Chapter VI (2)

In January, 1639, the three towns adopted a constitution in which Massachusetts acquiesced, thus practically abandoning her claims of sovereignty over them. This Connecticut constitution was undoubtedly, as Fiske says, "the first written constitution known to history that created a government,"--the "Mayflower" compact being rather an agreement to accept a constitution, while Magna Charta did not create a government. Bryce characterizes the Connecticut document as "the oldest truly political constitution in America." It is noticeable for the fact that it made no reference to the king or to any charter or patent; it was simply an agreement between colonists in neighboring towns, independent of any but royal authority, as to the manner of their local and general self-government. The governor and six magistrates (another name for assistants) were to be elected by a majority of the whole body of free men; but later, with the spread of the colony, voting by proxies was allowed. The governor alone need be a church member, and he was not to serve for two years in succession; but this restriction on re-election was abolished in favor of the younger Winthrop in 1660. Each town might admit freemen by popular vote; and it is noticeable that despite the fact that the original settlers of Connecticut came as organized congregations, with their ministers and elders, it was ordained there should be no religious restriction on suffrage, which was thus made almost unrestricted; the towns were to be represented in the General Court by two deputies each; the practical administration was in the hands of the governor and his assistants, who were also members of the General Court. In time the system became bicameral, the deputies forming the lower, and the council the upper house; the towns were allowed all powers not expressly granted to the commonwealth, the affairs of each being executed by a board of "chief inhabitants," acting as magistrates. The government of Connecticut was on the whole somewhat more liberal and democratic than that of Massachusetts, and was the model upon which many American States were afterwards built.

Sidenote: Hooker's influence.

More than to any other man, the credit for this epoch-making constitution belongs to the Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, the leading spirit of the colony. He argued that "the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people;" that "the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance;" and that "they who have power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them." These are truisms to-day, but in 1638 they were the utterances of a political prophet.

Sidenote: Characteristics of Connecticut.

Under her liberal constitutional government, based upon the voice of the people, Connecticut was from the first a practically independent republic. The public officers were plain, honest men, who acceptably administered the affairs of the colony with small cost. The colonists were shrewd in political management, frugal in their expenditures, hard-working, and ingenious. Education flourished, a severe morality obtained, and religious persecution was unknown. Connecticut was noted among the colonies for its prosperity, independence, and enlightenment.

59. New Haven founded (1637-1644).

Sidenote: Origin of the colony.

Theophilus Eaton was a London merchant "of fair estate, and of great esteem for religion and wisdom in outward affairs." He was at one time an ambassador to the Danish court, and had been one of the original assistants of the Massachusetts Company, although not active in its affairs. John Davenport had been an ordained minister in London; he turned Puritan, and on his resignation in 1633 went to Holland. These two men formed a congregation, composed for the most part of middle-class Londoners, who resolved to migrate to America, there to set up a State founded on scriptural models. The Plymouth and Massachusetts men had started out with this same idea; but as the result of circumstances, had made compromises which Eaton and Davenport could not countenance.

Sidenote: The plantation covenant.

In July, 1637, the two leaders arrived in Boston with a small company of their disciples, among whom were several men of wealth and good social position, but extremely narrow and bigoted in religious faith. They have been styled the Brahmins of New England Puritanism. They did not deem it practicable to settle in Massachusetts, and the following spring (March, 1638) sailed to Long Island Sound and established an independent settlement on the site of New Haven, thirty miles west of the Connecticut river. For a year their only bond of union was a "plantation covenant" to obey the Scriptures in all things.

Sidenote: The Constitution.

In October, 1639, there was adopted a constitution, in the making of which Davenport had the chief hand. The governor and four magistrates were to be elected by the freemen, who were, as in Massachusetts, church members; trial by jury was rejected, because it lacked scriptural authority; and it was formally declared "that the Word of God shall be the only rule attended unto in ordering the affairs of government." Eaton was chosen governor, and held the office by annual election until his death, twenty years later.

Sidenote: Neighboring towns.

The neighborhood of New Haven was soon settled by other immigrants, most of whom were also strict constructionists of the Scriptures, while a few others were as liberal in their ideas as the people of the Connecticut valley. Guilford was established (1639) seventeen miles to the north, and Milford (1639) eleven miles westward; Stamford (1640), well on towards New York, followed, while Southold was boldly planted (1640) on Long Island, opposite Guilford, in territory claimed by the Dutch. As each town was as well a church, these were for some years little independent communities, founded on the New Haven model. In 1643, however, they formed a union with New Haven, and a system of representation was introduced. Each town sent up deputies to the General Court, in which also sat the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, elected by the whole body of freemen; yet a majority of either the deputies or the magistrates might veto a measure. Local magistrates--seven to each town, known as "pillars of the church"--tried petty cases, but important suits were passed upon by the assistants. The "seven pillars" were the autocrats of their several towns, and colonial affairs were also practically in the hands of the select few who controlled the church.

Sidenote: Peter's False Blue Laws.

At the meeting of the General Court in April, 1644, the magistrates in the confederation were ordered to observe "the judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses." This injunction afterwards gave rise to an absurd report, circulated in 1781 by Rev. Samuel Peters, a Tory refugee, that the New Haven statutes were of peculiar quaintness and severity. For nearly one hundred years Peters's fable of the New Haven Blue Laws was accepted as historic truth.

Sidenote: Characteristics of New Haven.

At first, New Haven failed to prosper; but after a few years, with the increase of trade, better times prevailed, and by the close of the century the town was noted for the wealth of its inhabitants and their fine houses. Education was greatly encouraged, and there were considerable shipping interests; but the ecclesiastical system was peculiar, and suffrage greatly restricted. There were, in consequence, frequent outbursts of dissatisfaction among the people. The colony thus had conspicuous elements of weakness, and was finally absorbed by Connecticut.

60. Rhode Island founded (1636-1654).

Sidenote: Roger Williams.

In 1636, with five of his disciples, Roger Williams, driven from Massachusetts as a reformer of a dangerous type, established the town of Providence, at the head of Narragansett Bay.

Sidenote: Anne Hutchinson.

The following year (1637) a party of Anne Hutchinson's followers--also expelled from Massachusetts because of heretical opinions--settled on the island of Aquedneck (afterwards Rhode Island), eighteen miles to the south. Mrs. Hutchinson joined them in 1638, and the town was eventually called Portsmouth.

Sidenote: Newport established.

Both communities at once attracted from Massachusetts people who had either been expelled from that colony or were not in entire harmony with it, and by the close of 1638 Providence contained sixty persons, and Portsmouth nearly as many. The next year fifty-nine of the Portsmouth people, headed by the chief magistrate, Coddington, dissenting from some of Mrs. Hutchinson's "new heresies," withdrew to the southern end of the island and settled Newport; but the two towns reunited in 1640, under the name of Rhode Island, with Coddington as governor.

Sidenote: The Providence agreement.

Each of these colonies, Providence and Rhode Island, was at first an independent body politic. It is interesting to note their original compacts. The Providence agreement (1636), signed by Roger Williams and twelve of his sympathizers, was as follows: "We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the Town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellowship, and such others whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things." Five freemen, called arbitrators, managed public affairs, and for some years there appear to have been no fixed rules for their guidance.

Sidenote: The Portsmouth declaration.

At Portsmouth the people united in the following declaration: "We do here solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, incorporate ourselves into a body politic, and as He shall help will submit our persons, lives, and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His, given us in His holy words of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." The freemen conducted public affairs in town meeting, with a secretary, a clerk, and a chief magistrate. Newport was similarly organized; but when Newport and Portsmouth reunited, a more complex government was instituted. A General Court was then established, in which sat the governor, the deputy-governor, and four assistants,--one town choosing the governor and two of the assistants, and the other the deputy-governor and the remaining assistants; the freemen composed the body of the court, and settled even the most trivial cases. In 1641 it was declared that "it is in the power of the body of the freemen orderly assembled, or the part of them, to make and constitute just laws by which they shall be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man." At the same session an order was adopted "that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established."

Sidenote: An asylum for sectaries.

By the other colonies Providence and Rhode Island were deemed hot-beds of anarchy. Persons holding all manner of Protestant theological notions flocked thither in considerable numbers, and it is true that for many years there were hot contentions between them, often to the disturbance of public order. Despite these years of bickerings, Providence and Rhode Island prospered.

Sidenote: Establishment of Providence Plantations.

Through the exertions of Roger Williams, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, with a new town called Warwick were united under one charter (1644), as the colony of Providence Plantations. This liberal document, issued by the Parliamentary Committee on the Colonies, gave to the inhabitants along Narragansett Bay authority to rule themselves "by such form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and condition." Larger power could not have been wished for. By a curious provision, adopted in 1647, a law had to be proposed at the General Court; it was then sent round to the towns for the freemen to pass upon it, thus giving the voters a voice in the conduct of affairs, without the necessity of attending court. A majority of freemen in any one town could defeat the measure. A code of laws resembling the common laws of England, and with few references to biblical precedents, passed safely through the ordeal in 1647; one important section provided that "all men may walk as their conscience persuades them."

Sidenote: The Coddington faction.

The following year Coddington, as the head of a faction, obtained a separate charter for Newport and Portsmouth,--much to the disgust of many of the inhabitants of those as well as of the other towns. A bitter feud lasted until 1654, when Williams once more appeared as peacemaker and secured the reunion of all the towns under the general charter of 1644, with himself as president. The old law code was restored.

Sidenote: Characteristics of Rhode Island.

Rhode Island was founded by a religious outcast, and always remained as an asylum for those sectaries who could find no home elsewhere. The purpose was noble, and Williams persisted in his policy, despite the fact that life was often made uncomfortable for him by his ill-assorted fellow-colonists, who were continually bickering with each other. Throughout the seventeenth century Rhode Island was a hot-bed of disorder. Fanaticism not only expressed itself in religion, but in politics and society; and no scheme was so wild as to find no adherents in this confused medley. The condition of the colony served as a warning to its neighbors, seeming to confirm the wisdom of their theocratic methods.

61. Maine founded (1622-1658).

Sidenote: Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth in England, became interested in New England, we have seen, as early as 1605. Ten years later he assisted John Smith in organizing an unsuccessful voyage to the northern coast; in 1620 we find him a member of the council of the Plymouth Company; in 1622 he and John Mason (not the hero of the Pequod war), both of them Churchmen and strong friends of the king, obtained a grant of the country lying between the Merrimack and Kennebec Rivers; and it was Gorges who sent out Maverick to settle on Noddle's Island, and Blackstone to hold the Boston peninsula. Later (1629), Mason obtained an individual grant from the Plymouth Council of the territory between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua (New Hampshire), and Gorges that from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec (Maine); these grants were similar in character to the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company. When the Plymouth Company threw up its charter in 1634, and New England was parcelled out (1635) among the members of the council, Gorges and Mason secured a confirmation of their former personal grants. Mason died a few months later, leaving the settlements in his tract to be annexed to Massachusetts in 1641.

Sidenote: Becomes Lord Proprietor of Maine.

In April, 1639, Gorges obtained a provincial charter from the king, conferring upon him the title of Lord Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine, his domain to extend, as before, from the Kennebec to the Piscataqua, and backward one hundred and twenty miles from the coast. He received almost absolute authority over the people of his province, who were then but three hundred in number. Saco, established by him about the year 1623, was the principal settlement, and contained one half of the population; while a half-dozen smaller hamlets, chiefly of his creation, were scattered along the neighboring shore, inhabited by fishermen, hunters, and traders. The greater part of these people were adherents of the king and the Established Church. Notwithstanding Gorges's long-sustained effort to attract men of wealth to his plantations, the province was not as flourishing as its neighbors to the south.

Sidenote: His cumbrous constitution.

Gorges amused his old age by drafting a cumbrous Constitution for his people. He was to make laws in conjunction with the freemen; the laws of England were to prevail in cases not covered by the statutes; the Church of England was to be the State religion; all Englishmen were to be allowed fishing privileges; the proprietor was to establish manorial courts; and he was also empowered, of his own motion, to levy taxes, raise troops, and declare war. In examining the official machinery which Gorges sought to erect in Maine, we are reminded of Locke's constitution for the Carolinas; the proprietor was to be represented by a deputy-governor, under whom was to be a long line of officers with high-sounding titles, these to form the council; with them were to meet the deputies selected by the freeholders. The provinces were to be cut up into bailiwicks or counties, hundreds, parishes, and tithings; justice in each bailiwick was to be administered by a lieutenant and eight magistrates, the nominees of the proprietor or his deputy, and under each was a staff of minor functionaries. There were almost enough officers provided for in Gorges's plan to give every one of his subjects a public position.

Sidenote: The colony neglected.

The proprietor himself never visited America; he was represented by his son Thomas as deputy-governor. It was impossible for the latter, however, to carry all of his father's plans into effect, and gradually the province sank into disorder and neglect. Its towns were finally absorbed by Massachusetts (1652-1658).

Sidenote: Characteristics of Maine.

The settlers brought out to people Maine were the servants of individuals or companies having a tract of land to be occupied and cultivated, fisheries to conduct, and fur-trade to prosecute. They did not come to found a church or build a state, and such institutions as they developed were the immediate outcome of their necessities. They had little sympathy or communication with their neighbors of Massachusetts and Plymouth.

62. New Hampshire founded (1620-1685).

Sidenote: Origin of the first settlements.

We have seen that John Mason was given a grant in 1629 of the country between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua. In his scheme for colonizing the tract, Gorges was associated with him. But David Thomson and three Plymouth fur-traders had already gained a footing at Rye in 1622, under a grant from the Plymouth Council. Dover had been founded before 1628 by the brothers Hilton, Puritan fish-dealers in London; and some of Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents, exiles from Massachusetts, founded Exeter and Hampton. In 1630 Neal, as colonizing agent of Mason and Gorges, settled at Portsmouth, on the Piscataqua, with a large party of farmers and fishermen, all of them Church of England men; and it is probable that this colony absorbed the neighboring settlement at Rye. By the time the proprietors dissolved partnership in 1635 (page 150, § 61), considerable property had been accumulated by them here, as in the inventory of their possessions at Portsmouth we find twenty-two cannons, two hundred and fifty small-arms, forty-eight fishing-boats, forty horses, fifty-four goats, nearly two hundred sheep, and over a hundred cattle. This argues a large establishment. Upon the death of Mason, later in the year, the Piscataqua colony was left to its own guidance. All of the New Hampshire towns were from the first independent communities, governed much after the fashion of the other English towns to the south of them.

Sidenote: Characteristics of New Hampshire.

The beginnings of New Hampshire were the results of commercial enterprise in England and theological dissensions in Massachusetts. The inhabitants of the several towns had little in common, and held different political and religious views. Planted under various auspices, when they grew to importance they were the subject of long struggles for jurisdiction. It would be tiresome to trace the history of these disputes; suffice it to say that after many changes the settlements on or near the Piscataqua were (1641-1643) incorporated with Massachusetts, which ruled them with marked discretion, and refrained from meddling with their religious views. In 1679, as the result of disputes growing out of the revival of the Mason claim in England, New Hampshire was turned into a royal province, but in 1685 was reunited to Massachusetts. As to the character of the people of New Hampshire, what has been said in regard to those of Maine may in a great measure also be applied to them.