right to the soil was not vested in individuals, but remained to the crown, or was vested in the colonial government, the king claimed and exercised the right of granting lands, and of dismembering the government at his will. The grants made out of the two original colonies, after the resumption of their charters by the crown, are examples of this. The governments of New England, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and a part of Carolina were thus created. In all of them the soil at the time the grants were made was occupied by the Indians. Yet almost every title within those governments is dependent on these grants. In some instances the soil was conveyed by the crown, unaccompanied by the powers of government, as in the case of the northern neck of Virginia. It has never been objected to this, or to any other similar grant, that the title as well as possession was in the Indians when it was made, and that it passed nothing on that account."

§ 48. The Thirteen Colonies.-Twelve of the colonies had come into political existence before the close of the seventeenth century; the thirteenth colony was added near the beginning of the ensuing century. It was the political life in the individual colonies, rather than the larger political life of England, which was to prepare the American colonists for the great work of constructive government presented to them at the close of the eighteenth century. As has been stated in the previous chapter, the evolution and changes in English constitutional law, after the passage of the Bill of Rights, had little influence upon. colonial institution or thought. United political action by the thirteen colonies was only to come into existence at the very threshold of the Revolutionary War. It is therefore necessary In order to prepare for the study of the great American Constitutional Convention, and for the Constitution which this convention prepared, to supplement the study of the constitutional, legal and political history of England with that of the constitutional, legal and political history of the various English colonies in America. The form of government and the characteristics of political life in the various colonies differed greatly from each other. It is partly to this difference of political training that there is to be ascribed the far divergent views of government

with which the representatives of the various States met at Philadelphia in 1787. In order, therefore, to understand the existing political conditions in America in the pre-constitutional period, it is necessary to briefly consider the case of each of the thirteen colonies.

The colonies, as to their general systems of government, fall into three clearly defined classes-the charter colonies, the proprietary colonies, and the royal provinces. To the first class belonged Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts; to the second, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland; to the third, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

The charter colonies were governed under charters granted by the king directly to the government, and were by far the freest of the American colonies. The charters of two of these colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut, were very liberal; so liberal, in fact, that in each case they were continued in use as the constitutions of the state, for many years after the American Revolution. These two colonies were almost independent Republics, owing hardly more than a nominal allegiance to England. The charter of Massachusetts was much less liberal; in reality the government of this Commonwealth bore a much stronger resemblance to that of the royal provinces than to that of the other charter colonies.

The proprietary colonies were illustrations of that ancient confusion between the right of sovereignty and rights of property. They bore in many respects a strange resemblance to those old feudal fiefs where the grantee of the king held not only a right of property in the land, but also the power of government over the inhabitants in such territory. The degree of self-government allowed to the citizens of these proprietory colonies was about equal to that enjoyed by those of the royal provinces. The powers which the king possessed in this latter class of colonies were in the main granted, in the case of the proprietory colonies, to the proprietors. The royal provinces were the most directly under the control of the English governments. The inhabitants of these colonies were granted the privileges of choosing the most numerous branch of the legislative body while the appointment

of all other officials was either directly or indirectly in the hands of the crown.

The political history of the majority of the colonies was at times stormy, the political controversies generally being contests between the legislative and the executive branches of the colonial government. As the legislative bodies were the representatives of the people and the executive in all the colonies except Rhode Island and Connecticut, the appointees of the king, the legislative branch of the government came to be regarded by the people as the defenders of their liberties and the executive as the adherents of tyranny.

$49. The Colonial Government of Virginia.-The colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in North America. It was settled under the grant made by James I. in 1606 to the London Company, a company of "noblemen, gentlemen and merchants" of that part of North America lying between the thirty-fourth and thirty-eighth degrees of north latitude. A later charter provided for the government of this territory, naming a number of corporators, who were made a public corporation, and given power to take out such persons as colonists as they might choose, to admit or expel members, and to have the general power of governing the colony as to all local matters. The increasing dissatisfaction of the colonists with their entire lack of any share in the government finally induced Governor Yeadley in 1619, to call a general assembly, composed of representatives from the various plantations in the colony, which was the first representative legislative body which ever sat in America. A further step in the direction of free government was taken in 1621, when a regular government was created by ordinance, composed of a Governor, Council and a House of Burgesses elected by the people. To this General Assembly was granted free power as to all matters of local nature concerning the general welfare of the colony; with

the

power to enact such laws as appeared necessary or requisite. In 1623-24 the House of Burgesses assented by law that the Governor "shall not lay any taxes or imposts on the colonists, their lands or commodities otherway than by the authority of the General Assembly to be levied and employed as the said Assem

bly shall appoint." This law was re-enacted in 1631, in 1632 (in a different form) in 1642. To this claim the people of Virginia always adhered, although it at times met with opposition from King and Governor. Virginia, which almost alone of the colonies had been largely settled by the upper classes of England and which was Episcopal in religion, espoused the royal side in the great English Civil War of the seventeenth century. In spite of this, however, they were given a greater degree of selfgovernment under the Commonwealth than they had ever enjoyed under the King, being allowed during this period to elect their governor. Upon the restoration of Charles II. the government of Virginia reverted to its former condition and Virginia remained a royal province down to the time of the Revolution, except for a short experience as a proprietory colony toward the end of the reign of Charles II. Virginia was throughout the colonial period the largest and richest of all the colonies, and also one of the most tenacious of her rights and liberties. The laws of Virginia, which provided among other things for primogeniture and an established state church, bore a much stronger resemblance to those of England than did those of the New England states. The town or township organization was unknown, the county being the political sub-division possessed of all the powers of local government.

$ 50. Massachusetts.-The second of the thirteen colonies in order of settlement was Massachusetts. Virginia and Massachusetts were always the two leading English colonies in America. Although the two are found together in the eighteenth century leading the way for independence, they nevertheless present many striking contrasts in their history, laws, religion and government. The territory of Massachusetts was included in the grant of territory given to the Plymouth Company. Several different settlements under distinct government were made in this territory, two of them-the Plymouth colony and the Massachusetts Bay colony, being finally united into the colony of Massachusetts. The earliest of these settlements was that made at Plymouth in 1620 by a small band of Puritan exiles from England. Before landing these emigrants drew up and signed the

85 following agreement as to the new government to be created: "In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dead Sovereign Lord, King James, etc., having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together, into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."

The Plymouth colonists in 1629 obtained from the Plymouth Company in England a patent authorizing them to make laws for their own government. The legislation of this colony is a curious intermixture of Mosaic law and the common law. In 1636 the colony declared against all taxation but "by the consent of the body of freedom or their representatives legally assembled."

In March, 1629, a charter was given by Charles I. to the Massachusetts Bay Company, which made the patentees and their associates a corporation. The charter provided that the affairs of the company should be managed by a governor, deputy governor and eighteen assistants or magistrates, the latter of whom were to hold monthly courts. A general Court of Assembly of all the freemen and stockholders was to be held monthly for purposes of legislation. No royal veto power over the acts of this body was reserved. The colonists were to have the rights of Englishmen, and nothing was said about religion. The colony was at first governed from England, but the charter was very soon removed to Massachusetts.

For a few years both the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonists were practically self-governing. Finally, however, Charles I. began to interfere with the government of the colonists and demanded the surrender of their charters. The result of the