36
principle of liberty was nowhere more extensively applied than in the states of New England.
It was generally allowed at that period that the territories of the New World belonged to that European nation which had been the first to discover them. Nearly the whole coast of North America thus became a British possession toward the end of the sixteenth century. The means used by the English government to people these new domains were of several kinds: the king sometimes appointed a governor of his own choice, who ruled a portion of the New World in the name and under the immediate orders of the crown;[1] this is the colonial system adopted by the other countries of Europe. Sometimes grants of certain tracts were made by the crown to an individual or to a company,[2] in which case all the civil and political power fell into the hands of one or more persons, who, under the inspection and control of the crown, sold the lands and governed the inhabitants. Lastly, a third system consisted in allowing a certain number of emigrants to constitute a political society under the protection of the mother-country, and to govern themselves in whatever was not contrary to her laws. This mode of colonization, so remarkably favourable to liberty, was adopted only in New England.[3]
In 1628,[4] a charter of this kind was granted by Charles I. to the emigrants who went to form the colony of Massachusetts. But, in general, charters were not given to the colonies of New England till they had acquired a certain existence. Plymouth, Providence, New Haven, the state of Connecticut, and that of Rhode
- ↑ This was the case in the state of New York.
- ↑ Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, were in this situation. See Pitkin's History, vol. i., pp. 11-31.
- ↑
See the work entitled, “Historical Collection of State Papers and other Authentic
Documents intended as Materials for a History of the United States of America,”
by Ebenezer Hazard, Philadelphia, 1792, for a great number of documents relating to
the commencement of the colonies, which are valuable from their contents and their
authenticity; among them are the various charters granted by the king of England,
and the first acts of the local governments.
See also the analysis of all these charters given by Mr. Story, judge of the supreme court of the United States, in the introduction to his Commentary on the Constitution of the United States. It results from these documents that the principles of representative government and the external forms of political liberty were introduced into all the colonies at their origin. These principles were more fully acted upon in the North than in the South, but they existed everywhere.
- ↑ See Pitkin's History, p. 35. See the History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay by Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 9.
