USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 12
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"The selectmen, by their own authority or upon the applica- tion of a certain number of townsmen, issue a warrant for the calling of a town-meeting. The warrant mentions the busi- ness to be engaged in, and no other can be legally executed. The inhabitants are warned to attend; and they that are present, though not a quarter or tenth of the whole, have aright to proceed. They choose a president by the name of Moderator, who regulates the proceedings of the meeting. Each individual has an equal liberty of delivering his opinion, and is not liable to be silenced or brow beaten by a richer or greater townsmen than himself. Every freeman or freeholder, as the business regards either the freeholders in particular or the freemen at large, gives his vote or not, and for or against as he pleases; and each vote weighs equally; whether that of the highest or lowest inhabitant. At these town meet- ings the people are used to debate and conclude upon instruc- tions to their representatives respecting matters before or likely to come before the general court-freely to express their sentiments regarding public transactions-to agree upon the choise of a minister, and the salary they shall give him; upon building or repairing the meeting-house, and upon a variety of other interesting matters, which concern the exercise of their civil or sacred privileges."
A TYPICAL TOWN MEETING
The records of the period offer many examples of this procedure, but the town meeting of Boston, because of its prominence in the Commonwealth, as well as because of the
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EXPANSION AND TOWN SYSTEM
important part it was to play in the opening days of the American Revolution, is particularly significant. It receives particular attention in another chapter of this volume of the Commonwealth History. A characteristic Boston Town Meet- ing was that held in 1725. The March meeting was called in the morning at Faneuil Hall. It was opened with prayer, the warrant read, and thereupon "Sundry laws" newly passed by the General Court were communicated to the people. A moderator was chosen and a clerk elected. After this the town proceeded to the choice of seven selectmen and the numerous minor officers. If, however, the meeting was for the purpose of choosing representatives to the General Court, it was fre- quently done at the opening of the session. Voting was usually by ballot. The inhabitants were "directed to withdraw" whereupon they returned to place their votes in the hands of the selectmen who received only "such as are unfolded." The meeting adjourned at noon to meet later in the day,- usually three o'clock-at which time instructions might be voted to the town representatives and action taken on articles in the warrant.
The eighteenth century closed in Massachusetts with the towns in the ascendency. The part played by them in the Revolutionary War will be later described in this work. The records enunciate almost every political principle that would tend to relieve outraged local sentiment. The political activi- ties of Revolutionary town meetings helped to prepare for the Declaration of Independence, by forming the committees of correspondence and safety, in offering bounties for volunteer services in the army, and in procuring arms and ammunition. They were, in many cases, the heart of Massachusetts military activity. A British sympathizer wrote of the town meeting in Boston that it ". . . is the hot-bed of seditions. It is there that all their dangerous insurrections are engendered; it is there that the flame of discord and rebellion was first lighted up and disseminated over the Provinces."
It could hardly be expected, therefore, that the new con- stitution of the Commonwealth in 1780 would be anything less than profuse in its references to the "people" and particu- larly in its emphatic recognition of the town. The town meet- ing was no longer the creation of the statutes of the General
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TYPICAL TOWN MEETING
Court. It was formally incorporated in the frame of govern- ment. "The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble to consult upon the common good; give instructions to their representatives, and to request of the legislative body, by the way of addresses, petitions, or remonstrances, redress of the wrongs done them, and of the grievances they suffer." March 23, 1786 the General Court passed the first general act "For regulating Towns, setting forth their Power, and for the Choice of Town Officers, and for repealing all laws heretofore made for that Purpose." It replaced the town act of 1692, as the latter had replaced the older regulations of the colony in the famous order of 1635-36. Collectively those acts are a series of local charters that deserve high rank in the political records of American constitutional history.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, C. F .- The Genesis of the Massachusetts Town and the Develop- ment of Town-Meeting Government (Mass. Historical Society, Pro- ceedings, 2d series, Vol. VII, pp. 174-211)-Excellent as a study in early Massachusetts records, but the theory of town origins presented has received little support. The extensive comments by Messrs. Goodell Chamberlain and Channing that follow this essay (pp. 211-263) are of equal value.
ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS .- Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (2 vols., Boston, 1894)-The third "episode" discussed (Vol. II) is a study of church and town government based upon the experience of Braintree. It is particularly useful for the eighteenth century ma- terials that it presents.
AKAGI, ROY HIDEMICHI .- The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies (Phila., Press of the Univ. of Pa., 1924)-A careful account of the development of the proprietors' meetings of the eighteenth century and of their influence on local government.
CHANNING, EDWARD .- Town and County Government in the English Colo- nies of North America (Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science, Second Series, Vol. X, Balto., John Hopkins Press, 1884, pp. 5-57)-Although written some years ago, this essay remains one of the most significant studies in the field of institutional origins in America.
DAVIS, ANDREW MCFARLAND .- Corporations in the Days of the Colony (Colo- nial Society of Massachusetts, Transactions, Vol. I, Boston, 1895, pp. 183-215)-A useful but brief commentary on the legal status of the colonial and provincial towns.
FELT, JOEL BARLOW .- Statistics of Towns in Massachusetts (Am. Statistical Assoc., Collections, Vol. I, pt. I, pp. 2-116, Boston, 1847)-The most complete brief account of the origin and development of the towns of Massachusetts to about 1843.
MASSACHUSETTS (Commonwealth) .- The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (21 vols., Boston, 1869-1922)-The complete legislation of the province period. Volume XXI is given exclusively to town charters, 1691-1714.
MASSACHUSETTS (Colony) .- The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Re- printed from the edition of 1672, with the supplements through 1686 (Boston, 1890)-Edited by William H. Whitmore. Contains the Body of Liberties of 1641, and the records of the Court of Assistants, 1641- 1644.
MASSACHUSETTS : SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH .- Historical Data Relating to Counties, Cities, and Towns in Massachusetts (Boston, 1920)-A pamphlet of great value to any student of local institutional history in Massachusetts. It contains a complete list of all counties, cities and towns established in the Commonwealth, and much data pertaining to their original condition, incorporation, change of boun- daries, extinction, etc.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
MATHEWS, MRS. LOIS KIMBALL .- The Expansion of New England Settle- ment and Institutions to the Mississippi River, 1620-1865 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1909)-An account of the spread of New England settlements (with excellent maps) to the Mississippi River, 1620-1865.
TURNER, FREDERICK JACKSON .- The Frontier in American History, (N. Y., Holt, 1920)-See pp. 39-204, "The First Official Frontier of the Massa- chusetts Bay." A good discussion of the "frontier towns" of the period of the Province.
WHITMORE, WILLIAM H .- On the Origin of Names of Towns in Massa- chusetts (Mass. Historical Society, Proceedings, First Series, Vol. XII, pp. 393-419, Boston, 1843) .- A careful study of the origin of town names from the earliest settlements through the administration of Governor Thomas Hutchinson, -1774.
CHAPTER V
THE ROYAL GOVERNORS AND THE GENERAL COURT (1717-1773)
BY G. ANDREWS MORIARTY Vice-President of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society for Rhode Island
MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRACY (1717-1773)
The fifty-eight years from the accession of Governor Shute to the departure of Governor Hutchinson are the most im- portant, from a constitutional point of view, in the pre-Revo- lutionary history of Massachusetts; for they cover a period when the people of England and New England were drawing apart in views, interests and characteristics. These were also years in which the constitutional development of Massachus- etts was proceeding.
Ancestor worshippers have carefully tended the lamps lighted to the memory of the founders of the Colony, and have constantly praised the democratic character of the gov- ernment under the original Charter. Nevertheless the fact remains that the Charter government from 1628 to 1685 can hardly be styled a democracy, although it must be styled a republic. In those days the political power was vested in the hands of the little group of aristocrats, which comprised the leaders of the original settlement and their immediate de- scendants, working in close conjunction with the Congrega- tional ministers. Together they controlled the right of fran- chise and saw to it that only persons agreeing with themselves were entrusted with the ballot.
Whatever may have been the immediate purpose of the Stuarts in their struggle with the Massachusetts theocracy, the result of the overthrow of the "close corporation," that up to 1685 ruled the Bay Colony, was to give a great impulse to political freedom. Under the new Charter of 1692 all
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SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CLASSES
persons having a freehold estate of 40 shillings per annum, or a personal estate of £40, were entitled to the franchise. Of course under this provision many of the lower social class were excluded from a vote; but the exclusions were fewer in number than under the old system. Moreover, there was thenceforth a vast difference between excluding from a hand in the government persons who were too shiftless to acquire the small amount of property required, and the previous ex- clusion from a participation in the affairs of state of all per- sons who, for one reason or another, were unacceptable to the Congregational clergy and their friends.
In the period we are considering, the people of Massachus- etts developed along certain well defined lines diverging from their brethren in England. The frontier influence bred in the settlers a self reliance and impatience of control, as well as confidence in their own wisdom, together with narrowness, ignorance and parochial outlook that often rendered their officious self-reliance unlovely, and mean and unworthy in its expression. The geographical conditions and the sterile soil of necessity forced many of the free farmers into the poorer class of the community, and led to their alliance with the mechanics of the towns. The fine harbors fostered com- merce, which favored the growth of a provincial plutocratic oligarchy in place of the original aristocracy. Like all plu- tocracies, it was bent upon the aggrandizement of its own personal fortunes by exploiting the natural resources of the country, controlling its commerce and utilizing the less for- tunate members of society.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CLASSES (1692-1717)
Hence a class antagonism arose, as is usual in plutocracies ; it was accompanied by a discontent with the mother country, which was perhaps only an incident in the other deeper strug- gle. For nothing but certain ill-advised measures of the home government, especially affecting the merchants, taken toward the end of our period, led to a temporary and limited alliance of the monied class with the farmers and mechanics in resist .- ance to the Crown. The discontent of the poor was fanned by certain able demagogues throughout that period, who sought
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THE ROYAL GOVERNORS
their own advancement through relief from control by the home government. The increase in population during this period, and the opening up of new settlements brought the people into closer contact with the inhabitants of the other colonies. At length, slowly and somewhat unwillingly, Massa- chusetts, in conjunction with the other colonies, was forced to recognize that the American colonists in reality formed a distinct nation, with interests that conflicted with those of England. In other words, American nationality had its birth in this period; and the trend toward American nationality was strongest in Massachusetts, as the leading commercial colony.
When we turn from these general considerations to the field of politics, we find in Massachusetts an equally important constitutional development, which was the necessary corollary of social and commercial progress. The most striking thing about the political development in the English colonies is how English it was in character. Our ancestors, Englishmen by blood, nature and tradition, worked out the problems of their colonial development in a thoroughly English fashion. Indeed the petty conflicts of the royal governors and the provincial assemblies in all the colonial struggles follow,-making allow- ance for new conditons,-the earlier struggles in England between the Crown and their forefathers "in Commons assem- bled." In both old and New England the principal conflict between executive and legislative concerned the control of out- goes by supply bills, and of income by taxation. Around these two factors the battle for Anglo-Saxon freedom has always centered.
The Charter of 1692, granted by William the Third,-a tolerant and enlightened monarch,-was intended to give to the colonists of Massachusetts Bay the largest amount of per- sonal liberty consonant with their dependence upon the home government. In practice, when applied to the future develop- ment of the Massachusetts people, it proved to be an unwork- able instrument, which was a factor in the final breach of 1775. Experience shows that colonies can only be successfully main- tained by one of two methods: either by denying them all share in the government and ruling them directly from home, as the Virgin Islands are now ruled by the United States; or by giving them complete liberty in all branches of government
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LEGISLATIVE ORGANIZATION
and thus binding them to the home country merely by the slight bond of a common allegiance, as is the present Dominion of Canada. The first method,-that always employed by France and Spain in their colonial empires,-was obviously impossible with a strong, sturdy, freedom-loving race of Eng- lishmen, accustomed for centuries to self-government. The latter method,-that now practiced in the British Empire,- was only evolved after a century and a half of bitter experi- ence of empire building. At the time of which we write it lay far in the future. The success of this latter method, a part- nership among men of English blood, has been most striking; for the thin bond of a common allegiance to the British Crown proved in the crisis of the World War to be at once flexible and unbreakable under the hardest tests.
In 1692, such a relation was unknown; and England had nothing to go by except her old institutions, because she had had as yet but little experience with empire building. The Charter of 1692 was an attempt to make the colony self gov- erning, and at the same time dependent upon the home govern- ment-two divergent purposes that were impossible of recon- ciliation.
LEGISLATIVE ORGANIZATION (1717-1773)
By the Charter the Province was given a General Assembly with power to make all laws for the general good, and to vote the money necessary to carry on the government; at the same time it was subject to such laws as Parliament chose to enact. The Assembly could not make laws contrary to those of Eng- land; and the Governor, appointed by the Crown, could veto the Assembly's bills and could thus confine its legislative activi- ties within the bounds of his instructions from England. More- over, a further power of disallowing any Provincial law duly signed by the Governor was vested in the Crown.
Such a system of government, viewed in the light of subse- quent developments, was impossible. It could not function, when the Assembly was composed of stiff-necked English free- men, with the traditions of the English Revolution of 1642 fresh in their memories. For example, the Charter provided for an Upper House of twenty-eight Councillors to be elected by the Council and Assembly; but the Governor could veto
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THE ROYAL GOVERNORS
any thirteen of the choices of the House. By the Charter each town was allowed two representatives in the House, but the latter was given the power (subject to the Governor's veto) to change the number of representatives, if the public need de- manded.
Almost immediately, in 1692-93, a law was enacted allow- ing Boston to send four representatives to the House. No other change was made in the number of representatives al- lowed to each town throughout the entire provincial period. This special status accents the fact that, until the middle of the eighteenth century the influence of Boston, usually exercised by plutocratic merchants who controlled the town and influ- enced its deputies, was regarded with some suspicion by the country members. They feared the town's aristocratic ten- dencies; and it was only when the mechanic element came to the front, under the leadership of that past master in politics, Sam Adams, that the small farmer of the interior threw off his dread of the big town's influence.
In the absence of anything like party government with a responsible minister, the Speaker of the House became the dominant party leader in affairs; and he was chosen, not for his ability to administer parliamentary law, but because he was the leader of the majority. This extra-constitutional practice early led to much trouble; for the country party-the anti-Prerogative men-controlled the House. Towards the end the Speaker became more versed in parliamentary proced- ure ; but he never ceased to be the leader of the dominant op- position in its struggle with the executive.
Important for the history of Massachusetts was the com- position of the Assembly in our period. The majority was always made up of small farmers, containing an element that was bigoted, ignorant, exasperating and sometimes disingenu- ous; but they were strong, sturdy and able defenders of their rights as Englishmen, in which role they showed themselves able and vigorous antagonists. The members from the sea- board towns were men, for the most part, of larger outlook and broader education, usually chosen from the merchant or professional classes. In nearly every Assembly there was no lack of able leaders, who skillfully drew up the acts and memorials with which the Assembly fought Prerogative, as
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BRITISH CONTROL
embodied in the person of the Royal Governor. Governor Shute accused the Assemblies with whom he contended of be- ing "more accustomed to the art of husbandry than that of legislation;" but these plain farmers showed an astonishing skill in organizing their forces in the Assembly and in para- lyzing the measures urged by the Governor.
BRITISH CONTROL (1717-1773)
Taken all in all, the Provincial Charter government, with some indispensable powers lodged in the Assembly, over against the veto power in the Royal Governor, created an im- possible situation which was bound to be fraught with bitter- ness and controversy. The contest tended to widen the separa- tion of the people of the Province from the Crown, and to make bad feeling on both sides. The whole of the period is characterized by bold encroachments, often unjustified and un- lawful, made by the Lower House upon the Prerogative; and throughout the struggle, up to the latest crisis, the Assembly showed great skill and subtlety in its conflict with the gover- nor, and a capacity to act with the abler minds among the members, who directed its efforts.
The Council, until the very end of the Provincial period, when all law and order were relaxing and the revolt of the lower classes swelling, was composed of conservative gentle- men, drawn for the most part from the merchant class, and up- on the whole reasonably friendly to the influence and authority of the Crown, called the Prerogative. They formed a buffer between the Governors and the Assembly. In practice, in the earlier period they usually sided with the Governor, and had a common grievance with him in the attempts of the House to encroach upon their functions. In some matters, where they acted in conjunction with the House, the small number of Councillors gave the Assembly an overwhelming advantage, which it was not slow to use, or the Council to resent.
It must be admitted that in the frequent controversies the letter of the law was more often with the Royal Governor than with his opponents, whose bold acts, ignorance and some- times disingenuous and doubtful methods can only be justi- fied by that larger view, which acknowledges that the whole
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THE ROYAL GOVERNORS
spirit of the English race tends towards granting the individ- ual the largest amount of personal liberty that is consonant with organized government.
The popular fallacy, that the British government was guilty of deliberate tyranny in its dealings with the Province of Mas- sachusetts in the first half of the eighteenth century, must be disposed of here. The British government was often stupid and ignorant in its dealings with the colonies; but it always acted within the law as understood in England; and it never showed desire to play the role of a tyrant towards its North American dependencies, nor can its dealings with them be truthfully characterized as tyrannical. Colonial Empire was still an experiment in the modern world, and the English government was trying to do its best to solve a most difficult, perhaps already insoluble problem. It was handicapped by a natural desire to please the colonists who were considered Englishmen overseas; and to preserve their liberties. This led it to a weak and yielding policy upon the whole, which the colonial leaders mistook for cowardice. They thus grew bolder and more importunate in their demands, in which, from the first, they were always backed up by a large party in England. Up to the last moment before the Revolution, it is doubtful whether most of the leaders, while arousing the people with dreams of independence, thought that independence was necessary. They could not believe that the home government would ever fight, in view of the frequent concessions to the Colonists.
With these preliminaries in mind, we are ready to take up, somewhat in detail, the story, often unreasonable and petty, but always redeemed by the love of liberty that animated the people, of the struggle of the successive Massachusetts Assem- blies with the Royal Governors. This struggle resolves itself into two parts, with an interval of comparative quiet between them. The first extended from the arrival of Governor Shute in 1717 until the accession of Governor Shirley in 1742. The second commenced with the arrival of Governor Bernard in 1760 and extended to the departure of Governor Hutchinson in 1774, when all civil government under the Crown practically ceased. In the interval, which comprised the governorship of Shirley and Pownall, the desperate struggle with France ab-
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GOVERNORS BURGESS AND SHUTE
sorbed most of the Province's energies, and gave a breathing space to constitutional wrangles.
GOVERNORS BURGESS AND SHUTE (1715-1723)
Upon the removal of Governor Dudley in 1715, Colonel Burgess was appointed Governor by the Crown, but the in- trigues of Jonathan Belcher and of Jeremiah Dummer, the provincial agent, succeeded in bringing about his resignation; and the appointment of Colonel Shute, a distinguished officer, who had fought under Marlborough, and who was a member of a noted dissenting family. This, it was thought, would be acceptable to the Province. This appointment seems to have been secured by the two Massachusetts men not only because Shute was a dissenter, but because they had succeeded in win- ning him over to their views regarding the private land bank, to which they were both strongly opposed. The financial side of the long controversy over paper money is elsewhere treated in this volume. The political and constitutional side is one of the unfortunate issues in the history of Massachusetts. In this state of affairs Massachusetts was divided into three parties with respect to the management of its finances. The smallest party, comprising the most intelligent and the best educated, desired a strictly hard money standard; they were few and powerless. Another and larger group comprising some of the more important merchants, desired to establish a private bank that should issue bills of credit to be secured by mort- gages on real estate, which bills would have no fixed value as compared with gold and silver. The largest group desired the Province to emit bills of credit to those who would mortgage their estates to secure the repayment.
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