VIII such acts of Parliament as were made to apply to America; and CHAP. English judicial procedure, including trial by jury, was universally adhered to. government The development of a colony did not go far before it became Local necessary to make arrangements for separate, though subordinate, management of the affairs of local subdivisions. These arrangements were naturally determined quite as much by the physical conditions under which the people lived as by the temperament of the inhabitants themselves. Hence they reproduced the institutions of the mother country less closely than did other parts of the governmental system, and greater variations appeared from colony to colony. The people of New England settled in compact communities. They could easily live in that fashion and carry on their small-scale farming and their trade; they felt the need of protection against Indian attacks; and they wanted to remain in close fellowship with the religious congregations to which they belonged. Accordingly, the main unit of local government in all of the New England colonies was the town. The county existed, but was important chiefly as a judicial area. The New England town was not necessarily an urban center. It was, more properly, a township, often entirely rural, although likely to contain at least a village. At all events, it was small, and its people could readily come together for worship, for social intercourse, and for political action. The governing authority was a primary assembly of voters known as the town meeting, which convened at least once a year and made by-laws on all sorts of subjects, levied taxes, voted appropriations, and elected not only the local representative (or representatives) in the colonial assembly, but the officers-chiefly a board of "selectmen" of three to thirteen members 1-who administered the town's affairs during the ensuing twelve months. Most of the time these little governments went along with a minimum of interference from the colonial and English authorities, and the experience which the inhabitants. gained in the management of their affairs, even though on a small scale, was of inestimable value in the larger era of self-government ushered in by the Revolution. The New town England In the southern colonies the plantation system caused the popu- The county lation to be scattered, and the principal unit of local government naturally became the county, which followed its English prototype as closely as conditions permitted. There was no popular assembly, Known in Rhode Island as the town council CHAP. Sources of Undemocratic character of colonial governments and most of the officers-lieutenant, sheriff, coroner, and justices of the peace were appointed by the governor, commonly on nomination by the justices. In the middle colonies a mixed system of town and county government grew up, but after 1688 the town was gradually overshadowed by the county, especially in Pennsylvania.1 Like Englishmen at home, the colonists were, in general, hardheaded, practical men who dealt with questions as they arose and were not much given to political speculation. After 1760 their remonstrances against the attempts of Parliament to legislate for them and to tax them led to much discussion of constitutional theory and political rights. Prior to that time, however, such protests as they found it necessary to voice commonly appealed to the laws and usages of the realm rather than to abstract doctrines. The political views which they held were drawn from a variety of sources. The Puritans and Quakers leaned heavily upon the Scriptures. English treatises-Richard Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (circa 1594), Milton's political essays, Harrington's Commonwealth of Oceana (1657), and, above all. John Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1689) and Algernon Sidney's Discourses concerning Government (1698)-contributed much. In the main, however, the colonists' ideas rose directly out of the English constitutional system and the common law, enriched by centuries of precedent and tradition. Naturally, they added something as a result of their own experience. 2 The salient fact about political thought in the colonies is its gradual movement in the direction of democracy. Throughout the colonial period English government, while based in an increasing degree on the supremacy of Parliament, was in no true sense democratic. The House of Lords was composed almost entirely of hereditary peers, and only an insignificant fraction of the people had any part in choosing the members of the House of Commons. Of the Englishmen who came out to America, very few cherished democratic opinions. Certainly the Cavaliers who populated Vir It should be added that the foundations of American municipal government were laid during the colonial period by the incorporation of twenty boroughs under charters conferred by certain governors. New York received the first such charter in 1686. The governing authority of an incorporated borough was, on the English analogy, a single-chambered council consisting of a mayor, a small number of aldermen, and a larger number of councilors. See W. B. Munro, Government of American Cities (rev. ed.), 2-5. H. L. Osgood, "The Political Ideas of the Puritans," Polit. Sci. Quar., VI, 1-28, 201-231 (Mar. and June, 1891). VIII ginia and other southern colonies, and for generations formed a CHAP. jealous, exclusive, ruling aristocracy, were not democrats, save in their dealings one with another. No more were the Puritans of New England. They had, indeed, resisted the absolutism of the Stuarts and had come to the New World in quest of freedom. But the freedom which they sought was the opportunity to set up a society based on their own civil and religious ideas, not a condition in which all members of a mixed community should have equal rights and be individually free to believe and act as they pleased. The establishment of an aristocracy was seriously proposed in Massachusetts in 1634, and shortly thereafter John Cotton pronounced democracy "the meanest and worst of all forms of government." When, in later times, religious requirements were relaxed, property qualifications were imposed similar to those which confined the electorate in the middle and southern colonies to a mere handful of the people. Nevertheless, the colonial period, taken as a whole, saw political opinion considerably democratized. The exceedingly liberal governmental systems of Connecticut and Rhode Island were influential. The remoteness of the colonies from England made for political separateness, which in turn gave scope for the readjustment of political usage and opinion. The conditions of life in a new country, furthermore, are always favorable to democracy: social classes are not sharply differentiated; men are thrown back upon their own efforts and have a chance to win standing and power without much regard for antecedents; smallness of numbers requires the coöperation of all elements. The hardy populations which, even before 1750, were spreading through the backcountry of New England, New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas were, after the manner of frontier populations everywhere, specially inclined to democratic sentiments.1 Conditions favorable to democ racy tendencies The progress of democratic opinion was farther aided by the Democratic course of politics in England itself, where, although the suffrage remained unchanged, such legislation as the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 and the Toleration Act of 1689 steadily added to the personal liberty of the subject, and where, after 1660, the representative principle gradually won its way against the prerogative, while the cabinet plan of responsible government silently transformed 'The influence of the frontier on the political development of America is clearly described in F. J. Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," Amer. Hist. Assoc. Report (1893), 197-227, and in the same author's The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920). CHAP. VIII the entire political system. Local self-government as developed in the New England towns, although not itself as yet democratic, was a necessary antecedent of democracy. Vigorous elective assemblies, although not as yet representative of the masses, were necessary if the masses were ever to rule. The sentiment which upheld these bodies in their steady accumulation of power manifested itself also in a growing demand for popular election of a larger proportion of the officers, for shorter terms of office, for the right of the assemblies to judge the qualifications of their members, for frequent reapportionments of legislative seats, for habeas corpus acts and other guarantees of civil rights, and here and there for a broader suffrage. REFERENCES E. Kimball, The National Government of the United States (Boston, 1920), 1-10. J. Schouler, Constitutional Studies (New York, 1904), Chap. II. J. H. Finley and J. F. Sanderson, The American Executive and Executive A. Johnson, Readings in American Constitutional History (Boston, 1912), 1-33. C. Becker, The United States, an Experiment in Democracy (New York, 1920), H. L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 4 vols. (New E. B. Greene, The Provincial Governor in the English Colonies of North Amer- K. H. Porter, History of Suffrage in the United States (Chicago, 1918), A. E. McKinley, "The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies,” L. P. Kellogg, "The American Colonial Charter," Amer. Hist. Assoc. Reports, E. B. Russell, "Review of American Colonial Legislation by the King in C. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period (New York, 1912). CHAPTER IX THE REVOLUTION AND THE GROWTH OF POLITICAL IDEAS The movement which led to the American Revolution, the independence of the thirteen colonies, and the establishment of a new English-speaking nation in the western world may be dated from the decision of the British government, shortly after 1760, to enforce imperial regulations with new vigor and to ask the colonists to bear a share of the burden of imperial defense. Hitherto the colonies had, in reality, been largely independent. Through their elective assemblies, they managed their local affairs, with no small amount of opposition from the governors, it is true, yet with little actual restraint. Parliament made few laws which applied to them, and they were not taxed from beyond the sea except in so far as they paid duties imposed with a view to the regulation of trade. Only now and then did the home government take much note of them, save to guard them against conquest. After 1760, however, the situation was totally changed. During the great conflict whose American phase we know as the French and Indian war, the elder Pitt roused the English nation to a new sense of the dignity and glory of the Empire, and when the war was over Englishmen of all classes were in favor of a closer integration of the imperial possessions and a general toning up of colonial administration. In particular, it was felt that the American colonies ought to be drawn into closer relations with the mother country, and that, in view of their extraordinary growth in population and wealth, they ought henceforth to be required to help the Empire pay its way. This notion fell in perfectly with the ideas of the new sovereign, George III, who gladly coupled the purpose of subjecting the colonies to the control of Parliament with his policy of bringing Parliament itself again under the domination of the king. A three-fold program was, accordingly, determined upon. First, the trade and navigation acts were to be vigorously enforced. These were statutes (dating, in some instances, from the seventeenth century) which required the colonies to export certain of |