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1632-4

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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

143

rights of the freemen seemed in danger of being impaired by partial disuse, if not actually lost. A jealous and apprehensive watchfulness of arbitrary power is the tenure by which a state holds its freedom. It is certain, too, that Winthrop looked on popular government with distrust. The best part of a community is always the least, and of that least part the wiser are still less,' was the maxim in which he embodied his views.' Dudley's accusation may have been factious in many of its details, and the spirit which prompted it may have been ungenerous. Yet it probably anticipated a real danger, a danger made all the greater because suspicion was disarmed by Winthrop's high mental gifts and blameless integrity.

ment of a

House of
Represen-

During 1633 no change in the constitution of Massachusetts is recorded. Yet it is difficult not to suppose Establish that something was done in that year, which connected the proceedings of 1632 with those tatives. of 1634. In the latter year the freemen of each town elected three representatives. The whole body, twenty-four in number, presented itself at the General Court.2 Sober and orderly though their proceedings were, yet it is clear that what they effected was little short of a revolution, if at least we may apply that name to the recovery of disused rights. The deputies demanded to see the patent, and reminded the Governor that by that instrument the power of making laws was vested in the whole body of freemen. The Governor pleaded that the framers of the patent had never contemplated such a number of freemen, and that the colony

1 This was said in a letter written to Hooker. The letter itself is no longer extant, but fortunately we have an abstract of it by Winthrop himself. It is to be found at the end of his history (vol. ii. p. 428). The saying is also quoted by Roger Williams in a letter written to Winthrop himself (Narragansett Club Publications, vol. vi. p. 1).

2 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 128. The whole proceedings of the court may be very clearly traced by a comparison of Winthrop with the records.

did not possess the necessary materials for a House of Deputies. As a compromise, he suggested that the Governor might annually summon representatives of the freemen, who should revise the laws, declare grievances to the Court, and sanction taxation and the granting of lands, but who should have no power of original legislation. Such a declaration was not so much a concession as an avowal of the intention of an oligarchy to maintain power in their own hands. The steps by which the representatives of the freemen won their victory cannot be traced. Only we know that before the Court broke up they had recovered the full power of election and legislation. Henceforth there were to be four Courts a year. At one the whole body of freemen were to elect officers, namely, the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Assistants; at the other three the representatives of the various towns were to legislate, grant land, and transact public business. The precise manner in which the Assistants were chosen seems somewhat doubtful. It would appear as if up to 1639 the General Court claimed the right to nominate candidates, while in that year the right was transferred to the whole body of freemen. This much seems clear, that each candidate was finally submitted to all the electors to vote for or against him. Thus it was necessary that each Assistant should One be elected by an absolute majority of the voters. result of this must have been that the freemen had it in their power at any time to paralyze government by refusing to appoint Assistants. As a matter of fact, while the charter provided for eighteen Assistants, up to the year 1640 not more than twelve ever held office together. The relations of the Assistants to the Deputies and the distribution of power between them were undefined. Both for the present sat in one chamber and deliberated together. In 1634 a dispute arose as to the

1 I infer this from the statement in Lechford, p. 25.

1634-5 DISPUTE BETWEEN ASSISTANTS AND DEPUTIES. 145

legislative powers of the two bodies. A project was brought forward, which will come before us more fully hereafter, for the settlement of Connecticut. Public opinion was much divided as to the expediency of the measure. When it came to the vote it was approved by a majority of five out of twenty-five Deputies, but negatived by the Assistants, of whom only two besides the Governor supported it. The question then arose, was the consent of both bodies necessary? The popular excitement which ensued was allayed, as was usual in such emergencies, by a fast, at which John Cotton, a divine just arrived from England with a high reputation for learning and eloquence, held forth on the true nature and objects of the constitution. His sermon, as briefly reported by Winthrop, seems to have wholly evaded the difficulty. We are told, however, that it gave great satisfaction to the Company,' and that the affairs of the Court went on cheerfully.' Next year the Assistants gave way to the views of the Deputies, and the question was for a while set at rest.

chosen

instead of

6

After the manner in which Winthrop had dealt with the popular claims, it can hardly be wondered at Dudley that the electors should have looked elseGovernor where for a Governor. Their choice fell on Winthrop. Dudley. The voting was for the first time secret, a change which may have helped to embolden. the freemen to take this step.1 Something too may have been due to the indiscretion of Cotton. familiar though he was with the affairs of the colony, yet he ventured in a sermon to lay down the doctrine that such an office as the governorship should only be forfeited by misconduct.2 In the excited state of public feeling such advocacy could have but one effect.

Un

In the manuscript of Winthrop's history (vol. i. p. 132), at the notice of this election there is a marginal note, 'Chosen by papers.'

2

Winthrop, vol. i. p. 132.

It should be said, to Winthrop's honour, that his own. account of these transactions bears no tinge of rancour or disappointment.

test for

While an oligarchy of one kind was being overthrown, an oligarchy of a different sort was establishing A religious itself. In 1631 a law was passed, enacting that no man should be a freeman of the colony unless citizenship introduced. he was a member of some church.1 In other words, unless a man would profess his adhesion to a detailed and complex theological creed, and conform to an exacting system of morality and worship, he was debarred from all share in government. The defects of such a system hardly need to be stated. There are but few principles of legislation in which experience is unanimous, but one at least among them is this; that no outward profession extorted by force or induced by worldly motives can make men either honest believers or good citizens. One plea, and only one, may be put forward in defence of the measure. It may be said that it was necessary to insure loyalty to those common objects for which the colony existed, and that church-membership was the only available test of such loyalty. The need, it may be urged, was of the same kind which justified. Elizabeth in treating Romanism as a political crime. If the purpose of the legislature had been absolutely to exclude from the colony all who did not share the religious views of the majority this defence might be valid ; yet even so, it is hard to see why Massachusetts should have needed a safeguard with which Plymouth and Connecticut both dispensed. The present case differed from that of the Brownes. There Puritanism was brought face to face with its natural enemy, and there could be no issue but internecine war. It may be at times necessary to banish the missionaries of a hostile faith; but to admit those who dissent from the recog

1 Records, vol. i. p. 87.

1631-6

RELIGIOUS TEST FOR CITIZENSHIP.

147

nized creed of the state, and then to harass them with penalties and restrictions, can never be necessary or even expedient. For in requiring a religious qualification from its citizens the government of Massachusetts made no attempt at excluding from its territory all who were not members of a church. It not merely received them, but it even recognised their existence, and granted them certain civic rights. An oath of allegiance to the colony, differing but slightly from that imposed on the freemen, was required from them.1 Only their citizenship must remain incomplete. Such a policy could not fail to secularize religion, to embitter ecclesiastical disputes, and to keep alive within the colony an element of discontent and possible disruption. The disability of those who stood outside the church did not end here. They were not merely excluded from any share in the government of the colony, but they were furthermore debarred from that local citizenship which formed so important an element in the life of Massachusetts. We have already seen how in Plymouth the old Teutonic community reproduced itself. There it was the territorial rather than the political aspect of the township which came before us. The records of Massachusetts from the outset bear constant witness to the importance of the town as an administrative body. The limits of local government were for the first time formally defined by an act passed in March 1636, which granted to the towns the right of dividing their lands, electing constables and surveyors, and of enforcing their orders by a fine of twenty shillings. In the previous autumn an act of the Assembly made church-membership a necessary condition for voting at town meetings.3 In May 1636 a further measure was carried which is remarkable both as illustrating the length to which the principle of 1 Records, vol. i. p. 115. 2 Ib. p. 172. 3 Ib. p. 161.

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