USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 8
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Therefore RESOLVED,
THAT the faid General Gage, hath by thefe and many other Means ut- terly difqualified himfelf to ferve this Colony as a Governor, and in, every other Capacity, and that no Obedience ought in future to be paid by the fe- veral Towns and Diftricts in this Colony to his Writs, for calling an Affem- bly, or to bis Proclamations, or any other of his Acts or Doings ; but that on the other Hand, he ought to be confidered and guarded againft, as an unna- tural and inveterate Enemy to the Country.
„JOSEPH WARREN, Prefident P. T. Attelt, SAMUEL FREEMAN, Sect'y P. T.
SALEM Printed by E. Russell, next Door to J. TURNER, Eliji in the Main-ftreet.
From an original
Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society
RESOLVES AGAINST GENERAL GAGE AS THEIR GOVERNOR
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ORGANIZATION OF THE EXECUTIVE
ORGANIZATION OF A COUNCIL (1775)
Two days later the House proceeded to the choice of 28 Councillors. The election was conducted in the usual manner ; but as there had been no previous Council the newly elected representatives constituted the sole electoral body. Until the new Council could meet and organize, no further business could be accomplished. The House on July 24th, before the Council had convened, authorized the payment of a sum of money by the Receiver-General. This is probably the only instance in the history of the "resumed" Charter that the House acted without the consent of the Council.
July 26, 1775 the Council met for the first time. Its organ- ization was unusually difficult. The royal Governor had pre- sided during the provincial period, but in his absence the senior Councillor was wont to convene the body. This custom was probably tacitly followed from July 26 to August 1. With the choice of a secretary the Council had even more difficulty. It was finally decided that, since the royal official was not present, a secretary should be appointed pro tempore and Perez Morton was selected.
The Massachusetts delegates at the Continental Congress concerned themselves with the new provincial government. John Adams had written to James Warren urging the appoint- ment of Samuel Adams as secretary of the Commonwealth. "Has not our friend deserved it? Is he not fit for it? Has any other candidate so much merit or so good qualifications?" In the meantime Warren, the Speaker of the Assembly, in- forming Samuel Adams of the establishment of the new gov- ernment, had said, "The Council met but yesterday. They choose a secretary this day. I presume you will be the man." No Hancockian anti-Adams faction had yet risen, and on August 10, Samuel Adams was duly chosen secretary of the Colony.
ORGANIZATION OF THE EXECUTIVE (1775 - 1776)
The establishment of an executive presented a most serious problem to the General Court. Although the Continental Congress advised that the Governor and Lieutenant Governor be declared absent, it suggested only a vague provision for
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the exercise of their functions: "The assembly and council should exercise the powers of government." Did this mean that the Council and the House should jointly execute their own acts? A letter of Warren to John Adams reveals the feeling of the General Court. "A question was started and warmly contested whether our constitution consisted of two or three branches and was determined in favor of the latter rather from a supposition that it was your design than from the express words of your resolves."
Under the Charter of 1691, the executive power of the Colony was conferred upon the Council whenever the Gov- ernor and Lieutenant Governor were absent. Accordingly the House resolved to consider the Council or a majority of its members as Governor of the Province. Besides its usual executive duties, the Council was often given extensive administrative powers. On December 10, 1776, after the occupation of Rhode Island by the British army and fleet, the Assembly resolved that "the whole power of the General Court, be during the Recess of the Court devolved on the Council of this State, so far forth as are necessary for the purpose of protecting and defending this State from such descent and depredations, and any seven shall be considered as a quorum."
In ordinary recesses, however, the Council was privileged to summon the General Court to meet at a time earlier than that to which it stood adjourned ; it also might appoint officers in the army and militia, treat with the Indians and pay cer- tain amounts.
The situation from 1775 to 1779 required the Council as the executive to remain continually in session. As the upper house of the legislature it adjourned along with the House, but as Governor of the Colony, a quorum of its members directed the affairs of state. When times were unusually quiet, a committee of the Council alone remained at the seat of government.
QUESTION OF A NEW CONSTITUTION (1776 - 1778)
The anomalous position of the Council must have strained to the utmost the patience of the revolutionary leaders. The Charter of 1691, originally designed for a royal province,
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QUESTION OF A NEW CONSTITUTION
was not easily adaptable to the needs of an independent state. A hydra-headed executive in the person of an upper house is, at least, awkward. Even at the inception of the provisional government, Warren, just elected Speaker of the House, wrote to Samuel Adams: "I could almost wish we were again reduced to a congress till we had a constitution worth con- tending for." As time went on, dissatisfaction with the re- sumed Charter and the General Court increased. April 3, 1776, John Adams wrote from Philadelphia, "If there had been half the energy in those governments that there was two years ago, Howe would now have been in another world or the most miserable man in this."
The "resumed" Charter government soon showed its in- efficiency. Men desired a government strong but popular. Among the first acts of the General Court definitely consider- ing the formation of a constitution was the resolve of September 19, 1776, asking the towns to empower their rep- resentatives to act as a constituent body. Only the opposition of Boston and Worcester prevented the Assembly from as- suming the responsibility of revising the Charter of 1691.
The objections which these two important towns raised to the resolve of September nineteenth show the marked local and personal feeling then active. Boston thought that the forming of a constitution was so vital to the welfare of all, that "every individual ought to be consulting, acting and assisting." This statement of the rights of the individual in regard to his government gave sanction to the theory that any change in the form of government must be submitted to the people for their approval in town meetings.
Boston and Worcester were not alone in their refusal to give the General Court power to act as a constituent body. Rowley resolved that any constitution should be published for "perusal"; while Salem voted that all changes in the govern- ment should be ratified by the towns. Norton voiced the then current opinion that the end of government is the good of the people, and from this premise concluded that the power to form and establish a constitution must rest with the people.
Without the support of its leading towns, the General Court might have tried to alter the Charter of 1691; but the inex- pediency of such an act suggested itself, and the formation
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PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
of a new code of government was eventually left to a spe- cifically authorized body.
APPOINTMENTS OF MILITARY OFFICERS (1775)
It was fortunate that the most obvious defects of the re- sumed Charter led to but one grave situation in the period 1775-1779. Under the royal Charter, the Governors had ap- pointed all the commissioned officers of the militia. The Provincial Congress contented itself with the appointment of the general officers only; while the choice of regimental and company leaders was left to the local authorities. Upon the "resumption" of the Charter of 1691, arose the question of use as to which procedure should be followed. The Gen- eral Court with its inheritance of the points of view of the provincial government, and representative of a strong local feeling, desired that the popular branch appoint the principal officers only ; while the Council, acting as the execu- tive, believed it had the right, according to the Charter, to appoint all officers.
The contest between the two branches did not begin until the second session. Previously, the Council had made the appointments and the House had not seriously objected, but toward the end of September, 1775, the lower branch ap- pointed a committee to bring in a bill regulating the militia. By the first of November the representatives authorized a committee to confer with the Council on military appoint- ments. The Councillors immediately appealed to the Colony's representatives at Philadelphia, urging that the July act of the Continental Congress directing the provincial assemblies to appoint all officers, did not repeal the previous recommenda- tion as to the resumption of the Charter of 1691, in which the governors were authorized to appoint all militia officers.
The Massachusetts delegation would not submit such a question showing internal discord to the Continental Congress. The two Adamses thought that the second resolve of the Congress had repealed the first and advised the Council to abandon its position; while Cushing and Hancock, differing as usual from the Adamses, thought the position of the Coun- cil justified, but recommended the expediency of submission. The whole matter was settled when the General Court passed
PERMANENCE OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT 73
the militia bill in which either branch could appoint the officers from the captain to general with the negation of the other branch admitted.
APPOINTMENT OF CIVIL OFFICERS (1775 - 1779)
The friction between the House and Council disgusted some prominent men of the colony and weakened the strength of the Charter government. James Warren thought it curious that a "Council of this Province" should be "contending for the dirty part of the constitution, the prerogative of the Gov- ernor," and lamented the conduct of the council because "it had weakened that Confidence and Reverence necessary to give a well disposed Government its full operation and effect." Warren also attributed the wretched condition of the Massa- chusetts militia at the end of 1775 to the "dispute between the two houses under the resumed charter."
Between 1775 and 1779, the Treasurer, Receiver-General, and Commissary-General were appointed without difficulty by the joint ballot of the Council and the House. Until 1777, the General Court was undecided as to whether the Council or the House should have the choice of the Attorney-General, but finally it was agreed that this officer should be elected by joint ballot of the two branches. From January, 1778 the General Court chose the subordinate executive officers in the winter session, as had been done under the royal govern- ment.
PERMANENCE OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT
The resumed Charter, regardless of its inconsistencies and deficiencies, founded a legal government to take the place of an extra-legal Provisional Congress. Among the first acts of the new government was the legalization of the acts of the three Provincial Congresses which had preceded. Theo- retically, the provisional government of Massachusetts was so democratic that Samuel Adams could say in November, 1775, that the colonial government "is now more popular than it has been for many years." John Adams even dared to hope that "the Form of Government now adopted and set up in the Colony may be permanent."
While the Provisional Government ostensibly gave Great
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PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
Britain an opportunity to affect a reconciliation through the acceptance of the Charter of 1691, it nevertheless showed its independent position by declaring void all commissions granted by the royal governors. The new forms of oaths and com- missions after July 19, 1775, emphasize the fact that the provisional government was something more than a continua- tion of the old royal government. With the act of May 1, 1776, when the title of "Government and People of the Massa- chusetts Bay" replaced the name of the king in official acts, we have the colony well on the way toward independence. The evolution was in reality completed when the General Court in February, 1777, defined treason in terms of allegiance to the authority which it represented.
THE BERKSHIRE CONSTITUTIONALISTS (1774 - 1776)
Berkshire County was the first of the Massachusetts coun- ties to overthrow the royal courts of justice, in August, 1774. When the General Court of the colony wished to restore all the county courts in 1775, Berkshire County, particularly the town of Pittsfield, strongly opposed the reestablishment. It was not until after the Constitution of 1780 had been put in effect that the judiciary finally returned to the county.
When the Charter government was "resumed," it was ex- pected that many important offices would be given to the members of the Assembly. The Berkshire men, however, objected to what they regarded as a monopoly of the sine- cures by the representatives. Under the guidance of Thomas Allen, an influential minister of Pittsfield, this opposition crystallized into a movement against the very existence of government.
After the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress, the disaffected of the county quite logically re- garded the charter government as null and void, since it was based upon rights granted by an authority which had been deposed. By December, 1775, the leadership of Allen had asserted itself and a petition to the General Court of that month, contains most of the arguments of the constitutional- ists. Particularly objection was made to the severity of the debtor laws. They insisted that for many years past
Original by R. Peale
Courtesy of Prof. Joseph Warren
JOHN WARREN
75
THE BERKSHIRE CONSTITUTIONALISTS
the residents of the county had been ruled with "a rod of iron." They would tolerate under no circumstances the con- tinuance of a government which brought such trouble upon them. If the Charter were set up temporarily, they argued, it might be impossible to change it. The Continental Con- gress could not have intended the colony to confine itself to the form recommended in the resolve of June 9. Even if it did, under what code was Massachusetts obligated to carry out such a recommendation? Then follows a prayer which portends a Jeffersonian or Jacksonian democracy. Not only should the people of the Colony elect the governor and lieutenant governor, but they should also choose their county judges, justices, and inferior military officers. If a formal constitution was not to be adopted, the county wished to be left in the condition in which it had been since August, 1774.
Such a drastic program might have been unattainable and absurd. How could people in revolution afford to dissipate their energy by concern for governmental reforms? Yet Allen and his followers held Pittsfield, and so the county, to their views until the Constitution of 1780 went into effect. Antagonism to the extent of separation from the rest of the Colony was not, however, universal. Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and Sheffield, in Southern Berkshire, favored com- promise with the General Court; Lee, in the center of the County, took a middle stand between the opinions of Pitts- field and these three towns.
Throughout 1776 the disaffection of Berkshire mounted rapidly. In a sermon to the wavering inhabitants of Rich- mond, Allen characterized the assembly and council as "op- pressive, defective, and rotten to the very core." A letter of a Berkshire man to the Massachusetts Spy gives some reasons for the attitude to the "resumed" Charter: "They, I mean the Tories, are everywhere crying out for a new gov- ernment to make men pay their debts. That was one objec- tion we had to the old government and yet those unfeeling Tories would fain bring us into the same state again. Strange that men of commen sense do not understand the nature of liberty better."
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CONTINUANCE OF THE DISAFFECTION (1777 - 1778)
In the meantime, many Berkshire Tories and men of prop- erty appealed to the General Court to protect them from the county officials. Finally the Charter government tried to remedy conditions, and on February 1, 1777, ordered the judges of the Court of Sessions to hold court at the regular times in the county. Four-fifths of the inhabitants voted against acceptance of the courts, until the people of the state had formed and ratified a constitution. Even secession was threatened, if the establishment of a new government was too long delayed. "There are other states which have consti- tutions which will, we doubt not, as bad as we are gladly receive us."
After Burgoyne's capture at Saratoga, the agitation against the Tories increased. The county authorities having con- victed several loyalists sent them to Boston for detention upon the State guard ship. The Board of War, mindful of judi- cial conditions in western Massachusetts, ordered the men released. Upon hearing of the action of the State author- ities, the Berkshirites persecuted the remaining Tories so vigorously that by the end of 1778 hardly a friend of the King remained within the county.
To add to the general dislike of Berkshire towards the State government, the Constitution of 1778 was rejected by the people of Massachusetts. For the next two years, the people of the county were practically in open rebellion against the authority of the State. In October of 1778, the General Court appointed a committee to attempt an adjustment with the county authorities. When this committee recommended compromise in its report, the General Court, in the follow- ing year enacted a law pardoning Berkshire County for every- thing it had done in the preceding five years, and providing for the resitting of the Superior Court at Pittsfield.
For three years Hampshire County had stood with Berk- shire in opposition to the Charter Government, but, late in 1777, had admitted a court which, theoretically, sat for both counties. In practice, the force of public opinion in Berkshire negatived its value so far as this county was concerned.
77
HANCOCK AND THE ADAMSES
THREATS OF RESISTANCE (1779 - 1780)
When in May, 1778, the Superior Court was about to sit in Pittsfield, in accordance with the statute of that year, three hundred grim Constitutionalists gathered before the court house, and prevented the judges from holding a session.
It was six months before the General Court was fully awake to the impossibility of court sittings in Berkshire. Not until December 29, 1779, was the Superior Court for the county discontinued. Throughout the whole period the State government showed itself remarkably tolerant of Berkshire's movement, through its disinclination to employ force in the subjection of the Constitutionalists. This inaction is as much attributable to the impotency as to the breadth of view of the General Court. If the state had decided to employ force in the reestablishment of its authority, it is quite evident that Berkshire would have resisted and blood would have been shed. During 1779 the strength of the Charter government was undoubtedly weakened by the Berkshire movement, and its effect is particularly seen in the vacillating policy of that year.
The Constitutionalist movement in Berkshire County began under the royal government and the Provincial Congresses. It was the organization, under a minister, of a poor and in- dependent people against an official aristocracy exercising extreme powers. After the Charter "resumption" in July of 1775, the opposition developed into a refusal to admit the civil authority of the charter government in general, and the authority of the courts in particular.
HANCOCK AND THE ADAMSES (1775 - 1780)
After Lexington, the patriot party, which had formerly contended with the more conservative partisans of the King, found itself without political opposition. A popular party had been intermittently active ever since the agitation for the Charter of 1691, and had used every opportunity to limit the power of royal Governors. By the time of the passage of the Land Bank Act of 1740, the lines between democrat and conservative seem to have been clearly cut. The struggle against the Writs of Assistance transformed
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PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
the popular into the patriotic party. The triumph of the Whigs over the loyalists in 1775 is primarily attributable to their thorough organization. Whereas the loyalists did nothing except to write a few newspaper articles and some pamphlets concerning the Colonial position, the patriots de- veloped a political machinery whose effectiveness has seldom been attained. The Committees of Correspondence, ramifying throughout the Province, solidified and disciplined a party whose policies aided the founding of a new government.
By arms victory had been assured in Massachusetts, but not until March 17, 1776, did the leaders of the Tories ac- knowledge their powerless position, when they departed from Boston with the British. Eastern Massachusetts was now freed from an army whose continued presence might have occasioned disaffection among the more conservative patriots. The only British force to pass through the state after 1776 consisted of the captured remnants of Burgoyne's army. In western Massachusetts, the Berkshire Constitutionalists took matters into their own hands and by 1778 had freed their county of a serious Tory threat.
Control of the new government naturally fell to the promi- nent patriots. When the rupture with Gage took place in 1774, Samuel Adams led his party. His lieutenants were Hawley of Northampton, James Bowdoin, John Adams, James Warren, John Hancock, and Thomas Cushing. Of these men, Joseph Hawley was, perhaps, the ablest; but, for reasons yet unknown, he retired from public service in 1776. Joseph Warren fell at Bunker Hill. James Bowdoin dur- ing the whole period from 1776 to 1780 was in poor health, while John Adams was in the Continental Congress, regarded at home as a sort of oracle standing between personal and sectional parties.
The unopposed revolutionary party now began to decom- pose into the various elements that had formed it. At the Continental Congress the Adamses with Gerry in 1775 sup- ported George Washington for general in chief of the united armies for the sake of intercolonial unity. John Hancock, the rival candidate, never forgave the Adamses for what he regarded as a breach of loyalty. Together with Cushing, he
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HANCOCK AND THE ADAMSES
labored continuously to secure for himself the popularity which Samuel Adams then held in Massachusetts.
While the leaders of the patriot party were bickering at Philadelphia, friction grew up within the state government. The General Court quarrelled with the Council over military appointments. The Representatives' bill of 1776 providing for electoral reform stirred up discontent in the remote country towns. In the meantime arose such vital questions as the relationship of Berkshire County to the rest of the State; but leaders like John Adams and James Sullivan op- posed settlement of the more serious disputes for fear the disaffection which would assuredly follow any attempt at decision on the constitution of the state.
The various threads of discontent soon wound themselves about a revolutionary leader. In the autumn of 1777, John Hancock, fresh from the presidency of the Continental Con- gress, returned to Massachusetts. Hancock had been enlisted in the colonial cause by Samuel Adams, who saw that his large fortune would add respectability to the patriot party; but it was not long before he fell out with the Adams group. He used to full advantage the natural respect of the people for one of the few patriots of the old ruling class. He in- creased his prestige, by huge sacrifices of his tremendous wealth. When proscribed with Adams by the British colonial government he risked the loss of life and property if the revolution should fail. Later, when paper money was fast depreciating in 1778, he called on his debtors and asked to be paid in fiat currency, although the currency then stood at about a ratio of four to one in terms of gold.
Upon his return to Massachusetts, Hancock used all his influence to displace James Warren, a close friend of the Adamses. So popular was Hancock, that Warren was not elected as representative to the General Court from his native town, Salem. In his stead, John Pickering, a well known Hancockonian, was chosen Speaker of the House. Warren attributed his defeat to the gathering of all the discontented and Tories about the ex-president of the Continental Congress. In a letter to Samuel Adams on Pickering's election, Warren uses harsh phrases, which reveal the extent of the factional spirit of the time .- "Envy and ambition of some people have aided them and the policy-or rather what you call the cun-
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