chapters in American history. By the end of the first third of the eighteenth century, ten of the thirteen colonies had virtually the same type of government. In the royal colonies the governors were appointed by the king, and in Pennsylvania and Maryland, the two remaining proprietary colonies, by the proprietor. The governors had about the same duties in all these colonies. They had general oversight of the work of administration, they were supposed to enforce the laws, and they acted as commanders of the militia. Incidentally, they were expected to watch over the interests of the Crown or of the proprietors—and to guard against possible encroachments of the colonial assemblies. The chief executive in each one of these colonies represented the principle of external control.

Next to the governor stood the Council, appointed by the king in all the royal colonies, except in Massachusetts. This body had a dual function. When the legislature was in session, it served as the upper house; at other times it acted as the governor's advisory body. The members of the Council were colonials, selected generally from among the wealthier or more aristocratic citizens, usually on the governor's recommendation. In general the governor and the Council stood together, although that was not always the case. Occupying as it did a middle position in the government, the Council was the connecting unit between royal and local interests.

Following the Council came the elective branch of the legislature, the lower house, virtually the same in all the colonies, in spite of the different names attached to it: House of Burgesses in Virginia, Assembly in New York, or House of Representatives in Massachusetts. This was the body representing, not the people, but the voters, in other words, the property owners. Suffrage qualifications were not uniform in the various colonies, but not more than a sixth of the population voted in any, and probably the average was about one tenth. These elective assemblies shared with the councils the right of initiating all legislation, except financial, which custom reserved to the lower house alone. All legislation passed by the colonial assemblies was subject to the governor's veto, and, if it passed him, to disallowance by the Privy Council.

The key to colonial constitutional history during the eighteenth century is to be found in a shifting of the balance of power within the framework just described. In all the colonies the elective branch of the legislature increased in power, at the expense of the governor

and Council. At first, some of these assemblies were distinctly weak; in Virginia, for example, the first House of Burgesses had no legal rights of its own; it enjoyed only such limited authority as the London Company cared to confer upon it. In the other colonies, with the exception of Plymouth, a royal charter granted whatever legislative power the assemblies had at the start. They exercised even the limited power which they had in the beginning, not by virtue of any inherent legal right, but by virtue of a concession from some authority, ordinarily the king, in England. Even as late as 1690, no colonial legislature could pass as the equal of Parliament.

By 1760, these elective assemblies had raised themselves to a position superior to that of both the governor and the Council, so that they became the dominant factors in colonial government. The results of this growth were never clearly appreciated in England, but they were fully apparent to the colonial political leaders. From their point of view the local assemblies were just as important, and just as powerful, each in its own field, as was Parliament in England. If English officials pointed to Parliament as the heir to the king's power, colonial legislators could point to the parallel development in the North American colonies, and on the American side of the Atlantic the theory of Parliamentary supremacy never took hold.

The preeminence of the lower house in colonial government was achieved, as was that of Parliament in England, after long contests with the executive power. The steps in this evolutionary process are fairly clear. In general, the colonial leaders aimed at frequent elections, so that the legislators could be kept in moderately close touch with the voters. In Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, for example, there were annual elections, in North and South Carolina biennial; the other colonies tried to secure triennial elections, at least.

Along with frequent elections, the colonial legislatures insisted upon their right to pass judgment on the qualifications of their own members. By doing this they could refuse to seat representatives chosen by corrupt methods, and they could keep out candidates whom the governors might try to work in by clever political chicanery.

More important still in the process of legislative advancement was the effective use made of financial power. Following in a course parallel with that of Parliament, the American assemblies secured first of all control over taxation. They then began the process of making specific appropriations, to prevent the governors from carry

ing out their projects. In this connection, the legislatures aimed at a large measure of administrative control, especially in financial matters. Several of the colonial legislatures got control of the treasurer. Virginia did this in 1704, New York in 1715, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas before 1750. Sometimes the Speaker of the assembly was made the treasurer of the colony.

The lower house appropriated money for all the salaries, including those of the governor, council, and judges. The possibilities in this power were almost without limit. It was an unusual governor who would stand out against a policy favored by the legislature when he knew that by doing so he would deprive himself of his own salary. The average governor was far more likely to yield to pressure judiciously applied, and then turn over to the Privy Council the burden of blocking a popular measure. Thus by paying or refusing to pay salaries, the legislators made themselves masters of the executive branch of the government.

In England the promoters of Parliamentary supremacy had not been long in making the discovery that some sort of organization was necessary to enable them to use their newly-acquired power. The legislature itself was too large to function smoothly without leadership. In fact, it is difficult to get any constructive action out of any fairly large body of human beings, when they are left to themselves. Hence there arise cliques in private gatherings, caucusses in legislatures, and so-called "machines" in government.

The success of the colonial legislatures in their contests with executive power was due in large measure to a full appreciation of this need of organization. Victories were won, not by the legislature as a whole, but by a comparatively few active-minded members. As for the methods which they used to get results, they were the familiar, much criticized devices of "back-stairs" politics.

In a number of colonial assemblies, notably those of Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina, little self-constituted, informal committees, consisting of leaders in the legislature, practically assumed control of the governments. The operations of the little knot of leaders can be clearly traced in Massachusetts, just before the Revolution. A group of half a dozen men, with Samuel Adams in the lead, decided upon the legislative program and also upon what the executive officials should be allowed to do.

In New York, an informal joint committee held frequent meetings

during the session. These members made out the list of legislative business, dictated the appointment of officials, controlled the payment of salaries, and incidentally controlled the whole government, in its executive as well as its legislative branches. In 1766, Governor Cadwallader Colden complained that "The ruleing Faction gain an absolute influence over the officers of Government by the Sallary of every officer being every year voted or appointed by the Assembly, lessened or encreased, or refused, as they like the Man in office, and the Fund is yearly raised & applied for that purpose."

In Virginia the efforts of the tidewater planters to dominate the whole government made it almost impossible for the executive to get any results. He was subject to their orders. After one of his contests with the House of Burgesses, Governor Dinwiddie retired, somewhat the worse for the encounter, with the complaint that "such wrong headed People (I thank God) I never had to do with before." The "wrong headed People" in question were John Robinson, Speaker of the House and Treasurer of the colony, with his associates, the group that ruled Virginia until the efforts of Patrick Henry broke it up.

In North Carolina there was another joint committee, selfappointed like the one in New York, busily engaged in directing the government. The royal governor was helpless in a contest with this group. The members forced their measures upon him, in spite of his opposition, by putting them in as riders on the appropriation bills, and through their control of salaries they had a firm grip on the administration. In both colonies, although there was no official institutional basis for such a thing, miniature cabinets were in full operation.

This increase in the power of the elective branches of the colonial legislatures threatened to upset the "imperial constitution," and to make the colonies virtually independent in everything except commercial matters. On that account the subject was discussed frequently by the Board of Trade, and efforts were made to reëstablish the original balance. The Board drafted long sets of instructions for the royal governors, suggesting matters for colonial legislation, or insisting upon the veto of certain types of laws. But it took a courageous governor to face a determined assembly, and the control of the purse enjoyed by the latter generally meant the violation of the instructions.

By the eighteenth century most of the colonial legislatures were required to send their laws to England, where they were subject to disallowance by the Privy Council. In this way the effects of the governor's surrender to uncomfortable pressure might be overcome. The Privy Council disallowed laws because they were inconsistent with laws of England, because they conflicted with certain principles of colonial administration, or because they ran counter to English economic interests. In this way the central authority, not unlike the federal Supreme Court of to-day, tried to prevent the local legislatures from running off on too many tangents.

Of course the colonies were never represented in Parliament, but they did maintain agents in England, who were in some respects like the delegates which the territorial legislatures sent to Washington in later years. They were supposed to be ready to provide information when called upon, and to set forth the side of the colonies in case of dispute. The agents were appointed and paid by the colonial legislatures. Sometimes they were Englishmen, sometimes Americans. Not infrequently two or more colonies would have a common agent. Such were the main outlines of royal colonial government. The system was loose jointed, and in its operations not always satisfactory. But it had the advantage of flexibility, so that under ordinary conditions it worked perhaps as well as any system does. The test of real success, however, comes with the crises, and in these as later events showed, the defects of the system were revealed with uncomfortable clearness.

Of the various types of colonial growth, this evolution of the elective assemblies is one of the most significant. In the long-continued contests with the governors, they provided the colonial leaders with the best kind of practical political training. For a generation, and more in some colonies, the politicians had been gaining experience in what some people like to describe as self-government. Local leaders were more conspicuous than the governors, and the voters came to rely upon them instead of upon the royal officials. In case of need, they were prepared to take the government into their own hands, and they possessed the requisite training and skill to operate it successfully. When the Revolution came, both governments and qualified leaders were ready for the break.