especially to remember it was conferred and received in the light of a boon.

'In regard to the legislative power,' says Story, 'there was a still more extensive latitude allowed; for, notwithstanding the cautious reference in the Charters to the laws of England, the assemblies actually exercised the authority to abrogate every part of the common law, except that which united the Colonies to the parent state by the general ties of allegiance and dependency; and every part of the statute law, except those Acts of Parliament which expressly prescribed rules for the Colonies, and necessarily bound them, as integral parts of the Empire, in a general system, formed for all, and for the interest of all.' Upon these comprehensive bases, then, on the one hand, the full, unqualified right to all the principles of the common law; and, on the other, the liberty to dispense with its provisions, as far as they were found unsuitable to their position, the whole of the Colonial Charters were founded.

On the basis of these, the distinctive provisions of each Charter gave supplemental powers. In this respect the Charters may be divided into three classes -Provincial, Proprietary, and Municipal; the last designation only implying absolute powers of local self-government, as distinguished from such powers conferred with limitations.* Rhode Island and Con

* My designation of ' municipal,' as a distinctive term, must be clearly understood as only employed from the wish to follow a strict terminology. There can be no doubt that the Colonial Charters, the Proprietary ones especially, were municipal in the very highest degree, short of that absolute absence of limitation under which this element existed in the charters of some of the New England States. In a political point of view they may be also termed municipal, inasmuch as this was their principal ingredient; but, legally speaking,

necticut are specimens of the Municipal, Maryland of the Proprietary, and Virginia of the Provincial class. Both in the Proprietary and Municipal Charters, the right of the people to be governed by laws established by a local legislature, in which they were represented was not only sanctioned, but its exercise provided for But in the one case, it was exercised, subject to the veto of the Proprietary, whose position resembled that of the Sovereign;* and, in the other, subject to the veto of a Governor of the Colonists' election, and to whom he was responsible. 'In the Provincial governments,' says Mr. Justice Story, 'it was often a matter of debate, whether the people had a right to be represented in the legislature, or whether it was a privilege enjoyed by the favour, and during the pleasure, of the Crown.' But the right, as a matter of fact, was maintained in opposition to the Crown and its legal advisers.

In all of the Colonies, sooner or later, local legislatures were established, one branch of which consisted of representatives of the people, freely chosen, to represent and defend their interests, and possessing a negative upon all laws.† At as early a period as 1619, a House of Burgesses was forced, says Robertson,

I have reserved the term for such only as were purely and strictly so, excluding entirely all other elements. I would especially guard, in the present place, from being supposed for a moment to impute the greatness of our Colonies, as contrasted with those of France and Spain, to any other element than the municipal spirit which was, in fact, the vivifying principle of their institutions, and which enabled us, moreover, to retain their loyalty, till, mistaking our functions, we attempted to quench it.

*In the Proprietary Charter of Pennsylvania, however, the laws were made subject to the Crown's supervision.

+ See Story, i. 149, in the Constitution of the U.S.

upon the then reluctant proprietors of Virginia. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, the same course was pursued; and Mr. Hutchinson has observed, that all the Colonies, before the reign of Charles II., (Maryland alone excepted, whose Charter contained an express provision on the subject,) had settled a model of government for themselves, in which the people had a voice and representation in framing the laws, and in assenting to burthens to be imposed upon themselves. Story adds, that after the Restoration, there was no instance of a Colony without a representation of the people, nor any attempt to deprive the Colonies of this privilege, except during the brief and arbitrary reign of James II.

To revert, however, to the main position, the conclusion is, that under the Charters, if not strictly in pursuance of their provisions, the Colonies enjoyed ample powers of self-government, irrespective of the form which that government assumed. And even

where they transgressed the limits of these Charters, which it must be admitted they did in numerous instances, and the occasion of which I shall estimate presently, it was so long a time before their acts were questioned, that they were permitted to conduct their first operations almost as if they had been practically independent. There is this peculiarity about the Charters themselves-that, as some of their preliminary recitals state, one of their objects was to invite emigration, and no greater inducement could be found to invite emigrants than the power conceded, expressly or tacitly, to manage their own affairs. There was another reason, indeed, for conceding it at their first origin, which Chalmers appreciates, though a strenuous

champion of imperial authority.

Speaking of the earliest state of Virginia, he observes, 'It was impossible in those days, and it is more so in the present, for the Parliament to extend its legislative care to the various little wants of an inconsiderable colony; to the making of roads; the building of churches; to the affording of remedies for inconveniences which alteration of circumstances daily brought forth."* The Parliament's disability, therefore, conspired with the policy of inviting emigration to the Colonies; and many of the Charters were thus obtained before the settlers departed from our shores. To use the phrase of the people of Massachusetts, they were 'settled' in the Colony with the Colonists themselves, and, taking root there, they grew with the settlement, extending with its limits and amplified by its necessities.

There is this other peculiarity about the Charters, that almost all of them conferred upon the Colonists a larger measure of freedom, political as well as religious, than England or Europe at that time enjoyed. What says Mons. de Tocqueville? 'Lorsque, après avoir ainsi jeté un regard rapide sur la société Américaine de 1650, on examine l'état de l'Europe, et particulièrement celui du continent vers cette même epoque, on se sent pénétré d'un profond étonnement: sur le continent de l'Europe, au commencement du xvii siècle, triomphait de toutes parts la royauté absolue sur les débris de la liberté oligarchique et feodale du moyen âge. Dans le sein de cette Europe brillante et littéraire jamais peut-être l'idée des droits n'avait été plus complètement méconnue; jamais les peuples n'avaient moins réçu de la vie politique;

* Annals, i. 45.

jamais les notions de la vraie liberté n'avaient moins préoccupé les esprits, et c'est alors que ces mêmes principes, inconnus aux nations Européennes, ou méprisés par elles, etaient proclamés dans les déserts du Nouveau Monde, et devenaient le symbole futur d'un grand peuple.' To the aspect of society thus created, the 'point de depart,' as Mons. de Tocqueville phrases it, I attribute that early elastic vigour which our American Colonies specially exhibited. It was this which invited emigration at a time when, excepting a temporary and partial persecution, there was infinitely less pressure outwards than now; and this, I confidently believe, was the cause, pre-eminent above others, of the same tendency which conducted that emigration to its prosperous issue.

If, however, I infer that the source of the greatness of our American Colonies was the municipal principle, no one, on the other hand, can entertain a I doubt that the cause of their alienation was interference with its exercise. It is not possible, nor indeed is it necessary, to exhibit here the successive steps, from the attack on their Charters, in 1685, to the attempt to deprive them of the municipal right of self-taxation, which produced their revolt. But it is possible, and especially desirable, at the present moment, to state briefly by what instrumentality the process was wrought out which produced, in the first place, mutual aggressions, and ended at length in complete separation.

I say, then, with confidence, that a careful inquiry will be found to bear out the statement I make, that the primary cause of all the dissensions between this country and her American Colonies, was the absence any clear distinction between her imperial, and their

of