Chapter XVII: Part 17

The extension of state activity presents some surprising features in
view of the strength of local self-sufficiency nurtured by the old
system of township government. But this form of pure democracy was in
various cases long since inevitably abandoned: by Boston reluctantly
in 1822, and subsequently by many other townships or cities, as
growing population made action in town meeting unbearably cumbersome.
In modern times state activity has encroached on the cities.
Especially has the commonwealth undertaken certain noteworthy
enterprises as the agent of the several municipalities in the
immediate vicinity of Boston, constituting what is known as the
Metropolitan District; as, for example, in bringing water thither from
the Nashua River at Clinton, 40 m. from Boston, and in the development
of a magnificent park system of woods, fells, river-banks and
seashore, unrivalled elsewhere in the country. The commonwealth joined
the city of Boston in the construction of a subway beneath the most
congested portion of the city for the passage of electric cars. For
the better accommodation of the increasing commerce of the port of
Boston, the commonwealth bought a considerable frontage upon the
harbour lines and constructed a dock capable of receiving the largest
vessels, and has supplemented the work of the United States government
in deepening the approaches to the wharves. It has secured as public
reservations the summit and sides of Greylock (3535 ft.) in the
north-west corner of the state, and of Wachusett (2108 ft.) near the
centre. Since 1885 a large expenditure has been incurred in the
abolition of grade crossings of railways and highways,[15] and in 1894
the commonwealth began the construction and maintenance of state
highways.[16]

Since 1885, in Boston, and since 1894, in Fall River, the
administration of the city police departments, including the granting
of liquor licences, has been in the hands of state commissioners (one
commissioner in Boston, a board in Fall River) appointed by the
governor. But though in each case the result has been an improved
administration, it has been generally conceded that only most
exceptional circumstances can justify such interference with local
self-government, and later attempts to extend the practice have
failed. The referendum has been sparingly used in matters of local
concern. Beginning in 1892 various townships and cities, numbering 18
in 1903, adopted municipal ownership and operation of lighting works.
The gasworks have been notably more successful than the electric
plants.

In Massachusetts, as in New England generally, the word "town" is
used, officially and colloquially, to designate a township, and during
the colonial era the New England town-meeting was a notable school for
education in self-government. The members of the first group of
settlers in these colonies were mostly small farmers, belonged to the
same church, and dwelt in a village for protection from the Indians.
They adapted to these conditions some of the methods for managing
local affairs with which they had been familiar in England, and called
the resultant institution a town. The territorial extent of each town
was determined by its grant or grants from the general court, which
the towns served as agents in the management of land. A settlement or
"plantation" was sometimes incorporated first as a "district" and
later as a town, the difference being that the latter had the right of
corporate representation in the general court, while the former had no
such right. The towns elected (until 1856) the deputies to the general
court, and were the administrative units for the assessment and
collection of taxes, maintaining churches and schools, organizing and
training the militia, preserving the peace, caring for the poor,
building and repairing roads and bridges, and recording deeds, births,
deaths and marriages; and to discuss questions relating to these
matters as well as other matters of peculiarly local concern, to
determine the amount of taxes for town purposes, and to elect
officers. All the citizens were expected to attend the annual
town-meeting, and such male inhabitants as were not citizens were
privileged to attend and to propose and discuss measures, although
they had no right to vote. Generally several villages have grown up in
the same "town," and some of the more populous "towns," usually those
in which manufacturing has become more important than farming, have
been incorporated as "cities"; thus either a town or a city may now
include a farming country and various small villages. Although the
tendency in Massachusetts is towards chartering as cities "towns"
which have a population of 12,000 or more, the democratic institution
of the town-meeting persists in many large municipalities which are
still technically towns.[17] Most "towns" hold their annual meeting in
March, but some hold them in February and others in April. In the
larger "towns" the officers elected at this meeting may consist of
five, seven or nine selectmen, a clerk, a treasurer, three or more
assessors, three or more overseers of the poor, one or more collectors
of taxes, one or more auditors, one or more surveyors of highways, a
road commissioner, a sewer commissioner, a board of health, one or
more constables, two or more field drivers, two or more fence viewers,
and a tree warden; but in the smaller "towns" the number of selectmen
may be limited to three, the selectmen may assess the taxes, be
overseers of the poor, and act as a board of health, and the treasurer
or constable may collect the taxes. The term of all these officers may
be limited to one year, or the selectmen, clerk, assessors and
overseers of the poor may be elected for a term of three years, in
which case a part only of the selectmen, assessors and overseers of
the poor are elected each year. The selectmen have the general
management of a "town's" affairs during the interval between
town-meetings. They may call special town-meetings; they appoint
election officers and may appoint additional constables or public
officers, and such minor officials as inspectors of milk, inspectors
of buildings, gauger of measures, cullers of staves and hoops, fish
warden and forester. A school committee consisting of any number of
members divisible by three is chosen, one-third each year, at the
annual town-meeting or at a special meeting which is held in the same
month. Any "town" having a village or district within its limits that
contains 1000 inhabitants or more may authorize that village or
district to establish a separate organization for lighting its
streets, building and maintaining sidewalks, and employing a watchman
or policeman, the officers of such organization to include at least a
prudential committee and a clerk. All laws relative to "towns" are
applied to "cities" in so far as they are not inconsistent with
general or special laws relative to the latter, and the powers of the
selectmen are vested in the mayor and aldermen.

_Education._--For cities of above 8000 inhabitants (for which alone comparative statistics are annually available), in 1902-1903 the ratio of average attendance to school enrolment, the average number of days' attendance of each pupil enrolled, and the value of school property per capita of pupils in average attendance were higher than in any other state; the average length of the school term was slightly exceeded in eight states; and the total cost of the schools per capita of pupils in average attendance ($39.05) was exceeded in six other states. In 1905-1906 the percentage of average attendance in the public schools to the number of children (between 5 and 15 years) in the state was 80; in Barnstable county it was 95, and in Plymouth 92; and the lowest rate of any county was 68, that of Bristol. In the same year the amount of the various school taxes and other contributions was $30.53 for each child in the average membership of the public schools, and the highest amount for each child in any county was $35.77 in Suffolk county, and in any township or city $68.01--in Lincoln. The school system is not one of marked state centralization--as contrasted, e.g. with New York. A state board of education has general control, its secretary acting as superintendent of the state system in conjunction with local superintendents and committees. Women are eligible for these positions, and among the teachers in the schools they are greatly in excess over men (more than 10 to 1), especially in lower grades. No recognition exists in the schools of race, colour or religion. The proportion of the child population that attends schools is equalled in but two or three states east of the Mississippi river. The services of Horace Mann (q.v.) as secretary of the state board (1837-1848) were productive of almost revolutionary benefits not only to Massachusetts but to the entire country. His reforms, which reached every part of the school system, were fortunately introduced just at the beginning of railway and city growth. Since 1850 truant and compulsory attendance laws (the first compulsory education law was passed in 1642) have been enforced in conjunction with laws against child labour. In 1900 the average period of schooling per inhabitant for the United States was 4.3 years, for Massachusetts 7 years. (The same year the ratio of wealth productivity was as 66 to 37.) Massachusetts stands "foremost in the Union in the universality of its provision for secondary education."[18] The laws practically offer such education free to every child of the commonwealth. Illiterate persons not less than ten years of age constituted in 1900 5.9% of the population; and 0.8, 14.6, 10.7% respectively of native whites, foreign-born whites and negroes. More patents are issued, relatively, to citizens of Massachusetts than to those of any other state except Connecticut. Post office statistics indicate a similarly high average of intelligence.

The public school system includes common, high and normal schools, and
various evening, industrial and truant schools. Many townships and
cities maintain free evening schools. In 1894 manual training was made
a part of the curriculum in all municipalities having 20,000
inhabitants. There are also many private business colleges, academic
schools and college-preparatory schools. The high schools enjoy an
exceptional reputation. An unusual proportion of teachers in the
public schools are graduates of the state normal schools, of which the
first were founded in 1839 at Lexington and Barre, the former being
the first normal school of the United States.[19] These two schools
were removed subsequently to Framingham (1853) and Westfield (1844),
where they are still active; while others flourish at Bridgewater
(1840), Salem (1854), Worcester (1874), Fitchburg (1895), North Adams
(1897), Hyannis (1897) and Lowell (1897), that at Framingham being
open to women only. There is also a state normal art school at Boston
(1873) for both sexes.

The commonwealth contributes to the support of textile schools in
cities in which 450,000 spindles are in operation. Such schools exist
(1909) in Lowell, Fall River and New Bedford. The commonwealth also
maintains aboard a national ship a nautical training school (1891) for
instruction in the science and practice of navigation. During the
Spanish-American War of 1898 more than half of the graduates and
cadets of the school enlisted in the United States service.

There are several hundred private schools, whose pupils constituted in
1905-1906 15.7% of the total school-enrolment of the state. Of higher
academies and college-preparatory schools there are scores. Among
those for boys Phillips Academy, at Andover, the Groton school, and
the Mount Hermon school are well-known examples. For girls the largest
school is the Northfield Seminary at East Northfield. In Boston and in
the towns in its environs are various famous schools, among them the
boys' classical school in Boston, founded in 1635, one of the oldest
secondary schools in the country. The leading educational institution
of the state, as it is the oldest and most famous of the country, is
Harvard University (founded 1636) at Cambridge. In the extreme
north-west of the state, at Williamstown, is Williams College (1793),
and in the Connecticut Valley is Amherst College (1821), both of these
unsectarian. Boston University (Methodist Episcopal, 1867); Tufts
College (1852), a few miles from Boston in Medford, originally a
Universalist school; Clark University (1889, devoted wholly to
graduate instruction until 1902, when Clark College was added), at
Worcester, are important institutions. Two Roman Catholic schools are
maintained--Boston College (1863) and the College of the Holy Cross
(1843), at Worcester. Of various institutions for the education of
women, Mount Holyoke (1837) at South Hadley, Smith College (1875) at
Northampton, Wellesley College (1875) at Wellesley near Boston,
Radcliffe College (1879) in connexion with Harvard at Cambridge and
Simmons College (1899) at Boston, are of national repute. The last
emphasizes scientific instruction in domestic economy.

For agricultural students the state supports a school at Amherst
(1867), and Harvard University the Bussey Institution. In
technological science special instruction is given--in addition to the
scientific departments of the schools already mentioned--in the
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1865), and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (opened in 1865). There are schools of
theology at Cambridge (Protestant Episcopal), Newton (Baptist) and
Waltham (New Church), as well as in connexion with Boston University
(Methodist), Tufts College (Universalist) and Harvard (non-sectarian,
and the affiliated Congregational Andover Theological Seminary at
Cambridge). Law and medical schools are maintained in Boston and
Harvard universities.

_Public Institutions._--Massachusetts was in 1903, in proportion to the population, more richly provided with public collections of books than any other state: in that year she had nearly a seventh of all books in public, society and school libraries in the country, and a much larger supply of books per capita (2.56) than any other state. The rate for New York, the only state having a larger number of books in such libraries, being only 1.19. The Boston public library, exceeded in size in the United States by the library of Congress at Washington--and probably first, because of the large number of duplicates in the library of Congress--and the largest free municipal library in the world; the library of Harvard, extremely well chosen and valuable for research; the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1791); the Boston Athenaeum (1807); the State Library (1826); the New England Historic Genealogical Society (1845); the Congregational Library; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1780); and the Boston Society of Natural History (1830), all in Boston, leave it easily unrivalled, unless by Washington, as the best research centre of the country. The collections of the American Antiquarian Society (1812) at Worcester are also notable. Massachusetts led, about 1850, in the founding of town and city libraries supported by public taxes, and by 1880 had established more of such institutions than existed in all other states combined. In 1900 out of 353 towns and cities only five, representing less than half of 1%, were without free library facilities, and three of these five had association libraries charging only a small fee.

The state is very well supplied with charitable and reformatory
institutions, in which noteworthy methods have been employed with
success. The state institutions, each governed by a board of trustees,
and all under the supervision of the state board of charity, include a
state hospital at Tewksbury, for paupers (1866); a state farm at
Bridgewater (1887) for paupers and petty criminals; the Lyman school
for boys at Westboro, a reformatory for male criminals under fifteen
years of age sentenced to imprisonment for terms less than life in
connexion with which a very successful farm is maintained for the
younger boys at Berlin; an industrial school for girls at Lancaster,
also a reformatory school--a third reformatory school for boys was
planned in 1909; a state sanatorium at Rutland for tuberculous
patients (the first public hospital for such in the United States) and
a hospital school at Canton for the care and instruction of crippled
and deformed children. Three more hospitals for consumptives were
planned in 1909. Under the supervision of the state board of insanity,
and each under the government of a board of seven trustees (of whom
two are women) are state hospitals for the insane at Worcester (1833),
Taunton, Northampton, Danvers, Westboro and Medford, a state colony
for the insane at Gardner, a state hospital for epileptics at Palmer,
a state school for the feeble-minded at Waltham (governed by six
trustees), a state school at Wrentham, state "hospital cottages for
children" (1882) at Baldwinville (governed by five trustees), and the
Foxboro state hospital for dipsomaniacs and insane. There are also
semi-state institutions for the insane at Waverley, Barre, Wrentham
and Baldwinville, and nineteen small private institutions, all under
the supervision of the state board of insanity. Under the supervision
of a board of prison commissioners, which appoints the superintendent
and warden of each, are a reformatory prison for women at Sherborn
(1877), a state reformatory for men at Concord (1884), a state prison
at Boston (Charlestown), and a prison camp and hospital at Rutland
(1905). There is a prison department at the state farm which receives
misdemeanants. Other institutions receiving state aid, each governed
by trustees appointed by the governor, are the Massachusetts general
hospital at Boston, the Massachusetts charitable eye and ear infirmary
at Boston, the Massachusetts homoeopathic hospital at Boston, the
Perkins Institution and Massachusetts school for the blind at South
Boston and the soldiers' home in Massachusetts at Boston. The Horace
Mann school in Boston, a public day school for the deaf, the New
England industrial school for deaf mutes at Beverly and the Clarke
school for the deaf at Northampton are maintained in part by the
state. Finally, many private charitable corporations (about 500 in
1905) report to the state board of charity, and town and city
almshouses (205 in 1904) are subject to visitation. The Perkins
Institution is memorable for its association with the fame of S. G.
Howe (g.v.), whose reforms in charity methods were felt through all
the charitable interests of the state. The net yearly cost of support
and relief from 1884 to 1904 averaged $2,136,653, exclusive of
vagrancy cases (average $31,714). The whole number of paupers, besides
vagrants, in 1908 was 23.02 per 1000 of state population, and the cost
of relief ($5,104,255) was $1.699 for each inhabitant of the state.
The number of sane paupers declined steadily and markedly from 1863 to
1904.

_Finance._--Massachusetts is a very rich state, and Boston a very wealthy city. The debt of the state (especially the contingent debt, secured by sinking funds) has been steadily rising since 1888, and especially since 1896, chiefly owing to the erection of important public buildings, the construction of state highways and metropolitan park roadways, the improvement of Boston harbour, the abolition of grade crossings on railways, and the expenses incurred for the Spanish-American War of 1898.

The net direct funded debt (also secured by accumulating sinking
funds) in December 1908 was $17,669,372 (3.61 millions in 1893). The
average interest on this and the contingent debt ($60,428,223 in
December 1908) combined was only 3.35%. The net debts of towns and
cities rose in the years 1885-1908 from $63,306,213 to $163,558,325.
The county debts in 1908 aggregated $6,076,867. The assessed valuation
of realty in the state in 1908 was $2,799,062,707 and of personalty
$1,775,073,438. No other state has given so vigorous a test of the
ordinary American general-property tax, and the results have been as
discouraging as elsewhere. The "dooming" process (i.e. estimation by
assessors, without relief for overvaluation except for excess more
than 50% above the proper valuation) was introduced in 1868 as a
method of securing returns of personalty. But the most rigorous
application of the doomage law has only proved its complete futility
as an effort to reach unascertained corporate and personal
property.[20] Various special methods are used for the taxation of
banks, insurance companies, railways, tramways, trust companies and
corporations, some of them noteworthy. In the case of corporations
realty and machinery are taxed generally by the local authorities, and
stock values by the commonwealth. The Boston stock exchange is the
second of the country in the extent of the securities in which it
deals. The proportion of holders of U.S. bonds among the total
population is higher than that in any other state.

_History._--It is possible that the coasts of Massachusetts were visited by the Northmen, and by the earliest navigators who followed Cabot, but this is only conjecture. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold landed at and named Cape Cod and coasted as far south as the present No-Man's Land, which he named Martin's or Martha's Vineyard, a name later transferred to a neighbouring larger island. Pring and Champlain at a later date coasted along what is now Massachusetts, but the map of Champlain is hardly recognizable. The first sufficient explorations for cartographical record were made by John Smith in 1614, and his map was long the basis--particularly in its nomenclature--of later maps. Permanency of occupation, however, dates from the voyage of the "Mayflower," which brought about a hundred men, women and children who had mostly belonged to an English sect of Separatists, originating in Yorkshire, but who had passed a period of exile for religion's sake in Holland. In the early winter of 1620 they made the coast of Cape Cod; they had intended to make their landing farther south, within the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company, which had granted them a patent; but stress of weather prevented their doing so. Finding themselves without warrant in a region beyond their patent, and threatened with the desertion of disaffected members of their company (probably all servants or men of the "lesser" sort) unless concessions were made to these, they drew up and signed before landing a democratic compact of government which is accounted the earliest written constitution in history.[21] After some exploration of the coast they made a permanent landing on the 21st of December 1620 (N.S.) at Plymouth, a harbour which had already been so named by John Smith in his maps of 1614 and 1616. During the first winter nearly one-half their number died from exposure, and the relations of the survivors with their partners of the London Company, who had insisted that for seven years the plantation should be managed as a joint stock company, were unsatisfactory. However, about thirty-five new colonists arrived in 1622 and ninety-six more in 1623. The abandonment of the communal system was begun in the latter year, and with the dissolution of the partnership with the adventurers of the London Company in 1627 Plymouth became a corporate colony with its chief authority vested in the whole body of freemen convened in the General Court. Upon the death of the first governor, John Carver, in the spring of 1621, the General Court chose William Bradford as his successor, and with him was chosen one assistant. The subsequent elections were annual, and within a few years the number of assistants was increased to seven. The General Court was the legislature and the electorate; the governor and assistants were the executive and the judiciary. The whole body of freemen composed the General Court until other towns than Plymouth had been organized, the first of which were Scituate in 1636 and Duxbury in 1637, and then the representative form of government was adopted and there was a gradual differentiation between Plymouth the town and Plymouth the colony. When it had become known that the colony was within the territory of the New England Council, John Pierce, in 1621, procured from that body a grant which made the colonists its tenants. A year later Pierce surrendered this and procured another, which in effect made him proprietor of the colony, but he was twice shipwrecked and was forced to assign to the adventurers his second patent. In 1629 Governor Bradford procured from the same council a definite grant of the tract which corresponds to the south-eastern portion of the present state. But all attempts to procure a royal charter for Plymouth Colony were unsuccessful, and in 1691 it was annexed to the Colony of Massachusetts Bay under what is termed the Provincial Charter.

King James having by patent in 1620 created a Council for New England to whom he made a large grant of territory, the council in 1628 made a sub-grant, confirmed by a royal charter that passed the seals on the 4th of March 1629, to the "Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in Newe England." There had been various minor expeditions during the few years since Smith was on the coast before this company, in the Puritan interests, had sent over John Endecott with a party in 1628 to what is now Salem. In 1630 the government of the company, with questionable right (for the charter seems evidently to have contemplated the residence of the company in England), transferred itself to their territory, and under the leadership of John Winthrop laid the foundations anew of the Massachusetts colony, when they first settled Boston in the autumn of that year. Winthrop served repeatedly, though not continuously, as governor of the colony till his death in 1649, his rejection in 1636 being due to a party of theological revolt which chose Henry Vane (afterwards Sir Henry) to the office. This was an incident in a famous episode, important rather as a symptom than in itself, namely, the Antinomian controversy, "New England's earliest protest against formulas," in which Vane and Ann Hutchinson took the lead in criticizing the official orthodoxy of the colony.

The magistrates successfully asserted themselves to the discomfiture of their critics (Ann Hutchinson being banished), and this was characteristic of the colony's early history. The charter gave the company control over the admission of "freemen" (co-partners in the enterprise, and voters), "full and absolute power and authority to correct, punish and rule" subjects settling in the territory comprised in their grant, and power to "resist ... by all fitting ways and means whatever" all persons attempting the "destruction, invasion, detriment or annoyance" of the plantation. Some writers deny the company's right under this instrument to rule as they proceeded to do; but at any rate what they did was to make the suffrage dependent on stringent religious tests, and to repress with determined zeal all theological "vagaries" and "whimsies." Criticism of church or magistrates was not tolerated. Laws were modelled closely on the Bible. The clergy were a ruling class. The government was frankly theocratic. Said Winthrop (1637): "We see not that any should have authority to set up any other exercises besides what authority hath already set up"; and a synod at Cambridge in 1637 catalogued eighty-two "opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous and all unsafe," besides nine "unwholesome expressions," all of which were consigned "to the devil of hell from whence they came." Another synod at Cambridge in 1647 more formally established the principle of state control. The legislation against Baptists (about 1644-1678) and the persecution of the Quakers (especially 1656-1662) partook of the brutality of the time, including scourging, boring of tongues, cutting of ears and in rare cases capital punishment. It cannot be denied that men like Roger Williams and some of the persecuted Quakers, though undeniably contentious and aggressive in their conscientious dissent, showed a spirit which to-day seems sweeter in tolerance and humanity than that of the Puritans. And it seems necessary to emphasize these facts because until about 1870 it was almost unchallenged tradition to regard the men of Massachusetts Bay as seekers and champions of "religious liberty." They left England, indeed, for liberty to discard the "poperies" of the English Church, and once in Massachusetts they even discarded far more than those "poperies." But religious liberty in our modern sense they did not seek for themselves, nor accord to others; they abhorred it, they trampled on it, and their own lives they subjected to all the rigid restrictions to which they subjected others. They were narrow but strong; no better example can be imagined of what the French call "the defects of one's qualities." Their failures were small compared with those of their contemporaries in England and elsewhere in Europe, and public opinion did not long sustain violent persecution of opinion. More than once mobs freed Quaker prisoners. Also it is to be said that with the single exception of religious toleration the record of the state in devotion to human rights has been from the first a splendid one, whether in human principles of criminal law, or in the defence of the civil rights commonly declared in American constitutions. It was once generally assumed that the repression practised attained its end of securing harmony of opinion. The fact seems to be that intellectual speculation was as strong in America as in Puritan England; the assumption that the inhibition of its expression was good seems wholly gratuitous, and contrary to general convictions underlying modern freedom of speech. A safer opinion is probably that "the spiritual growth of Massachusetts withered under the shadow of dominant orthodoxy; the colony was only saved from mental atrophy by its vigorous political life" (J. A. Doyle). In literature the second half of the 17th century is a sterile waste of forbidding theology; and its life, judged by the present day, singularly sombre.

In addition to the few persons banished to Rhode Island, theological and political differences led many to emigrate thither. Others, discontented with Massachusetts autocracy and wishing, too, "to secure more room," went to Connecticut (q.v.) where they established a bulwark against the Dutch of New York.

A witchcraft scare (at its worst in 1691-1697, though the earliest Connecticut case was in 1646-1647 and the earliest in Boston in 1648) led to another tragedy of ignorance. In all thirty-two persons were executed (according to W. F. Poole, about a thousandth part of those executed for witchcraft in the British Isles in the 16th and 17th centuries). Salem was the scene of the greatest excitement in 1691-1692.

Exceptionally honourable to the early colonists was their devotion to education (see HARVARD UNIVERSITY and BOSTON). Massachusetts Bay had a large learned element; it is supposed that about 1640 there was an Oxford or Cambridge graduate to every 250 persons in the colony. The earliest printing in the British-American colonies was done at Cambridge in 1639; it was not until 1674 that the authorities of the colony permitted printing, except at Cambridge. Boston and Cambridge remain leading publishing centres to-day. The first regular newspaper of Boston, the _Boston Newsletter_, was the pioneer of the American newspaper press.

The early history was rendered unquiet at times by wars with the Indians, the chief of which were the Pequot War in 1637, and King Philip's War in 1675-76; and for better combining against these enemies, Massachusetts, with Connecticut, New Haven and New Plymouth, formed a confederacy in 1643, considered the prototype of the larger union of the colonies which conducted the War of American Independence (1775-83). The struggle with the Crown, which ended in independence, began at the foundation of the colony, with assumptions of power under the charter which the colonial government was always trying to maintain, and the crown was as assiduously endeavouring to counteract. After more than half a century of struggle, the crown finally annulled the charter of the colony in 1684, though not until 1686 was the old government actually supplanted on the arrival of Joseph Dudley, a native of the colony, as president of a provisional council; later, Sir Edmund Andros was sent over with a commission to unite New York and New England under his rule. The colonists had been for many years almost independent; they made their own laws, the Crown appointed natives as officials, and the colonial interpretation of the old charter had in general been allowed to stand. Massachusetts had excluded the English Book of Common Prayer, she had restricted the franchise, laid the death penalty on religious opinions, and passed various other laws repugnant to the Crown, notably to Charles II. and James II.; she had caused laws and writs to run in her own name, she had neglected to exact the oath of allegiance to the sovereign, though carefully exacting an oath of fidelity to her own government, she had protected the regicides, she had coined money with her own seal, she had blocked legal appeals to the English courts, she had not compelled the observance of the navigation acts. The revocation of the charter aroused the strongest fears of the colonists Andros speedily met determined opposition by measures undertaken relative to taxation and land titles, by efforts to secure a church for Episcopal service, and an attempt to curb the town meetings. His government was supported by a small party (largely an Anglican Church party), but was intensely unpopular with the bulk of the people; and--it is a disputed question, whether before or after news arrived of the landing in England of William of Orange--in April 1689 the citizens of Boston rose in revolution, deposed Andros, imprisoned him and re-established their old colonial form of government. Then came a struggle, carried on in England by Increase Mather as agent (1688-1692) of the colony, to secure such a form of government under a new charter as would preserve as many as possible of their old liberties. Plymouth Colony, acting through its agent in London, endeavoured to secure a separate existence by royal charter, but accepted finally union with Massachusetts when association with New York became the probable alternative. The province of Maine was also united in the new provincial charter of 1691, and Sir William Phips came over with it, commissioned as the first royal governor. As has been mentioned already, the new charter softened religious tests for office and the suffrage, and accorded "liberty of conscience" except to Roman Catholics. The old religious exclusiveness had already been greatly lessened: the clergy were less powerful, heresy had thrived under repression, Anglican churchmen had come to the colony and were borne with perforce, devotion to trade and commerce had weakened theological tests in favour of ideals of mere good order and prosperity, and a spirit of toleration had grown.

Throughout the continuance of the government under the provincial charter, there was a constant struggle between a prerogative party, headed by the royal governor, and a popular party who cherished recollections of their practical independence under the colonial charter, and who were nursing the sentiments which finally took the form of resistance in 1775. The inter-charter period, 1686-1691, is of great importance in this connexion. The popular majority kept up the feeling of hostility to the royal authority in recurrent combats in the legislative assembly over the salary to be voted to the governor; though these antagonisms were from time to time forgotten in the wars with the French and Indians. During the earl of Bellomont's administration, New York was again united with Massachusetts under the same executive (1697-1701). The scenes of the recurrent wars were mostly distant from Massachusetts proper, either in Maine or on Canadian or Acadian territory, although some savage inroads of the Indians were now and then made on the exposed frontier towns, as, for instance, upon Deerfield in 1704 and upon Haverhill in 1708. Phips, who had succeeded in an attack on Port Royal, had ignominiously failed when he led the Massachusetts fleet against Quebec in 1690; and the later expedition of 1711 was no less a failure. The most noteworthy administration was that of William Shirley (1741-1749 and 1753-1756), who at one time was the commanding officer of the British forces in North America. He made a brilliant success of the expedition against Louisburg in 1745, William Pepperell, a Maine officer, being in immediate command. Shirley with Massachusetts troops also took part in the Oswego expedition of 1755; and Massachusetts proposed, and lent the chief assistance in the expedition of Nova Scotia in 1755 which ended in the removal of the Acadians. Her officers and troops also played an important part in the Crown Point and second Louisburg expedition (1758).

The first decided protests against the exercise of sovereign power by the crown, the first general moral and political revolt that marked the approach of the American War of Independence, took place in Massachusetts; so that the most striking events in the general history of the colonies as a whole from 1760 to 1775 are an intimate part of her annals. The beginning of the active opposition to the crown may be placed in the resistance, led by James Otis, to the issuing of writs (after 1752, Otis's famous argument against them being made in 1760-1761) to compel citizens to assist the revenue officers; followed later by the outburst of feeling at the imposition of the Stamp Act (1765), when Massachusetts took the lead in confronting the royal power. The governors put in office at this time by the crown were not of conciliatory temperaments, and the measures instituted in parliament (see UNITED STATES) served to increase bitterness of feeling. Royal troops sent to Boston (several regiments, 1768) irritated the populace, who were highly excited at the time, until in an outbreak on the 5th of March 1770 a file of garrison troops shot down in self-defence a few citizens in a crowd which assailed them. This is known as the "Boston Massacre." The merchants combined to prevent the importation of goods which by law would yield the crown a revenue; and the patriots--as the anti-prerogative party called themselves--under the lead of Samuel Adams, instituted regular communication between the different towns, and afterwards, following the initiative of Virginia, with the other colonies, through "committees of correspondence"; a method of the utmost advantage thereafter in forcing on the revolution by intensifying and unifying the resistance of the colony, and by inducing the co-operation of other colonies. In 1773 (Dec. 16) a party of citizens, disguised as Indians and instigated by popular meetings, boarded some tea-ships in the harbour of Boston, and to prevent the landing of their taxable cargoes threw them into the sea; this incident is known in history as the "Boston tea-party." Parliament in retaliation closed the port of Boston (1774), a proceeding which only aroused more bitter feeling in the country towns and enlisted the sympathy of the other colonies. The governorship was now given to General Thomas Gage, who commanded the troops which had been sent to Boston. Everything foreboded an outbreak. Most of the families of the highest social position were averse to extreme measures; a large number were not won over and became expatriated loyalists. The popular agitators, headed by Samuel Adams--with whom John Hancock, an opulent merchant and one of the few of the richer people who deserted the crown, leagued himself--forced on the movement, which became war in April 1775, when Gage sent an expedition to Concord and Lexington to destroy military stores accumulated by the patriots and to capture Adams and Hancock, temporarily staying at Lexington. This detachment, commanded by Lord Percy, was assaulted, and returned with heavy loss. The country towns now poured their militia into Cambridge, opposite Boston; troops came from neighbouring colonies, and Artemas Ward, a Massachusetts general, was placed in command of the irregular force, which with superior numbers at once shut the royal army up in Boston. An attempt of the provincials to seize and hold a commanding hill in Charlestown brought on the battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775), in which the provincials were driven from the ground, although they lost much less heavily than the royal troops. Washington, chosen by the Continental Congress to command the army, arrived in Cambridge in July 1775, and stretching his lines around Boston, forced its evacuation in March 1776. The state was not again the scene of any conflict during the war. Generals Henry Knox and Benjamin Lincoln were the most distinguished officers contributed by the state to the revolutionary army. Out of an assessment at one time upon the states of $5,000,000 for the expenses of the war, Massachusetts was charged with $820,000, the next highest being $800,000 for Virginia. Of the 231,791 troops sent by all the colonies into the field, reckoning by annual terms, Massachusetts sent 67,907, the next highest being 31,939 from Connecticut, Virginia furnishing only 26,678; and her proportion of sailors was very much greater still. In every campaign in every colony save in 1770-80 her soldiery were in absolute, and still more in relative, number greater than those of any other colony.

After the outbreak of the war a somewhat indefinite, heterogeneous provisional government was in power till a constitution was adopted in 1780, when John Hancock became the first governor. Governor James Bowdoin in 1786-1787 put down with clemency an almost bloodless insurrection in the western counties (there was strong disaffection, however, as far east as Middlesex), known as the Shays Rebellion, significant of the rife ideas of popular power, the economic distress, and the unsettled political conditions of the years of the Confederation. Daniel Shays (1747-1825), the leader, was a brave Revolutionary captain of no special personal importance. The state debt was large, taxation was heavy, and industry was unsettled; worthless paper money was in circulation, yet some men demanded more; debtors were made desperate by prosecution; the state government seemed weak, the Federal government contemptibly so; the local courts would not, or from intimidation feared to, punish the turbulent, and demagogues encouraged ideas of popular power. A convention of delegates representing the malcontents of numerous towns in Worcester county met at Worcester on the 15th of August 1786 to consider grievances, and a week later a similar convention assembled at Hatfield, Hampshire county. Encouraged by these and other conventions in order to obstruct the collection of debts and taxes, a mob prevented a session of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace at Northampton on the 29th of August, and in September other mobs prevented the same court from sitting in Worcester, Middlesex and Berkshire counties. About 1000 insurgents under Shays assembled at Springfield on the 26th of September to prevent the sitting there of the Supreme Court, from which they feared indictments. To protect the court and the national arsenal at Springfield, for which the Federal government was powerless to provide a guard, Major-General William Shepard (1737-1817) ordered out the militia, called for volunteers, and supplied them with arms from the arsenal, and the court sat for three days. The Federal government now attempted to enlist recruits, ostensibly to protect the western frontier from the Indians, but actually for the suppression of the insurrection; but the plan failed from lack of funds, and the insurgents continued to interrupt the procedure of the courts. In January 1787, however, Governor Bowdoin raised an army of 4400 men and placed it under the command of Major-General Benjamin Lincoln (1733-1810). While Lincoln was at Worcester Shays planned to capture the arsenal at Springfield, but on the 25th of January Shepard's men fired upon Shays's followers, killing four and putting the rest to flight. Lincoln pursued them to Petersham, Worcester county, where on the 4th of February he routed them and took 150 prisoners. Subsequently the insurgents gathered in small bands in Berkshire county; but here, a league having been formed to assist the government, 84 insurgents were captured at West Stockbridge, and the insurrection practically terminated in an action at Sheffield on the 27th of February, in which the insurgents lost 2 killed and 30 wounded and the militia 2 killed and 1 wounded. Two of the insurgent leaders, Daniel Shays and Eli Parsons, escaped to Vermont soon after the rout at Petersham. Fourteen other insurgents who were tried by the Supreme Court in the spring of 1787 were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. They were, however, held rather as hostages for the good behaviour of worse offenders who had escaped, and were pardoned in September. In February 1788 Shays and Parsons petitioned for pardon, and this was granted by the legislature in the following June. The outcome of the uprising was an encouraging test of loyalty to the commonwealth; and the insurrection is regarded as having been very potent in preparing public opinion throughout the country for the adoption of a stronger national government. The Federal Constitution was ratified by Massachusetts by only a small majority on the 6th of February 1788, after its rejection had been at one time imminent; but Massachusetts became a strong Federalist state. Indeed, the general interest of her history in the quarter-century after the adoption of the Constitution lies mainly in her connexion with the fortunes of that great political party. Her leading politicians were out of sympathy with the conduct of national affairs (in the conduct of foreign relations, the distribution of political patronage, naval policy, the question of public debt) from 1804--when Jefferson's party showed its complete supremacy--onward; and particularly after the passage of the Embargo Act of 1807, which caused great losses to Massachusetts commerce, and, so far from being accepted by her leaders as a proper diplomatic weapon, seemed to them designed in the interests of the Democratic party. The Federalist preference for England over France was strong in Massachusetts, and her sentiment was against the war with England of 1812-15. New England's discontent culminated in the Hartford Convention (Dec. 1814), in which Massachusetts men predominated. The state, however, bore her full part in the war, and much of its naval success was due to her sailors.

During the interval till the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Massachusetts held a distinguished place in national life and politics. As a state she may justly be said to have been foremost in the struggle against slavery.[22] She opposed the policy that led to the Mexican War in 1846, although a regiment was raised in Massachusetts by the personal exertions of Caleb Cushing. The leaders of the ultra non-political abolitionists (who opposed the formation of the Liberty party) were mainly Massachusetts men, notably W. L. Garrison and Wendell Phillips. The Federalist domination had been succeeded by Whig rule in the state; but after the death of the great Whig, Daniel Webster, in 1852, all parties disintegrated, re-aligning themselves gradually in an aggressive anti-slavery party and the temporizing Democratic party. First, for many years the Free-Soilers gained strength; then in 1855 in an extraordinary party upheaval the Know-Nothings quite broke up Democratic, Free-Soil and Whig organizations; the Free-Soilers however captured the Know-Nothing organization and directed it to their own ends; and by their junction with the anti-slavery Whigs there was formed the Republican party. To this the original Free-Soilers contributed as leaders Charles Sumner and C. F. Adams; the Know-Nothings, Henry Wilson and N. P. Banks; and later, the War Democrats, B. F. Butler--all men of mark in the history of the state. Charles Sumner, the most eminent exponent of the new party, was the state's senator in Congress (1851-1874). The feelings which grew up, and the movements that were fostered till they rendered the Civil War inevitable, received something of the same impulse from Massachusetts which she had given a century before to the feelings and movements forerunning the War of American Independence. When the war broke out it was her troops who first received hostile fire in Baltimore, and turning their mechanical training to account opened the obstructed railroad to Washington. In the war thus begun she built, equipped and manned many vessels for the Federal navy, and furnished from 1861 to 1865 26,163 (or, including final credits, probably more than 30,000) men for the navy. During the war all but twelve small townships raised troops in excess of every call, the excess throughout the state amounting in all to more than 15,000 men; while the total recruits to the Federal army (including re-enlistments) numbered, according to the adjutant-general of the state, 159,165 men, of which less than 7000 were raised by draft.[23] The state, as such, and the townships spent $42,605,517.19 in the war; and private contributions of citizens are reckoned in addition at about $9,000,000, exclusive of the aid to families of soldiers, paid then and later by the state.

Since the close of the war Massachusetts has remained generally steadfast in adherence to the principles of the Republican party, and has continued to develop its resources. Navigation, which was formerly the distinctive feature of its business prosperity, has under the pressure of laws and circumstances given place to manufactures, and the development of carrying facilities on the land rather than on the sea.

In the Spanish-American War of 1898 Massachusetts furnished 11,780 soldiers and sailors, though her quota was but 7388; supplementing from her own treasury the pay accorded them by the national government.

No statement of the influence which Massachusetts has exerted upon the American people, through intellectual activity, and even through vagary, is complete without an enumeration of the names which, to Americans at least, are the signs of this influence and activity. In science the state can boast of John Winthrop, the most eminent of colonial scientists; Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford); Nathaniel Bowditch, the translator of Laplace; Benjamin Peirce and Morse the electrician; not to include an adopted citizen in Louis Agassiz. In history, Winthrop and Bradford laid the foundations of her story in the very beginning; but the best example of the colonial period is Thomas Hutchinson, and in later days Bancroft, Sparks, Palfrey, Prescott, Motley and Parkman. In poetry, a pioneer of the modern spirit in American verse was Richard Henry Dana; and later came Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell and Holmes. In philosophy and the science of living, Jonathan Edwards, Franklin, Channing, Emerson and Theodore Parker. In education, Horace Mann; in philanthropy, S. G. Howe. In oratory, James Otis, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy, junr., Webster, Choate, Everett, Sumner, Winthrop and Wendell Phillips; and, in addition, in statesmanship, Samuel Adams, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. In fiction, Hawthorne and Mrs Stowe. In law, Story, Parsons and Shaw. In scholarship, Ticknor, William M. Hunt, Horatio Greenough, W. W. Story and Thomas Ball. The "transcendental movement," which sprang out of German affiliations and produced as one of its results the well-known community of Brook Farm (1841-1847), under the leadership of Dr George Ripley, was a Massachusetts growth, and in passing away it left, instead of traces of an organization, a sentiment and an aspiration for higher thinking which gave Emerson his following. When Massachusetts was called upon to select for Statuary Hall in the capitol at Washington two figures from the long line of her worthies, she chose as her fittest representatives John Winthrop, the type of Puritanism and state-builder, and Samuel Adams (though here the choice was difficult between Samuel Adams and John Adams) as her greatest leader in the heroic period of the War of Independence.

Governors of Plymouth Colony

(Chosen annually by the people).

John Carver 1620-1621
William Bradford 1621-1633
Edward Winslow 1633-1634
Thomas Prence (or Prince) 1634-1635
William Bradford 1635-1636
Edward Winslow 1636-1637
William Bradford 1637-1638
Thomas Prence (or Prince) 1638-1639
William Bradford 1639-1644
Edward Winslow 1644-1645
William Bradford 1645-1657
Thomas Prence (or Prince) 1657-1673
Josiah Winslow 1673-1680
Thomas Hinckley 1680-1686
Sir Edmund Andros 1686-1689
Thomas Hinckley 1689-1692

Governors of Massachusetts

(Under the First Charter--chosen annually)

John Endecott[24] 1629-1630
John Winthrop 1630-1634
Thomas Dudley 1634-1635
John Haynes 1635-1636
Henry Vane 1636-1637
John Winthrop 1637-1640
Thomas Dudley 1640-1641
Richard Bellingham 1641-1642
John Winthrop 1642-1644
John Endecott 1644-1645
Thomas Dudley 1645-1646
John Winthrop 1646-1649
John Endecott 1649-1650
Thomas Dudley 1650-1651
John Endecott 1651-1654
Richard Bellingham 1654-1655
John Endecott 1655-1665
Richard Bellingham 1665-1672
John Leverett (acting, 1672-1673) 1672-1679
Simon Bradstreet 1679-1686
------
Sir Edmund Andros 1686-1689
Simon Bradstreet 1689-1692

Under Second Charter--appointed by the Crown[25]

Sir William Phips 1692-1694
William Stoughton (acting) 1694-1699
Richard Coote, earl of Bellomont 1699-1700
William Stoughton (acting) 1700-1701
Joseph Dudley 1702-1715
William Tailer (acting) 1715-1716
Samuel Shute 1716-1722
William Dummer (acting) 1722-1728
William Burnet 1728-1729
William Dummer (acting) 1729-1730
William Tailer (acting) 1730
Jonathan Belcher 1730-1741
William Shirley 1741-1749
Spencer Phips (acting) 1749-1753
William Shirley 1753-1756
Spencer Phips (acting) 1756-1757
Thomas Pownal 1757-1760
Thomas Hutchinson (acting) 1760
Sir Francis Bernard, Bart 1760-1769
Thomas Hutchinson (acting) 1769-1771
Thomas Hutchinson 1771-1774
Thomas Gage[26] 1774-1775

Under the Constitution

John Hancock 1780-1785
James Bowdoin 1785-1787
John Hancock 1787-1793
Samuel Adams (acting) 1793-1794
Samuel Adams 1794-1797
Increase Sumner Federalist 1797-1799
Moses Gill (lieut-
governor; acting) " 1799-1800
Caleb Strong " 1800-1807
Jas Sullivan Democratic-Republican 1807-1808
Levi Lincoln (acting) " 1808-1809
Christopher Gore Federalist 1809-1810
Elbridge Gerry Democratic-Republican 1810-1812
Caleb Strong Federalist 1812-1816
John Brooks " 1816-1823
William Eustis Democratic-Republican 1823-1825
Levi Lincoln " 1825-1834
John Davis Whig 1834-1835
Edward Everett " 1836-1840
Marcus Morton Democrat 1840-1841
John Davis Whig 1841-1843
Marcus Morton Democrat 1843-1844
George N Briggs Whig 1844-1851
George S Boutwell Free-Soil Democrat 1851-1853
John H Clifford Whig 1853-1854
Emory Washburn " 1854-1855
Henry J Gardner Know-Nothing 1855-1858
Nathaniel P Banks Republican 1858-1861
Marcus Morton Democrat 1840-1841
John A. Andrew Republican 1861-1866
Alexander H. Bullock " 1866-1869
William Claflin " 1869-1872
William B. Washburn " 1872-1874
Thomas Talbot (acting) " 1874-1875
William Gaston Democrat 1875-1876
Alexander H. Rice Republican 1876-1879
Thomas Talbot " 1879-1880
John Davis Long " 1880-1883
Benjamin F. Butler Democrat 1883-1884
George D. Robinson Republican 1884-1887
Oliver Ames " 1887-1890
John Q. A. Brackett " 1890-1891
William E. Russell Democrat 1891-1894
Frederic T. Greenhalge Republican 1894-1896
Roger Wolcott " 1896-1897
Roger Wolcott " 1897-1900
W. Murray Crane " 1900-1903
John L. Bates " 1903-1905
William L. Douglas Democrat 1905-1906
Curtis L. Guild Republican 1906-1909
Eben S. Draper " 1909-1911
Eugene N. Foss Democrat 1911-