may be preserved of honest and good men," it was "ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, no Religious franchise. man shall be admitted to the freedom of this test for the The men who laid this singular foundation for the commonwealth which they were instituting, had been accustomed to feel responsibility, and to act upon wellconsidered reasons. By charter from the English crown, the land was theirs as against all other civilized people, and they had a right to choose according to their own rules the associates who should help them to occupy and govern it. Exercising this right, they determined that magistracy and citizenship should belong only to Christian men, ascertained to be such by the best test which they knew how to apply. They established a kind of aristocracy hitherto unknown. Not birth, nor wealth, nor learning, nor skill in war, was to confer political power; but personal character,-goodness of the highest type, -goodness of that purity and force which only the faith of Jesus Christ is competent to create. The conception, if a delusive and impracticable, was a noble one. Nothing better can be imagined for the welfare of a country than that it shall be ruled on Christian principles; in other words, that its rulers shall be Christian men, men of disinterestedness and integrity of the choicest quality that the world knows, men whose fear of God exalts them above every other fear, and whose controlling love of God and of man consecrates them to the most generous aims. The conclusive objection to the 1 Mass. Col. Rec., I. 87. 2 2"None are so fit to be trusted with the liberties of the commonwealth as church-members; for the liberties of the freemen of this commonwealth are such as require men of faithful integrity to God and the state, to preserve the same. Their liberties, among others, scheme is one which experience had not yet revealed, for the experiment was now first made. It is, that the scheme is incapable of being carried out, because there are no tests of religious sincerity which will guard the weak judgment of man against error. When power is appropriated to the religious character, the external signs of the religious character will be affected by the insincere and undeserving. Hypocrisy will manage to pass the barrier designed to turn back all but eminent virtue. A test of this nature may exclude scandalous vices, but certainly not the common workings of selfishness and passion. A trial will be sure to prove that such a project is but a generous dream. A government so constituted will not fail, before long, to show itself subject to the operation of the same disturbing causes as affect other forms of polity, through the frailty of those by whom they are administered. Regarded in another point of view, the plan was at once less novel and more feasible. It has been no unusual thing for communities to regard the common welfare as requiring the exclusion from political trusts of persons professing spiritual subjection to a foreign power. It is only within a few years that the old realm of England has felt strong enough to dispense with this security; and a numerous party has lately arisen in America to insist that its institution is needful for the maintenance of freedom on this continent. When the fathers of Massachusetts established their religious test of citizenship, it was matter of fearful uncertainty what the faith and ritual of the Church of England would turn out to be. It was too painfully certain what had been the Church's treatment of themselves, and how hardly, without any further backsliding of its own, it was prepared to treat them again, should it come ties are such as carry along much power with them, either to establish or subvert the commonwealth." (John Cotton, "Answer to Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, and other Persons of Quality," in Hutchinson, I. 436.) into power on their own soil. They were in error in supposing that, by the application of a religious test, they could exclude all but good men from their counsels. They were not so far from the truth, when they expected, by the application of such a test, to shut out from their counsels the emissaries of Wentworth and Laud; and, in their early weakness, nothing was more indispensable than this for their protection. They had lately set up a religious polity. The hopes and aims with which they had established it were of vital consequence to them. They knew that they could not maintain it, and the momentous interests, civil and religious, with which it seemed to them connected, should the council-chambers of their infant community admit the creatures of the English court and church. 1630. Oct. 19. At The special circumstances of the time at which this condition of franchise was imposed, were probably thought to call for a prompt decision. Till then, there had been no freemen of the Company except those who had become such in England, and might be supposed to be solicitous to promote the generous objects of its institution. its first Cisatlantic meeting, more than a hundred persons had presented themselves as candidates for admission. An irruption of strangers was impending, and it could not fail to be a subject of grave anxiety to those now in possession of the power, what would be the character and purposes of associates who, once received into the Corporation, would be able to control its action, and to carry out or defeat the designs for which it had been formed, and had been conducted hitherto at great cost and sacrifice. The social elements already collected on the spot were very diverse. What method should dispose them for harmonious and beneficent action? Among those to be now received were not a few "old planters," doubtfully sympathizing in the views of the more public-spirited new-comers, and not improbably cherishing the recent grudge, and so prepared for faction. Oldham's disturbing practices at Plymouth could not have been unknown, and he had just been disputing the title of the Company to its lands. Men of condition, like Blaxton, Maverick, Jeffries, and Burslem, had a similar adverse interest. Edward Gibbons, lately parted from the irregular adventurers at Mount Wollaston, was as yet a suspicious friend. Others, like Coles and Wignall, who soon afterwards gave trouble,1 may have been already regarded with distrust. How many like Morton of Merry-Mount there might prove to be among the yet untried multitude, or of the class of the Brownes and others who in the last two years had tasked the prudence and vigor of Endicott, it was still for time to disclose; and it was the office of a wise forethought, to provide some security against damage from them to the public weal. From such as, on due advisement, should be admitted into covenant with the church, some security would be obtained. Sincere professors would be earnest fellow-workers in the great enterprise; insincere professors, if there were such, would be hampered and restrained. A hundred and eighteen persons took the freeman's oath, and were admitted to the franchise. Winthrop was re-elected Governor, "by the general consent of the Court, within the meaning of the patent," and Dudley Dudley being again associated with him in the 1631. May 18. Winthrop re-elected. second office. 1 Mass. Col. Rec., I. 90, 91, 93, 107. 2 It would be interesting to ascertain what proportion of these new freemen were church-members, but the imperfection of the early records of the churches prevents a precise answer to this question. An examination of the list of the freemen admitted at this time leads to the conclusion, that perhaps three quarters of them, certainly as many as one half, had previously connected themselves with some church. Others did so subsequently. It must be remembered that the rule of May 18, 1631, was prospective. 3 This language is ambiguous. It may be interpreted to mean that the vote passed in October for the choice of the Governor by the Assistants had, on reflection, not met with approval, and that, notwithstanding that vote, the method prescribed by the charter, of a choice by the freemen, was now followed. But I think the words "within Down to this time, and a little longer, while the freemen were without much mutual acquaintance, and so without preparation either for administration of the gov ernment or for combined resistance to encroachment on their charter rights, the Assistants appear to have been consolidating power in their own hands. As at Permanency of Assistant. the first General Court it had been determined to of the office transfer the power of choosing the Governor and Deputy-Governor from the freemen to the Assistants, at the second it was determined, "with full consent of all the commons then present, that once in every year, at least, a General Court shall be holden, at which Court it shall be lawful for the commons to propound any person or persons whom they shall desire to be chosen Assistants; and, if it be doubtful whether it be the greater part of the commons or not, it shall be put to the poll; the like course to be holden when the said commons shall see cause, for any defect or misbehavior, to remove any one or more of the Assistants." In the form of a grant of privileges to the freemen, this was clearly a substitution of the invidious and difficult process of removal for the irresponsible freedom of that annual election de novo which was contemplated by the charter. And, accordingly, there is no record of an election of Assistants this year. Without doubt, as many of the old Assistants as remained in the country retained their office; and so far a precedent was created for their permanent continuance in power. The plan of establishing the capital at Newtown was relinquished. The site had been laid out, with lines for a fortification, and streets at right angles; the Difference Deputy-Governor had established himself in a Winthrop newly-built house; and the Governor had set up between and Dudley. instrument, though not to its letter. |