifth milestone was engraved with the arms of Penn on the one side and those of Calvert on the other. In later times, after all the states north of Maryland had abolished slavery, Mason and Dixon's line became famous as the boundary between slave states and free states.
[Sidenote: Other proprietary governments.] At first there were other proprietary colonies besides those just mentioned, but in course of time the rights or powers of their lords proprietary were resumed by the crown. When New Netherland was conquered from the Dutch it was granted to the duke of York as lord proprietary; but after one-and-twenty years the duke ascended the throne as James II., and so the part of the colony which he had kept became the royal province of New York. The part which he had sold to Berkeley and Carteret remained for a while the proprietary colony of New Jersey, sometimes under one government, sometimes divided between two; but the rule of the lords proprietary was very unpopular, and in 1702 their rights were surrendered to the crown. The Carolinas and Georgia were also at first proprietary colonies, but after a while they willingly came under the direct sway of the crown. In general the proprietary governments were unpopular because the lords proprietary, who usually lived in England and visited their colonies but seldom, were apt to regard their colonies simply as sources of personal income. This was not the case with William Penn, or the earlier Calverts, or with James Oglethorpe, the illustrious founder of Georgia; but it was too often the case. So long as the lord's rents, fees, and other emoluments were duly collected, he troubled himself very little as to what went on in the colony. If that had been all, the colony would have troubled itself very little about him. But the governor appointed by this absentee master was liable to be more devoted to his interests than to those of the people, and the civil service was seriously damaged by worthless favourites sent over from England for whom the governor was expected to find some office that would pay them a salary. On the whole, it seemed less unsatisfactory to have the governors appointed by the crown; and so before the Revolutionary War all the proprietary governments had fallen, except those of the Penns and the Calverts, which doubtless survived because they were the best organized and best administered.
[Sidenote: At the time of the Revolution there were three forms of colonial government: 1. Republican, 2. Proprietary, 3. Royal.] There were thus at the time of the Revolutionary War three forms of state government in the American colonies. There were, first, the Republican colonies, in which the governors were elected by the people, as in Rhode Island and Connecticut; _secondly,_the Proprietary colonies, in which the governors were appointed by hereditary proprietors, as in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; thirdly, the Royal colonies,[5] in which the governors were appointed by the crown, as in Georgia, the two Carolinas, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. It is customary to distinguish the Republican colonies as Charter colonies, but that is not an accurate distinction, inasmuch as the Proprietary colonies also had charters. And among the Royal colonies, Massachusetts, having been originally a republic, still had a charter in which her rights were so defined as to place her in a somewhat different position from the other Royal colonies; so that Prof. Alexander Johnston, with some reason, puts her in a class by herself as a Semi-royal colony.
[Footnote 5: Or, as they were sometimes called, Royal provinces. In the history of Massachusetts many writers distinguish the period before 1692 as the colonial period, and the period 1692 to 1774 as the provincial period.]
[Sidenote: In all three forms there was a representative assembly, which alone could impose taxes.] These differences, it will be observed, related to the character and method of filling the governor's office. In the Republican colonies the governor naturally represented the interests of the people, in the Proprietary colonies he was the agent of the Penns or the Calverts, in the Royal colonies he was the agent of the king. All the thirteen colonies alike had a legislative assembly elected by the people. The basis of representation might be different in different colonies, as we have seen that in Massachusetts the delegates represented townships, whereas in Virginia they represented counties; but in all alike the assembly was a truly representative body, and in all alike it was the body that controlled the expenditure of public money. These representative assemblies arose spontaneously because the founders of the American colonies were Englishmen used from time immemorial to tax themselves and govern themselves. As they had been wont to vote for representatives in England, instead of leaving things to be controlled by the king, so now they voted for representatives in Maryland or New York, instead of leaving things to be controlled by the governor. The spontaneousness of all this is quaintly and forcibly expressed by the great Tory historian Hutchinson, who tells us that in the year 1619 a house of burgesses broke out in Virginia! as if it had been the mumps, or original sin, or any of those things that people cannot help having.
[Sidenote: The governor's council was a kind of upper house.] This representative assembly was the lower house in the colonial legislatures. The governor always had a council to advise with him and assist him in his executive duties, in imitation of the king's privy council in England. But in nearly all the colonies this council took part in the work of legislation, and thus sat as an upper house, with more or less power of reviewing and amending the acts of the assembly. In Pennsylvania, as already observed, the council refrained from this legislative work, and so, until some years after the Revolution, the Pennsylvania legislature was one-chambered. The members of the council were appointed in different ways, sometimes by the king or the lord proprietary, or, as in Massachusetts, by the outgoing legislature, or, as in Connecticut, they were elected by the people.
[Sidenote: The colonial government was like the English system in miniature.] Thus all the colonies had a government framed after the model to which the people had been accustomed in England. It was like the English system in miniature, the governor answering to the king, and the legislature, usually two-chambered, answering to parliament. And as quarrels between king and parliament were not uncommon, so quarrels between governor and legislature were very frequent indeed, except in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The royal governors, representing British imperial ideas rather than American ideas, were sure to come into conflict with the popular assemblies, and sometimes became the objects of bitter popular hatred. The disputes were apt to be concerned with questions in which taxation was involved, such as the salaries of crown officers, the appropriations for war with the Indians, and so on. Such disputes bred more or less popular discontent, but the struggle did not become flagrant so long as the British parliament refrained from meddling with it.
[Sidenote: The Americans never admitted the supremacy of parliament;] The Americans never regarded parliament as possessing any rightful authority over their internal affairs. When the earliest colonies were founded, it was the general theory that the American wilderness was part of the king's private domain and not subject to the control of parliament. This theory lived on in America, but died out in England. On the one hand the Americans had their own legislatures, which stood to them in the place of parliament. The authority of parliament was derived from the fact that it was a representative body, but it did not represent Americans. Accordingly the Americans held that the relation of each American colony to Great Britain was like the relation between England and Scotland in the seventeenth century. England and Scotland then had the same king, but separate parliaments, and the English parliament could not make laws for Scotland. Such is the connection between Sweden and Norway at the present day; they have the same king, but each country legislates for itself. So the American colonists held that Virginia, for example, and Great Britain had the same king, but each its independent legislature; and so with the other colonies,—there were thirteen parliaments in America, each as sovereign within its own sphere as the parliament at Westminster, and the latter had no more right to tax the people of Massachusetts than the Massachusetts legislature had to tax the people of Virginia.
In one respect, however, the Americans did admit that parliament had a general right of supervision over all parts of the British empire.[6] Maritime commerce seemed to be as much the affair of one part of the empire as another, and it seemed right that it should be regulated by the central parliament at Westminster. Accordingly the Americans did not resist custom-house taxes as long as they seemed to be imposed for purely commercial purposes; but they were quick to resist direct taxation, and custom-house taxes likewise, as soon as these began to form a part of schemes for extending the authority of parliament over the colonies.
[Footnote 6: except in the regulation of maritime commerce.]
In England, on the other hand, this theory that the Americans were subject to the king's authority but not to that of parliament naturally became unintelligible after the king himself had become virtually subject to parliament.[7] The Stuart kings might call themselves kings by the grace of God, but since 1688 the sovereigns of Great Britain owe their seat upon the throne to an act of parliament.
[Footnote 7: In England there grew up the theory of the imperial supremacy of parliament.]
To suppose that the king's American subjects were not amenable to the authority of parliament seemed like supposing that a stream could rise higher than its source. Besides, after 1700 the British empire began to expand in all parts of the world, and the business of parliament became more and more imperial. It could make laws for the East India Company; why not, then, for the Company of Massachusetts Bay?
[Sidenote: Conflict between the British and the American theories was precipitated by George III.] Thus the American theory of the situation was irreconcilable with the British theory, and when parliament in 1765, with no unfriendly purpose, began laying taxes upon the Americans, thus invading the province of the colonial legislatures, the Americans refused to submit. The ensuing quarrel might doubtless have been peacefully adjusted, had not the king, George III., happened to be entertaining political schemes which were threatened with ruin if the Americans should get a fair hearing for their side of the case.[8] Thus political intrigue came in to make the situation hopeless. When a state of things arises, with which men's established methods of civil government are incompetent to deal, men fall back upon the primitive method which was in vogue before civil government began to exist. They fight it out; and so we had our Revolutionary War, and became separated politically from Great Britain. It is worthy of note, in this connection, that the last act of parliament, which brought matters to a crisis, was the so-called Regulating Act of April, 1774, the purpose of which was to change the government of Massachusetts. This act provided that members of the council should be appointed by the royal governor, that they should be paid by the crown and thus be kept subservient to it, that the principal executive and judicial officers should be likewise paid by the crown, and that town-meetings should be prohibited except for the sole purpose of electing town officers. Other unwarrantable acts were passed at the same time, but this was the worst. Troops were sent over to aid in enforcing this act, the people of Massachusetts refused to recognize its validity, and out of this political situation came the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill.
[Footnote 8: See my War of Independence, pp. 58-64, 69-71
(Riverside Library for Young People).]
QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.
1. Various claims to North America:—
a. Spanish. b. English. c. French.
2. What was needed to make such claims of any value?
3. The London and Plymouth companies:—
a. The time and purpose of their organization. b. The grant to the London Company. c. The grant to the Plymouth Company. d. The magnitude of the zones granted. e. The peculiar provisions for the intermediate zone. f. First attempts at settlement.
4. To what important principle of the common charter of these two companies did the colonists persistently cling?
5. The influence of these short-lived companies upon the settlement and government of the United States:—
a. A review of the zones and their assignment. b. The states of the northern zone and their origin. c. The states of the southern zone and their origin. d. The states of the middle zone and their origin. e. The influence of the movement of population on local government in each zone.
6. Early state government in Virginia:—
a. The part appointed and the part elected. b. The first legislative body in America. c. The dignity of its members. d. The reason for the name "House of Burgesses."
7. Early state government in Massachusetts:—
a. The Dorchester Company.
b. The government provided for the Company of Massachusetts
Bay by its charter.
c. The real purpose of the Puritan leaders.
d. The change from the primary assembly of freemen to the
representative assembly.
e. The division of this assembly into two houses, with a comparison
of the houses.
f. The reason for the name "General Court."
g. The loss of the charter and the causes that led to it.
h. The new charter as compared with the old.
8. Compare the early governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island with the first government of Massachusetts.
9. What two kinds of state government have thus far been observed?
10. Early state government in Maryland:—
a. The favouritism of the crown as shown in land grants.
b. The palatine counties of England.
c. The bishopric of Durham the model of the colony of
Maryland.
d. The extraordinary privileges granted Lord Baltimore.
e. The tribute to be paid in return.
f. The ruler a feudal long.
g. Limitations of the ruler's power.
11. Early state government in Pennsylvania and Delaware:—
a. The powers of Penn as compared with those of Calvert. b. One governor and council, c. The legislature of each colony. d. The quarrels of the Penns and Calverts. e. Mason and Dixon's line.
12. What other proprietary governments were organized, and what was their fate?
13. Why were proprietary governments unpopular? (Note the exceptions, however.)
14. Classify and define the forms of colonial government in existence at the beginning of the Revolution.
15. Show that these forms differed chiefly in respect to the governor's office.
16. A representative assembly in each of the thirteen colonies:—
a. The basis of representation. b. The control of the public money. c. The spontaneousness of the representative assembly.
17. The governor's council:—
a. The custom in England. b. The council as an upper house. c. The council in Pennsylvania.
18. Compare the colonial systems with the British (1) in organization and (2) in the nature of their political quarrels.
19. What was the American theory of the relation of each colony to the British parliament?
20. What was the American attitude towards maritime regulations?
21. What was the British theory of the relation of the American colonies to parliament?
22. How was the Revolutionary War brought on?
23. Describe the last act of parliament that brought matters to a crisis.
Section 2. The Transition from Colonial to State Governments.
[Sidenote: Dissolution of assemblies and parliaments.] [Sidenote: Committees of Correspondence.] During the earlier part of the Revolutionary War most of the states had some kind of provisional government. The case of Massachusetts may serve as an illustration. There, as in the other colonies, the governor had the power of dissolving the assembly. This was like the king's power of dissolving parliament in the days of the Stuarts. It was then a dangerous power. In modern England there is nothing dangerous in a dissolution of parliament; on the contrary, it is a useful device for ascertaining the wishes of the people, for a new House of Commons must be elected immediately. But in old times the king would turn his parliament out of doors, and as long as he could beg, borrow, or steal enough money to carry on government according to his own notions, he would not order a new election. Fortunately such periods were not very long. The latest instance was in the reign of Charles I, who got on without a parliament from 1629 to 1640.[9] In the American colonies the dissolution of the assembly by the governor was not especially dangerous, but it sometimes made mischief by delaying needed legislation. During the few years preceding the Revolution, the assemblies were so often dissolved that it became necessary for the people to devise some new way of getting their representatives together to act for the colony. In Massachusetts this end was attained by the famous "Committees of Correspondence." No one could deny that town-meetings were legal, or that the people of one township had a right to ask advice from the people of another township. Accordingly each township appointed a committee to correspond or confer with committees from other townships. This system was put into operation by Samuel Adams in 1772, and for the next two years the popular resistance to the crown was organized by these committees. For example, before the tea was thrown into Boston harbour, the Boston committee sought and received advice from every township in Massachusetts, and the treatment of the tea-ships was from first to last directed by the committees of Boston and five neighbour towns.
[Footnote: 9: The kings of France contrived to get along without a representative assembly from 1614 to 1789, and during this long period abuses so multiplied that the meeting of the States-General in 1789 precipitated the great revolution which overthrew the monarchy.]
[Sidenote: Provincial Congress] In 1774 a further step was taken. As parliament had overthrown the old government, and sent over General Gage as military governor, to put its new system into operation, the people defied and ignored Gage, and the townships elected delegates to meet together in what was called a "Provincial Congress." The president of this congress was the chief provincial executive officer of the commonwealth, and there was a small executive council, known as the "Committee of Safety."
[Sidenote: Provisional governments; "governors" and "presidents."] This provisional government lasted about a year. In the summer of 1775 the people went further. They fell back upon their charter and proceeded to carry on their government as it had been carried on before 1774, except that the governor was left out altogether. The people in town-meeting elected their representatives to a general assembly, as of old, and this assembly chose a council of twenty-eight members to sit as an upper house. The president of the council was the foremost executive officer of the commonwealth, but he had not the powers of a governor. He was no more the governor than the president of our federal senate is the president of the United States. The powers of the governor were really vested in the council, which was an executive as well as a legislative body, and the president was its chairman. Indeed, the title "president" is simply the Latin for "chairman," he who "presides" or "sits before" an assembly. In 1775 it was a more modest title than "governor," and had not the smack of semi-royalty which lingered about the latter. Governors had made so much trouble that people were distrustful of the office, and at first it was thought that the council would be quite sufficient for the executive work that was to be done. Several of the states thus organized their governments with a council at the head instead of a governor; and hence in reading about that period one often comes across the title "president," somewhat loosely used as if equivalent to governor. Thus in 1787 we find Benjamin Franklin called "president of Pennsylvania," meaning "president of the council of Pennsylvania." But this arrangement did not prove satisfactory and did not last long. It soon appeared that for executive work one man is better than a group of men. In Massachusetts, in 1780, the old charter was replaced by a new written constitution, under which was formed the state government which, with some emendations in detail, has continued to the present day. Before the end of the eighteenth century all the states except Connecticut and Rhode Island, which, had always been practically Independent, thus remodelled their governments.
[Sidenote: Origin of the Senates.] These changes, however, were very conservative. The old form of government was closely followed. First there was the governor, elected in some states by the legislature, in others by the people. Then there was the two-chambered legislature, of which the lower house was the same institution after the Revolution that it had been before. The upper house, or council, was retained, but in a somewhat altered form. The Americans had been used to having the acts of their popular assemblies reviewed by a council, and so they retained this revisory body as an upper house. But the fashion of copying names and titles from the ancient Roman republic was then prevalent, and accordingly the upper house was called a Senate. There was a higher property qualification for senators than for representatives, and generally their terms of service were longer. In some states they were chosen by the people, in others by the lower house. In Maryland they were chosen by a special college of electors, an arrangement which was copied in our federal government in the election of the president of the United States. In most of the states there was a lieutenant-governor, as there had been in the colonial period, to serve in case of the governor's death or incapacity; ordinarily the lieutenant-governor presided over the senate.
[Sidenote: Likenesses and differences between British and American systems.] Thus our state governments came to be repetitions on a small scale of the king, lords, and commons of England. The governor answered to the king, with his dignity very much curtailed by election for a short period. The senate answered to the House of Lords except in being a representative and not a hereditary body. It was supposed to represent more especially that part of the community which was possessed of most wealth and consideration; and in several states the senators were apportioned with some reference to the amount of taxes paid by different parts of the state.[10] When New York made its senate a supreme court of appeal, it was in deliberate imitation of the House of Lords. On the other hand, the House of Representatives answered to the House of Commons as it used to be in the days when its power was really limited by that of the upper house and the king. At the present day the English of Commons is a supreme body. In case of a serious difference with the House of Lords, the upper house must yield, or else new peers will be created in sufficient number to reverse its vote; and the lords always yield before this point is reached. So, too, though the veto power of the sovereign has never been explicitly abolished, it has not been exercised since 1707, and would not now be tolerated for a moment. In America there is no such supreme body. The bill passed by the lower house may be thrown out by the upper house, or if it passes both it may be vetoed by the governor; and unless the bill can again pass both houses by more than a simple majority, the veto will stand. In most of the states a two-thirds vote in the affirmative is required.
[Footnote 10: See my Critical Period of American History, p. 68.]
QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.
1. The dissolution of assemblies and parliaments:—
a. The governor's power over the assembly in the colonies. b. The king's power over parliament in England. c. The danger of dissolution in the time of the Stuarts. d. The safety of dissolution in modern England. e. The frequency of dissolution before the Revolution.
2. Representation of the people in the provisional government of Massachusetts:—
a. The committees of correspondence. b. Their function, with an illustration from the "tea-ships." c. The provincial congress. d. The committee of safety. e. The return to the two-chambered legislature of the charter.
3. Executive powers in the provisional government of Massachusetts;—
a. The foremost executive officer. b. Where the power of governor was really vested. c. Why the name of president was preferred to that of governor. d. The example of Massachusetts followed elsewhere. e. The end of provisional government in 1780.
4. The council transformed to a senate:—
a. The principle of reviewing the acts of the popular assembly. b. The borrowing of Roman names. c. The qualifications and service of senators. d. The lieutenant-governor.
5. Our state governments patterned after the government of England:—
a. The governor and the king. b. The Senate and the House of Lords. c. The House of Representatives and the House of Commons. d. Some differences between the British system and the American.