to an act of parliament. To suppose that the king's American subjects were not amenable to the authority of parliament seemed like supposing that a stream could rise higher than its source. Besides, after 1700 the British empire began to expand in all parts of the world, and the business of parliament became more and more imperial. It could make laws for the East India Company; why not, then, for the Company of Massachusetts Bay? Conflict be tween the British and the American theo cipitated by George III. Thus the American theory of the situation was irreconcilable with the British theory, and when parliament in 1765, with no unfriendly purpose, began laying taxes upon the Americans, thus invading the province of the colonial legislatures, the Americans refused to submit. The ensuing quarrel might doubtless have been peacefully adjusted, had not the king, George III., happened to be enter taining political schemes which were threatries was pre- ened with ruin if the Americans should get a fair hearing for their side of the case.1 Thus political intrigue came in to make the situation hopeless. When a state of things arises, with which men's established methods of civil government are incompetent to deal, men fall back upon the primitive method which was in vogue before civil government began to exist. They fight it out; and so we had our Revolutionary War, and became separated politically from Great Britain. It is worthy of note, in this connection, that the last act of parliament, which brought matters to a crisis, was the so-called Regulating Act of April, 1774, the purpose of which was to change the government of Massachusetts. This act provided that members of the council should be ap 1 See my War of Independence, pp. 58-64, 69-71 (Riverside Library for Young People). pointed by the royal governor, that they should be paid by the crown and thus be kept subservient to it, that the principal executive and judicial officers should be likewise paid by the crown, and that town-meetings should be prohibited except for the sole purpose of electing town officers. Other unwarrantable acts were passed at the same time, but this was the worst. Troops were sent over to aid in enforcing this act, the people of Massachusetts refused to recognize its validity, and out of this political situation came the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Various claims to North America : a. Spanish. b. English. c. French. 2. What was needed to make such claims of any value? 3. The London and Plymouth companies : a. The time and purpose of their organization. b. The grant to the London Company. c. The grant to the Plymouth Company. d. The magnitude of the zones granted. e. The peculiar provisions for the intermediate zone. f. First attempts at settlement. 4. To what important principle of the common charter of these two companies did the colonists persistently cling? 5. The influence of these short-lived companies upon the settlement and government of the United States : a. A review of the zones and their assignment. d. The states of the middle zone and their origin. e. The influence of the movement of population on local government in each zone. 6. Early state government in Virginia : — a. The part appointed and the part elected. b. The first legislative body in America. c. The dignity of its members. d. The reason for the name "House of Burgesses." 7. Early state government in Massachusetts : a. The Dorchester Company. b. The government provided for the Company of Massachusetts Bay by its charter. c. The real purpose of the Puritan leaders, d. The change from the primary assembly of freeman to the representative assembly. e. The division of this assembly into two houses, with a comparison of the houses. f. The reason for the name "General Court." g. The loss of the charter and the causes that led to it. h. The new charter as compared with the old. 8. Compare the early governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island with the first government of Massachusetts. 9. What two kinds of state government have thus far been observed? 10. Early state government in Maryland :— a. The favouritism of the crown as shown in land grants. b. The palatine counties of England. c. The bishopric of Durham the model of the colony of Maryland. d. The extraordinary privileges granted Lord Baltimore. e. The tribute to be paid in return. f. The ruler a feudal king. g. Limitations of the ruler's power. II. Early state government in Pennsylvania and Delaware :— a. The powers of Penn as compared with those of Calvert. 5. One governor and council. c. The legislature of each colony. d. The quarrels of the Penns and Calverts. e. Mason and Dixon's line. 12. What other proprietary governments were organized, and what was their fate? 13. Why were proprietary governments unpopular? (Note the exceptions, however.) 14. Classify and define the forms of colonial government in existence at the beginning of the Revolution. 15. Show that these forms differed chiefly in respect to the gov ernor's office. 16. A representative assembly in each of the thirteen colo nies: a. The basis of representation. b. The control of the public money. c. The spontaneousness of the representative assembly. 17. The governor's council : a. The custom in England. b. The council as an upper house. c. The council in Pennsylvania. 18. Compare the colonial systems with the British (1) in organization and (2) in the nature of their political quarrels. 19. What was the American theory of the relation of each colony to the British parliament ? 20. What was the American attitude towards maritime regulations ? 21. What was the British theory of the relation of the American colonies to parliament ? 22. How was the Revolutionary War brought on? 23. Describe the last act of parliament that brought matters to a crisis. § 2. The Transition from Colonial to State Gov ernments. and During the earlier part of the Revolutionary War most of the states had some kind of provisional government. The case of Massachusetts may serve as an illustration. There, as in the other colonies, the governor had the power of dissolving the assem- Dissolution bly. This was like the king's power of dis- of assemsolving parliament in the days of the Stuarts. parliaments. It was then a dangerous power. In modern England there is nothing dangerous in a dissolution of parliament; on the contrary, it is a useful device for ascertaining the wishes of the people, for a new House of Commons must be elected immediately. But in old times the king would turn his parliament out of doors, and as long as he could beg, borrow, or steal enough money to carry on government according to his own notions, he would not order a new election. Fortunately such periods were not very long. The latest instance was in the reign of Charles I., who got on without a parliament from 1629 to 1640.1 In the American colonies the dissolution of the assembly by the governor was not especially dangerous, but it sometimes made mischief by delaying needed legislation. During the few years preceding the Revolution, the assemblies were so often dissolved that it became necessary for the people to devise some new way of getting their representatives together to act for the colony. In Massachusetts this end was attained by the famous "Committees of Correspondence." Committees of Correspondence. No one could deny that town-meetings were legal, or that the people of one township had a right to ask advice from the people of another township. Accordingly each township appointed a committee to correspond or confer with committees from other townships. This system was put into operation by Samuel Adams in 1772, and for the next two years the popular resistance to the crown was organized by these committees. For example, before the tea was thrown into Boston harbour, the Boston committee sought and received advice from every township in Massachusetts, and the treatment of the tea-ships was from first to last directed by the committees of Boston and five neighbour towns. In 1774 a further step was taken. As parliament had overthrown the old government, and sent over General Gage as military governor, to put its new system into operation, the people defied and ignored Gage, and the townships elected delegates to meet 1 The kings of France contrived to get along without a representative assembly from 1614 to 1789, and during this long period abuses so multiplied that the meeting of the States-General in 1789 precipitated the great revolution which overthrew the monarchy. |