the right to levy taxes and to appropriate the public money. In each colony the Assembly was a local House of Commons, and in North Carolina it was known by that name. In the royal governments all officials save the members of Assembly were appointed by the Crown or by the colonial governor, himself so appointed. Even the legislative branch felt the royal power, because its upper house, called in some colonies the Senate, or more commonly the Council, was appointed by the governor. He also appointed the ordinary administrative officers, both civil and military. In the proprietary governments the lord proprietor took the place of the king, and made similar appointments. In the charter governments the members of the legislature and the governor were elected, but the judiciary was appointed by the governor. At the time. of the Revolution, Connecticut and Rhode Island were charter governments; Maryland and Pennsylvania were proprietary; and the remaining nine were royal. 66. Defects in these Governments.-The lack of a foundation on the will of the people was the chief defect of the colonial governments. They were not democratic in character, and government was conducted largely by those who could not be held responsible for their acts. There was least complaint of this kind in the two charter governments, and the evidence of their excellence is their continuation long after the Revolution; Connecticut continuing her government under the charter of 1663 until the adoption of her constitution of 1818, and Rhode Island her charter of 1663 until her constitution of 1842. Had all the colonies enjoyed charter governments, the Revolution might never have occurred. But in eleven colonies the people had slight control over public affairs. The royal governors were creatures of the Crown who came to America to better their fortunes. The governors sent over by the Penns and the Calverts were no better. As no act of Assembly could become a law until approved by the governor and finally by the Crown, the people had frequent occasion to complain that their governors had refused assent" to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." If a governor nowadays refuses to sign a bill, the legislature may make it a law without his assent. The people of the colonies had no means of redress; they were at the mercy of their governors, who, by declaring what bills they would sign or the king would approve, seriously interfered with the independence of the legislative and imperilled one of the most important principles of free government. The governors were in no sense responsible to the people, though receiving their salaries out of the public treasury; the executives in eleven of the colonies were military officials rather than civil officers. The whole tendency of royal government in America was to make the military superior to the civil authority. The governors had the right to assemble, to adjourn or to dissolve the colonial legislatures; they called the Assemblies together "at unusual, uncomfortable and distant places," for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their measures; they frequently dissolved them without cause, and by their arbitrary acts imperilled the progress and safety of the colonies. Royal interference was a subject of common complaint. The Assemblies in America thus came to continue the old struggle between king and commons. It was the struggle between democracy and absolutism, between representative government and an unconstitutional monarchy. 67. Restriction of Colonial Trade and Industry.A fertile source of complaint amongst the colonists was the parliamentary legislation which practically prohibited colonial trade and arrested the development of American resources. The act of Parliament of 1660 compelled the shipment of all articles to or from America in English ships manned by English sailors The act of 1663 compelled the colonists to buy all their supplies in England, and in England only, and prohibited manufactures in America. "Even William Pitt, the friend of America, declared that she had no right to manufacture even a nail for a horseshoe except by permission of Parliament." The act of 1672 compelled the Americans to send their products from one colony to another either by way of Bristol, England, and pay duty there, or, if sent directly from colony to colony, to pay the duty in America. These laws were in force in 1776, and had been strengthened by many particular acts of the same nature. 68. The Question of Taxation.-The struggle between the king and the colonists was intensified when the British Parliament in 1765 took sides with the king and asserted its right to tax America, as he asserted his right to govern it. The Americans denied the right of Parliament to tax them, and formally set forth their opinions in the Declaration of Rights of 1765, in which they said: “That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives. "That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons, in Great Britain. "That the only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein by themselves; and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures." The adoption of the Declaration of Rights crystallized the feelings and opinions of the colonists. At once it began to be said in America that the rights of the colonists were their ancient and undoubted rights, and that these rights were natural; that the colonial Assemblies were the real House of Commons in America, that the real sovereign there was the sovereign people, and that the time had arrived to assert their political and industrial freedom. 69. The Declaration of Independence.—At last came the inevitable expression of the political and industrial rights of the colonists; it is the Magna Charta of America -the great Declaration of 1776. This famous state paper discloses the civil and political and industrial claims of the people of the thirteen colonies, and concludes with the resolution "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as free and independent States they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” 70. The Revolution. The action of the colonists in declaring themselves independent resulted in war. The king sent over large bodies of troops to compel the colonists to recognize his authority. These royal troops were trained and disciplined soldiers, well supplied with food, clothing and all the munitions of war. The troops of the colonists were men of peaceful habits, who left their farms, their workshops and their homes to defend their rights. They were without experience in the art of war, poorly equipped with arms and scantily supplied with food and clothing. On many occasions large bodies of troops passed whole days without food, and the snow-capped hills of Valley Forge, reddened with blood from their bruised and unshod feet, testified to their devotion to the cause of liberty and human rights. It would seem that the struggle could not long endure, and that inevitably the king would conquer. But "there is a God that watches over the destinies of nations." After eight years of contest of varying fortune, the col |