USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 18
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GOVERNMENT BY ECCLESIASTICS (1630-1649)
To understand Winthrop and the times it is necessary throughout to keep in mind the existence of a powerful and permanent supergovernment unknown to the charter, un- recognized by the law, and contrary to the spirit of popular government. This was the ministers, who were called upon from time to time by the general court or by the magistrates to give their opinion upon pending action. The ministers were the only combination of men in the colony all of whom were educated. Indeed for their benefit and that of their sons and their friends' sons was created Harvard College, in which Winthrop was constantly interested.
Individual ministers had the habit of sermonizing on pub- lic questions; in addition, there was something like an un- official council of the elders. For instance, in 1644, upon the very serious question whether the magistrates would act with- out authority from the general court "in cases where there is
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no particular express law provided, there to be guided by the word of God," the General Court sent for "all the elders to reconcile the differences between the magistrates and deputies." The next day after due consultation their opinion "was affir- mative on the magistrates' behalf in the very words of the question, with some reasons thereof. It was delivered in writ- ing by Mr. Cotton, in the name of them all, they being all present."
Nothing in the Massachusetts system of government was so undemocratic and so unfortunate. The ministers consti- tuted practically a third house of the legislative body. They naturally preserved the privileges of their order. They were conservative, they were often more cruel than the magis- trates or deputies. Moreover they were practically a self- nominated body, admission to which required a previous uni- versity or college education, a good will of a town, and the willingness of their fellow ministers to receive them.
The question of the maintenance of the ministers came to be a state concern, and Winthrop seems relieved, in 1633, because after much deliberation and serious advice, the Lord directed the teacher, Mr. Cotton, to make it clear by the scripture, that the minister's maintenance, as well as all other charges of the church, should be defrayed out of a stock, or treasury, which was to be raised out of the weekly contribution; which ac- cordingly was agreed upon.
The churches were in a sense founded by the general court because they were set up in new towns which required the consent of the colonial government. In local town affairs also the ministers were looked upon as authoritative counselors. A whimsical controversy arose in 1639 over the site of the new church building in Boston whether on the Common or "near the market place." In this Winthrop was interested, he says, because it was "the governour's first lot and he had yielded it to the church." Like many religious disputes, nowadays, there was a commercial issue at stake "The tradesmen, es- pecially, who dwelt about the market place, desired they might stand still near the market, lest in time it should divert the chief trade from thence". At an adjourned meeting, accord- ing to Winthrop, numbers still believed "that the green were the fitter place, yet, for peace's sake, they yielded to the rest
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by keeping silence while it passed. This good providence and overruling hand of God caused much admiration and ac- knowledgment and of the special mercy to the church."
Winthrop records several disputes between churches, and also the approaches toward some sort of general authority in ecclesiastical matters over all the churches. Ministers from various churches assembled to install new ministers, and in some cases, as in that of Reverend Mr. Mather, of Dorchester, refused to approve the new organization. In 1633 Winthrop records "some exception to the fortnightly meeting of the ministers" as fearing it might grow in time to a presbytery or superintendency to the prejudice of the church's liberty."
Hence, the difficulties of the so-called Cambridge Synod in 1637, a meeting of ministers, with two moderators and a scribe. "The erroneous opinions which were spread in the country, were read, being eighty-two." When some of the Boston church called for the names of individuals who held such opinions, the moderators anticipated sharp parliamentary practice by attempting to rule them out; some of the magis- trates even laid down the threat that such a demand "becomes a civil offense and will be treated accordingly." Some of the Boston men retired to attend no more. The Synod duly condemned the eighty-two errors (August 30, 1637) includ- ing such a frightful and dangerous belief as, "A man may not prove his election by his vocation, but his vocation by his election."
The proceedings were much affected by a dreadful por- tent; in the midst of the sermon by Mr. Allen of Dedham "there came a snake into the seat, where many of the elders sate behind the preacher." Winthrop promptly interpreted this portent intruder as "The serpent is the devil; the synod, the representatives of the churches of Christ in New England."
Reverend John Cotton, the ablest though not the most courageous of the ministers once insisted "that the ministers' maintenance should be by voluntary contribution, not by lands, or tithes, etc .; for these have always been accompanied with pride, contention and sloth, etc."
Another remarkable proof of the reliance of the civic au- thorities upon the ministers was the selection of John Cotton to draft the Body of Liberties. That code of laws which, with
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modifications, was adopted by the General Court, together with the charter, constituted the only written constitution of the little commonwealth.
SOCIAL CONTROL BY THE COLONY (1630-1649)
From the very beginning, the colony, under the direction of Winthrop and his associates, began a course of social and economic legislation which involved intimate control of many private actions and commercial transactions. Besides the au- thority often exercised of deporting people who were not thought likely to become a part of tthe community, imposed serious restrictions on immigration. As early as 1630 it was voted that "no person shall settle within their jurisdiction, neither leave from the whole or major part of their body." When Winthrop returned to the governorship in 1637, he favored a law under which no newcomer could inhabit in the jurisdiction unless allowed by some one of the magistrates thus preceding, by nearly three hundred years, the quota sys- tem of the present United States.
Winthrop brought with him servants from England, and servants as a class occupied very much the present position of aliens in the United States : their labor was needed, but they were no part of the political community. Whether Winthrop held Indian slaves is not distinctly set forth in the journal, but it is recorded that after the Pequod war in 1637 "we sent fifteen of the boys and two women to Bermuda" to be sold there as slaves. On the other hand, negro slavery appears never to have been recognized in Massachusetts. In 1645 Richard Saltonstall demanded "justice on Captain John Smith and Thomas Keyser of Boston for importing negroes from Guinea."
Social relations were from the first strictly regulated, as witness the statute of 1637 for the restriction of liquor selling on the ground that "It hath appeared unto this court, upon many sad complaints, that much drunkenness, waste of the good creatures of God, mispence of precious time, and other disorders, have frequently fallen out in the inns and common victualing houses within this jurisdiction, whereby God is much dishonored, the profession of religion reproached, and
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the welfare of this common-wealth greatly impaired, and the true use of such houses (being the necessary relief of travel- ers) subverted. Likewise prohibition was laid on "the game called shovelboard" whereby much precious time is spent un- fruitfully and much waste of wine and beer occasioned thereby."
Banishment was made the penalty for several offences, as was evidenced by the treatment of Philip Radcliff, agent for Governor Cradock, who had passed harsh judgments on some of the authorities, for which offence he was deprived of his ears, whipped and banished; and survived to be on inveterate and dangerous enemy of the colony.
The extent of legislation on Massachusetts trade and com- merce is reserved for treatment elsewhere. Winthrop built the first ship constructed in the colony, the Blessing of the Bay, and seems to have made some money out of the ship- ping business. His son John, Jr., set up iron works in 1645 and asked for "some encouragement from the General Court." An early regulation of retail prices received evident approval, and a very heavy fine on Mr. Robert Keaine who "was wealthy and sold dearer than most tradesman" although "being an ancient professor of the gospel."
The colonial statute for establishing schools in every town- ship of fifty householders and a grammar school in every town of a hundred families is not traceable direct to Win- throp, but he was greatly interested in Harvard College, and notes in 1642 "Nine bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good hope, and performed their acts, so as to give good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and the arts." He notes later, (1645) "three graduates of Har- vard, honest young men, good scholars, and very hopeful," including Mr. George Downing, son of Mr. Emanuel Downing of Salem. Many descendants of John Winthrop are enrolled in the colonial and later lists of Harvard graduates.
DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY
The state of Massachusetts is justly proud of descent from a democratic commonwealth, and many of its present insti- tutions can be traced from the earliest colony. Among those
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who had the privilege of participating in the government, there was from the first an equality of political privileges-suf- frage, jury service, eligibility to office, status before the law. Yet down to the early nineteenth century, the precious privileges of self-government belonged only to a relatively small class in the community. Colonial democracy in Massa- chusetts, as in all the other colonies and in England, was simply an equality of the members of the governing class.
From time to time a protest was made in behalf of the large and intelligent but unrepresented body of people, who were subject to the authority of the community. Even within the sacred circle of the freemen, arose very early a distinction between the deputies who represented the run of the freemen grouped in towns, and the magistrates, elected out of a well- to-do and educated class, among whom inheritance had con- siderable influence.
John Winthrop accepted all these differences of social pres- tige and of weight in the government, although he was familiar with the ideas of equality in political power. No passage in Winthrop's life is so interesting and so characteristic as his famous discussion on democracy before the General Court of Massachusetts. A question arose out of the action of the town of Hingham in choosing one Allen to be the captain of a train band. The magistrates considered military science to be a function of the colonial government and refused to sanction Allen. The minister, Mr. Hubbard, sided with his town, and joined with his parishoners in a petition which charged injustice and illegal decisions by the magistrates. Therefore, he and others were summoned by the general court and bound over for trial for what might be termed lese-magis- tracy. Deputy-Governor Winthrop took this as a personal and insulting criticism upon himself.
Whereupon, says the Journal, "The court assembled in the meeting house at Boston." Two of the magistrates and about half of the deputies "were of opinion that the magistrates exercised too much power and that the people's liberty was thereby in danger." The deputies were asked to consult the opinion of the elders but declined it. Eventually the deputies accepted the penalty of a fine on the petitioners; whereupon the deputy governor again took his place upon the bench and
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delivered what he called a "Little Speech" which he carefully preserved in his Journal. The document is often quoted as a classic definition and defence of true liberty. It is in effect Winthrop's apologia for his principles of government by the few. He says: "The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people. It is yourselves who have called us to this office, and, being called by you, we have our authority from God, in way of an ordinance. The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws and our own, according to our best skill.
"For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man as he stands in relation to man sim- ply, hath liberty to do what he lists: it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts: omnes sumus licentia deteriores. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beasts, which all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it.
"The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal; it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions, amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of your lives, if need be. What- soever crosseth this is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority ; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.
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"On the other side, ye know who they are that complain of this yoke and say, let us break their bands, etc., we will not have this man to rule over us. Even so, brethern, it will be between you and your magistrates. If you stand for your natural corrupt liberties, and will do what is good in your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of authority, but will murmur and oppose and be always striving to shake off that yoke; but if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then will you quietly and cheerfully submit unto that authority which is set over you, in all the administrations of it, for your good."
SERVICE OF JOHN WINTHROP (1630-1649)
This is the declaration of a man of honor, a man of thought and a man of eloquence, who takes upon himself the task of defending the superiority of the social class of which he is a member. He starts out with the incontrovertible doctrine that there is no government without restriction; and that there is a moral responsibility which is a limitation upon "civil or federal liberty." He sets forth clearly the assumption that a part of the community can make rules and create obligations upon another part which cannot relieve itself of responsibility. Thence he proceeds to the implied principle that magistrates in Massachusetts are of a superior strain. Since he cannot point to hereditary governors he particularly insists that the vote creating a magistracy endows the magistrate with indeli- ble authority. "Then will you quietly and cheerfully submit under that authority which is set over you, and all the admin- istrations of it, for your good." What is this but a member of the House of Lords talking to an elective Commons. Another limitation on this claim was that in the practice of the colony of Massachusetts any one of the commons pos- sessed of the suffrage might lawfully be made a magistrate, and thus become a part of an authority not only superior to the rest of the community but expecting to regulate the com- munity. The remedy for mal-administration was, according to Winthrop, no stronger than "good advice from any of you or in any other way of God." In fact, Winthrop is here ap- pealing, as he did throughout his life to the hereditary desire
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of Englishmen to yield to decisions made by the richer, better educated and better born part of the community.
His doctrine, however eloquently expressed, did not really rise higher in his own community than the actual practice of a system by which neither statutes nor birth, could constitu- tionally create superior class; its lofty status was based only on the habit of the community to elect to administrative office the men whom it considered superior. The colony of Massa- chusetts remained under the domination of three whom John Adams, later called "the rich and the well born" for a hun- dred and fifty years after the delivery of this inspiring speech.
The sage Confucius always admitted the superior rights of "the superior man." Any dispassionate study of Winthrop on the background of his times and circumstances must con- cede that he was the greatest Massachusetts figure of his cen- tury. He was honorable, he was usually just, he was con- siderate, he was long-suffering, he was wise, he was religious, he was a statesman, and he loved his fellowmen. He had at heart, above all things else, the welfare, the power and the perpetuity of his beloved Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
[See also bibliographies following Chapters i (English Conditions) ; v (Charter and Colony) ; ix (Confederation) ; x (Social) ; xiii (Litera- ture) ; xiv (Religious Freedom) ; xvii (Colonies and England) ; and the General Bibliography at the end of Vol. V.]
ADAMS, Brooks .- The Emancipation of Massachusetts .- (Boston, Hough- ton Mifflin, 1887 ; new ed., 1919).
ADAMS, James Truslow .- The Founding of New England .- (Boston Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921) .- Unfavorable to the theocratic govern- ment.
CHANNING, Edward .- History of the United States (6 vols. to 1925, N. Y., Macmillan) .- See Vol. I, Chapters, xii, xiii, xv.
ELLIS, George Edward .- The Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay .- (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 1888).
FELT, Joseph B .- Ecclesiastical History of New England .- (Boston, Congregational Board of Publication, 1855).
FISKE, John .- The Beginnings of New England .- (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1889, and later editions).
HART, Albert Bushnell .- Editor .- American History told by Contem- poraries (4 vols.) (N. Y., Macmillan, 1898-1902) .- Vol. I contains extracts from Colonial writers including Winthrop.
HIGGINSON, Francis .- New England's Plantation .- (London, Sparke, 1630) .- Valuable source.
HOSMER, James Kendall .- The Life of Young Sir Harry Vane .- (Bos- ton, Houghton Mifflin, 1888).
KITTREDGE, George Lyman .- "Dr. Robert Child, the Remonstrant."- Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications Vol. XXI, 1919) .- On suffrage controversy of 1645.
LETCHFORD, Thomas .- Plain Dealing, or Newes from New England .- (London, 1642. Reprinted in Massachusetts Historical Society, Col- lection 3d Series, Vol. III. Cambridge, 1832) .- Severe critic of the Massachusetts government.
MATHER, Cotton .- Magnalia Christi Americana 1620-1689 .- (Original ed., London 1702; reprint, Boston 1730; reprint in 2 vols., Hartford, 1920) .- Includes biographical sketches of many colonial worthies.
NOBLE, John, editor .- Records of the Court of Assistants of the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony 1630-1692 (2 vols., Boston, County of Suffolk, 1901-1904) .- Official source of great value.
OLIVER, Peter .- The Puritan Commonwealth .- (Boston, Little, Brown, 1856).
OSGOOD, Herbert L .- The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Cen- tury (3 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1904-1907) .- Constitutional treat- ment. See Vol. I, Part Second, Chaps. ii-iv.
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PALFREY, John Gorham .- History of New England .- (5 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1858-1890) .- Old fashioned but fair and detailed.
PARKER, Joseph .- "The First Charter and the Early Religious Legis- lation of Massachusetts."-(Lowell Institute Lectures etc., Boston, 1869).
WARD, Nathaniel .- The Simple Cobbler of Agawam .- (London, 1647; later reprints).
WASHBURN, Emory .- Judicial History of Massachusetts from 1630 to 1775 (Boston, Little, Brown, 1840).
WINSOR, Justin .- Memorial History of Boston (4 vols., Boston, Hough- ton, Mifflin, 1855-1886). Cooperative local history carefully worked ; a splendid bibliography.
WINSOR, Justin .- Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1884-1889) .- Cooperative; excellent nar- ratives and prodigious bibliography.
Winthrop Papers .- Edited by Moore, George; Winthrop, Frederic; and Ford, Worthington C. (1 vol. published, Boston, Massachusetts, Historical Society, 1925) .- Winthrop family papers down to 1628.
WINTHROP, Robert C .- Life and Letters of John Winthrop (2 vols., Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1869).
YOUNG, Alexander .- Chronicles of the First Plantations of Massachu- setts Bay (Boston, Little and Brown, 1846).
CHAPTER VIII
SISTER NEW ENGLAND SETTLEMENTS (1620-1660)
BY ABNER L. BRALEY President of the Old Bridgewater Historical Society
POLITICAL DIVISIONS TO 1689
The formal historians of the New England colonies have often looked upon them as made up out of parallel and separate settlements, bound together by ties of com- mon race, religion, origin and conditions, but individual units from the beginning. In fact New England was founded originally upon one grand charter and the terri- torial histories of all the later subdivisions are closely con- nected.
The account of land titles and colonial grants begins with the original Virginia charter of April 10, 1606, under which a Plymouth Company was established, with a right to found a colony north of 37 degrees and south of 45 de- grees. In 1607 the Popham settlement on the Kennebec was made under authority of the Plymouth Company.
When this failed and no other permanent settlement was in view, a new grant was made by the Crown to the Council for New England, November 3, 1620. Under this authority were set up various conflcting grants along the coast of what is now Maine, New Hampshire and Massa- chusetts, including royal charters to Mason for what is now New Hampshire, (1635) and to Gorges, for what is now Maine, (1639). The Massachusetts charter of March 4, 1629, was issued directly from the Crown. In 1635 the Council for New England was dissolved, thus leaving in the hands of the Crown all ungranted lands from the French possessions on the north to the Dutch on the south.
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In the southern belt of the Council territory, a grant was made to the towns of "Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England" (March 14, 1644) by commissioners of Parliament. Under the Restoration a royal charter was granted to Connecticut, April 20, 1662, and another to Rhode Island, July 8, 1663. Plymouth for twenty years stood on a patent from the Council for New England (June 1, 1621), establishing no government and stating no boundaries. A later patent of January 13, 1630, authorized a colonial government and defined the inland boundaries. At first issued to Bradford and others, in 1641 it was transferred to the people of the colony.
These are the fundamental documents upon which were based the right both to occupy and dispose of the land in this immense area and to set up governments for the inhabitants. The grants were vague, were frequently drawn with little knowledge of the face of the country, and were often in conflict with each other. The most im- portant of them was the Massachusetts charter of 1629 which left open for future controversy three important difficulties. (1) The boundary of Massachusetts was to be three miles north of the Merrimac River, presumably on the supposition that that river ran from West to East instead of heading far to the north and making a right angle turn east to the sea. (2) The southern boundary was to be three miles south of the Charles River, which might mean, the source of the Charles, the mouth of the Charles, or the most southerly bend of the Charles. (3) The territory granted under the charter extended west- ward to the south-seas which were three thousand miles distant, and the interior was speedily hemmed in by the claims of other European powers. It was seventy years before, under the second charter of Massachusetts in 1691, the bounds were so described as to make possible the adop- tion of the present north and south boundaries of the state, and to accept the hard fact that superior claims of the Dutch and the Indians prevented the colony from extending to the Hudson.
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