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colonies a chronic quarrel had been kept up between the governors
appointed by the king and the legislators elected by the people, and
this had made the "one-man power" very unpopular. Besides, it was
something that had been unpopular in ancient Greece and Rome, and it
was thought to be essentially unrepublican in principle. Accordingly
our great grandfathers preferred to entrust executive powers to
committees rather than to single individuals; and when they assigned
an important office to an individual they usually took pains to
curtail its power and influence. This disposition was visible in our
early attempts to organize city governments like little republics.
First, in the board of aldermen and the common council we had a
two-chambered legislature. Then, lest the mayor should become
dangerous, the veto power was at first generally withheld from him,
and his appointments of executive officers needed to be confirmed by
at least one branch of the city council. These executive officers,
moreover, as already observed, were subject to more or less control or
oversight from committees of the city council.
[Sidenote: Scattering and weakening of responsibility.]
Now this system, in depriving the mayor of power, deprived him of
responsibility, and left the responsibility nowhere in particular. In
making appointments the mayor and council would come to some sort of
compromise with each other and exchange favours. Perhaps for private
reasons incompetent or dishonest officers would get appointed, and
if the citizens ventured to complain the mayor would say that he
appointed as good men as the council could be induced to confirm,
and the council would declare their willingness to confirm good
appointments if the mayor could only be persuaded to make them.
[Sidenote: Committees inefficient for executive purposes.]
Then the want of subordination of the different executive departments
made it impossible to secure unity of administration or to carry out
any consistent and generally intelligible policy. Between the various
executive officers and visiting committees there was apt to be a
more or less extensive interchange of favours, or what is called
"log-rolling;" and sums of money would be voted by the council only
thus to leak away in undertakings the propriety or necessity of which
was perhaps hard to determine. There was no responsible head who could
be quickly and sharply called to account. Each official's hands were
so tied that whatever went wrong he could declare that it was not his
fault. The confusion was enhanced by the practice of giving executive
work to committees or boards instead of single officers. Benjamin
Franklin used to say, if you wish to be sure that a thing is done, go
and do it yourself. Human experience certainly proves that this is the
only absolutely safe way. The next best way is to send some competent
person to do it for you; and if there is no one competent to be
had, you do the next best thing and entrust the work to the least
incompetent person you can find. If you entrust it to a committee your
prospect of getting it done is diminished and it grows less if
you enlarge your committee. By the time you have got a group of
committees, independent of one another and working at cross purposes,
you have got Dickens's famous Circumlocution Office, where the great
object in life was "how not to do it."
[Sidenote 1: Increase of city debts.]
[Sidenote 2: Attempt to cure the evil by state interference;
experience of New York.]
Amid the general dissatisfaction over the extravagance and
inefficiency of our city governments, people's attention was first
drawn to the rapid and alarming increase of city indebtedness in
various parts of the country. A heavy debt may ruin a city as surely
as an individual, for it raises the rate of taxation, and thus, as was
above pointed out, it tends to frighten people and capital away from
the city. At first it was sought to curb the recklessness of city
councils in incurring lavish expenditures by giving the mayor a veto
power. Laws were also passed limiting the amount of debt which a city
would be allowed to incur under any circumstances. Clothing the
mayor with the veto power is now seen to have been a wise step; and
arbitrary limitation of the amount of debt, though a clumsy expedient,
is confessedly a necessary one. But beyond this, it was in some
instances attempted to take the management of some departments of city
business out of the hands of the city and put them into the hands of
the state legislature. The most notable instance of this was in New
York in 1857. The results, there and elsewhere, have been generally
regarded as unsatisfactory. After a trial of thirty years the
experience of New York has proved that a state legislature is not
competent to take proper care of the government of cities. Its
members do not know enough about the details of each locality, and
consequently local affairs are left to the representatives from each
locality, with "log-rolling" as the inevitable result. A man fresh
from his farm on the edge of the Adirondacks knows nothing about the
problems pertaining to electric wires in Broadway, or to rapid transit
between Harlem and the Battery; and his consent to desired legislation
on such points can very likely be obtained only by favouring some
measure which he thinks will improve the value of his farm, or perhaps
by helping him to debauch the civil service by getting some neighbour
appointed to a position for which he is not qualified. All this is
made worse by the fact that the members of a state government are
generally less governed by a sense of responsibility toward the
citizens of a particular city than even the worst local government
that can be set up in such a city.[12]
[Footnote 1: It is not intended to deny that there may be instances
in which the state government may advantageously participate in the
government of cities. It may be urged that, in the case of great
cities, like New York or Boston, many people who are not residents
either do business in the city or have vast business interests there,
and thus may be as deeply interested in its welfare as any of the
voters. It may also be said that state provisions for city government
do not always work badly. There are many competent judges who approve
of the appointment of police commissioners by the executive of
Massachusetts. There are generally two sides to a question; and to
push a doctrine to extremes is to make oneself a _doctrinaire_
rather than a wise citizen. But experience clearly shows that in all
doubtful cases it is safer to let the balance incline in favour of
local self-government than the other way.]
Moreover, even if legislatures were otherwise competent to manage the
local affairs of cities, they have not time enough, amid the pressure
of other duties, to do justice to such matters. In 1870 the number of
acts passed by the New York legislature was 808. Of these, 212, or
more than one fourth of the whole, related to cities and villages. The
808 acts, when printed, filled about 2,000 octavo pages; and of these
the 212 acts filled more than 1,500 pages. This illustrates what
I said above about the vast quantity of details which have to be
regulated in municipal government. Here we have more than three
fourths of the volume of state-legislation devoted to local affairs;
and it hardly need be added that a great part of these enactments were
worse than worthless because they were made hastily and
without due consideration,--though not always, perhaps, without what
lawyers call _a_ consideration.[13]
[Footnote 13: Nothing could be further from my thought than to cast any
special imputation upon the New York legislature, which is probably a
fair average specimen of law-making bodies. The theory of legislative
bodies, as laid down in text-books, is that they are assembled for the
purpose of enacting laws for the welfare of the community in
general. In point of fact they seldom rise to such a lofty height of
disinterestedness. Legislation is usually a mad scramble in which the
final result, be it good or bad, gets evolved out of compromises and
bargains among a swarm of clashing local and personal interests.
The "consideration" may be anything from log-rolling to bribery. In
American legislatures it is to be hoped that downright bribery is
rare. As for log-rolling, or exchange of favours, there are many
phases of it in which that which may be perfectly innocent shades
off by almost imperceptible degrees into that which is unseemly or
dishonourable or even criminal; and it is in this hazy region that
Satan likes to set his traps for the unwary pilgrim.]
[Sidenote: Tweed Ring in New York.]
The experience of New York thus proved that state intervention and
special legislation did not mend matters. It did not prevent the
shameful rule of the Tweed Ring from 1868 to 1871, when a small band
of conspirators got themselves elected or appointed to the principal
city offices, and, having had their own corrupt creatures chosen
judges of the city courts, proceeded to rob the taxpayers at their
leisure. By the time they were discovered and brought to justice,
their stealings amounted to many millions of dollars, and the rate of
taxation had risen to more than two per cent.
[Sidenote: New experiments.]
The discovery of these wholesale robberies, and of other villainies
on a smaller scale in other cities, has led to much discussion of the
problems of municipal government, and to many attempts at practical
reform. The present is especially a period of experiments, yet in
these experiments perhaps a general drift of opinion may be discerned.
People seem to be coming to regard cities more as if they were huge
business corporations than as if they were little republics. The
lesson has been learned that in executive matters too much limitation
of power entails destruction of responsibility; the "ring" is now more
dreaded than the "one-man power;" and there is accordingly a manifest
tendency to assail the evil by concentrating power and responsibility
in the mayor.
[Sidenote: New government of Brooklyn.]
The first great city to adopt this method was Brooklyn. In the first
place the city council was simplified and made a one-chambered council
consisting of nineteen aldermen. Besides this council of aldermen, the
people elect only three city officers,--the mayor, comptroller,
and auditor. The comptroller is the principal finance officer and
book-keeper of the city; and the auditor must approve bills against
the city, whether great or small, before they can be paid. The mayor
appoints, without confirmation by the council, all executive heads of
departments; and these executive heads are individuals, not
boards. Thus there is a single police commissioner, a single fire
commissioner, a single health commissioner, and so on; and each of
these heads appoints his own subordinates; so that the principle
of defined responsibility permeates the city government from top
to bottom,[14] In a few cases, where the work to be done is rather
discretionary than executive in character, it is intrusted to a board;
thus there is a board of assessors, a board of education, and a board
of elections. These are all appointed by the mayor, but for terms
not coinciding with his own; "so that, in most cases, no mayor would
appoint the whole of any such board unless he were to be twice elected
by the people." But the executive officers are appointed by the mayor
for terms coincident with his own, that is for two years. "The mayor
is elected at the general election in November; he takes office on the
first of January following, and for one month the great departments of
the city are carried on for him by the appointees of his predecessor.
On the first of February it becomes his duty to appoint his own heads
of departments, and thus each incoming mayor has the opportunity to
make an administration in all its parts in sympathy with himself."
[Footnote 14: Seth Low on "Municipal Government," in Bryce's
_American Commonwealth_, vol. i. p. 626.]
With all these immense executive powers entrusted to the mayor,
however, he does not hold the purse-strings. He is a member of a board
of estimate, of which the other four members are the comptroller
and auditor, with the county treasurer and supervisor. This board
recommends the amounts to be raised by taxation for the ensuing year.
These estimates are then laid before the council of aldermen, who
may cut down single items as they see fit, but have not the power to
increase any item. The mayor must see to it that the administrative
work of the year does not use up more money than is thus allowed him.
[Sidenote: Some of its merits.]
This Brooklyn system has great merits. It ensures unity of
administration, it encourages promptness and economy, it locates
and defines responsibility, and it is so simple that everybody can
understand it. The people, having but few officers to elect, are
more likely to know something about them. Especially since everybody
understands that the success of the government depends upon the
character of the mayor, extraordinary pains are taken to secure good
mayors; and the increased interest in city politics is shown by the
fact that in Brooklyn more people vote for mayor than for governor
or for president. Fifty years ago such a reduction in the number of
elective officers would have greatly shocked all good Americans. But
In point of fact, while in small townships where everybody knows
everybody popular control is best ensured by electing all public
officers, it is very different in great cities where it is impossible
that the voters in general should know much about the qualifications
of a long list of candidates. In such cases citizens are apt to vote
blindly for names about which they know nothing except that they occur
on a Republican or a Democratic ticket; although, if the object of
a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and efficient
municipal government, to elect a city magistrate because he is a
Republican or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because
he believes in homoeopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums.[15] To
vote for candidates whom one has never heard of is not to insure
popular control, but to endanger it. It is much better to vote for
one man whose reputation we know, and then to hold him strictly
responsible for the appointments he makes. The Brooklyn system seems
to be a step toward lifting city government out of the mire of party
politics.
[Footnote 15: Of course from the point of view of the party politician,
it Is quite different. Each party has its elaborate "machine" for
electing state and national officers; and in order to be kept at
its maximum of efficiency the machine must be kept at work on all
occasions, whether such occasions are properly concerned with
differences in party politics or not. To the party politician it
of course makes a great difference whether a city magistrate is a
Republican or a Democrat. To him even the political complexion of his
mail-carrier is a matter of importance. But these illustrations
only show that party politics may be carried to extremes that are
inconsistent with the best interests of the community. Once in a while
it becomes necessary to teach party organizations to know their place,
and to remind them that they are not the lords and masters but the
servants and instruments of the people.]
This system went into operation in Brooklyn in January, 1882, and
seems to have given general satisfaction. Since then changes in a
similar direction, though with variations in detail, have been made in
other cities, and notably in Philadelphia.
[Sidenote: Notion that the suffrage ought to be restricted.]
In speaking of the difficulties which beset city government in the
United States, mention is often (and perhaps too exclusively) made
of the great mass of ignorant voters, chiefly foreigners without
experience in self-government, with no comprehension of American
principles and traditions, and with little or no property to suffer
from excessive taxation. Such people will naturally have slight
compunctions about voting away other people's money; indeed, they are
apt to think that "the Government" has got Aladdin's lamp hidden away
somewhere in a burglar-proof safe, and could do pretty much everything
that is wanted, if it only would. In the hands of demagogues such
people may be dangerous, they are supposed to be especially accessible
to humbug and bribes, and their votes have no doubt been used to
sustain and perpetuate most flagrant abuses. We often hear it said
that the only way to get good government is to deprive such people of
their votes and limit the suffrage to persons who have some property
at stake. Such a measure has been seriously recommended in New York,
but it is generally felt to be impossible without a revolution.
[Sidenote: Testimony of Pennsylvania Municipal Commission.]
Perhaps, after all, it may not be so desirable as it seems. The
ignorant vote has done a great deal of harm, but not all the harm. In
1878 it was reported by the Pennsylvania Municipal Commission, as
a remarkable but notorious fact, that the accumulations of debt in
Philadelphia and other cities of the state have been due, not to a
non-property-holding, irresponsible element among the electors, but to
the desire for speculation among the property-owners themselves. Large
tracts of land outside the built-up portion of the city have been
purchased, combinations made among men of wealth, and councils
besieged until they have been driven into making appropriations to
open and improve streets and avenues, largely in advance of the real
necessities of the city. Extraordinary as the statement may seem
at first, the experience of the past shows clearly that frequently
property-owners need more protection against themselves than against
the non-property-holding class.[16] This is a statement of profound
significance, and should be duly pondered by advocates of a restricted
suffrage.
[Footnote 16: Allinson and Penrose, _Philadelphia, 1681-1887; a
History of Municipal Development_, p. 278.]
[Sidenote: Dangers of a restricted suffrage.]
It should also be borne in mind that, while ignorant and needy voters,
led by unscrupulous demagogues, are capable of doing much harm with
their votes, it is by no means clear that the evil would be removed
by depriving them of the suffrage. It is very unsafe to have in any
community a large class of people who feel that political rights
or privileges are withheld from them by other people who are their
superiors in wealth or knowledge. Such poor people are apt to have
exaggerated ideas of what a vote can do; very likely they think it is
because they do not have votes that they are poor; thus they are ready
to entertain revolutionary or anarchical ideas, and are likely to be
more dangerous material in the hands of demagogues than if they were
allowed to vote. Universal suffrage has its evils, but it undoubtedly
acts as a safety-valve. The only cure for the evils which come
from ignorance and shiftlessness is the abolition of ignorance and
shiftlessness; and this is slow work. Church and school here find
enough to keep them busy; but the vote itself, even if often misused,
is a powerful educator; and we need not regret that the restriction of
the suffrage has come to be practically impossible.
[Sidenote: Baneful effects of mixing city politics with national
politics.]
The purification of our city governments will never be completed
until they are entirely divorced from national party politics. The
connection opens a limitless field for "log-rolling," and rivets
upon cities the "spoils system," which is always and everywhere
incompatible with good government. It is worthy of note that the
degradation of so many English boroughs and cities during the Tudor
and Stuart periods was chiefly due to the encroachment of national
politics upon municipal politics. Because the borough returned members
to the House of Commons, it became worth while for the crown to
intrigue with the municipal government, with the ultimate object of
influencing parliamentary elections. The melancholy history of the
consequent dickering and dealing, jobbery and robbery, down to 1835,
when the great Municipal Corporations Act swept it all away, may be
read with profit by all Americans.[17] It was the city of London only,
whose power and independence had kept it free from complications with
national politics, that avoided the abuses elsewhere prevalent, so
that it was excepted from the provisions of the Act of 1835, and still
retains its ancient constitution.
[Footnote 17: See _Parliamentary Reports_, 1835, "Municipal
Corporations Commission;" also Sir Erskine May, _Const. Hist._,
vol. ii. chap, xv.]
In the United States the entanglement of municipal with national
politics has begun to be regarded as mischievous and possibly
dangerous, and attempts have in some cases been made toward checking
it by changing the days of election, so that municipal officers may
not be chosen at the same time with presidential electors. Such a
change is desirable, but to obtain a thoroughly satisfactory result,
it will be necessary to destroy the "spoils system" root and branch,
and to adopt effective measures of ballot reform. To these topics I
shall recur when treating of our national government. But first we
shall have to consider the development of our several states.
QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.
Give an account of city government in the United States, under the
following heads:--
1. The American city:--
a. The mayor.
b. The heads of departments.
c. The city council.
d. The judges.
e. Appropriations.
f. The power of committees.
2. The practical workings of city governments:--
a. The contrast they show between theory and practice.
b. Various complaints urged against city governments.
c. Their effect upon the old-time confidence in the perfection of our
institutions.
3. The growth of American cities:--
a. The cities of Washington's time and those of to-day.
b. The population of cities in 1790 and their population to-day.
c. City growth since 1840.
4. Some consequences of rapid city growth:--
a. The pressure to construct public works.
b. The incurring of heavy debts.
c. The wastefulness due to a lack of foresight.
d. The increase in government due to the complexity of a city.
e. An illustration of this complexity in Boston.
f. The consequent mystery that enshrouds much of city government.
5. Some evils due to the fear of a "one-man" power:--
a. The objection to such power a century ago.
b. Restrictions imposed upon the mayor's power.
c. The division and weakening of responsibility.
d. The lack of unity in the administration of business.
e. The inefficiency of committees for executive purposes.
f. The alarming increase in city debts.
6. Attempts to remedy some of the evils of city government:--
a. The power of veto granted to the mayor.
b. The limitation of city indebtedness.
c. State control of some city departments.
7. Difficulties inherent in state control of cities:--
a. Lack of familiarity with city affairs.
b. The tendency to "log-rolling."
c. Lack of time due to the pressure of state affairs.
d. The failure of state control as shown in the rule of the Tweed ring.
8. The government of the city of Brooklyn:--
a. The elevation of the "one-man" power above that of the "ring."
b. Officers elected by the people.
c. Officers appointed by the mayor.
d. The principle of well-defined responsibility.
e. The appointment of certain boards by the mayor.
f. The holding of the purse-strings.
g. The inadequacy of the township elective system, in a city like
Brooklyn.
9. Restriction of the suffrage:--
a. The dangers from large masses of ignorant voters.
b. The responsibility for the debt of Philadelphia and other cities.
c. The dangers from large classes who feel that political rights are
denied them.
d. Suffrage as a "safety-valve."
10. The mixture of city politics with those of the state or nation:
a. The degradation of the English borough.
b. The exemption, of London from the Municipal Corporations Act.
c. The importance of separate days for municipal elections.
d. The importance of abolishing the "spoils system."
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.
(Chiefly for pupils who live in cities.)
1. When was your city organized?
2. Give some account of its growth, its size, and its present
population. How many wards has it? Give their boundaries.
In which ward do you live?
3. Examine its charter, and report a few of its leading provisions.
4. What description of government in this chapter comes nearest
to that of your city?
5. Consider the suggestions about the study of town government
(pp. 43, 44), and act upon such of them as are applicable
to city government.
6. What is the general impression about the purity of your city
government? (Consult several citizens and report what you find out.)
7. What important caution should be observed about vague rumours of
inefficiency or corruption?
8. What are the evidences of a sound financial condition in a city?
9. Is the financial condition of your city sound?
10. When debts are incurred, are provisions made at the same time for
meeting them when due?
11. What are "sinking funds"?
12. What wants has a city that a town is free from?
13. Describe your system of public water works, making an analysis of
important points that may be presented.
14. Do the same for your park system or any other system that involves a
long time for its completion as well as a great outlay.
15. Are the principles of civil service reform recognized in your city?
If so, to what extent? Do they need to be extended further?
16. Describe the parties that contended for the supremacy in your last
city election and tell what questions were at issue between them.
17. What great corporations exact an influence in your city affairs? Is
such influence bad because it is great? What is a possible danger from
such influence?
18. In view of the vast number and range of city interests, what is the
most that the average citizen can reasonably be asked to know and to do
about them? What things is it indispensable for him to know and to do is
he is to contribute to good government?
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
Section 1. DIRECT AND INDIRECT GOVERNMENT.--The transition from
direct to indirect government, as illustrated in the gradual
development of a township into a city, may be profitably studied in
Quincy's _Municipal History of Boston_, Boston, 1852; and in
Winsor's _Memorial History of Boston_, vol. iii. pp. 189-302,
Boston, 1881.
Section 2. ORIGIN OF ENGLISH BOROUGHS AND CITIES.--See Loftie's
_History of London_, 2 vols., London, 1883; Toulmin Smith's
_English Gilds_, with Introduction by Lujo Brentano, London,
1870; and the histories of the English Constitution, especially those
of Gneist, Stubbs, Taswell-Langmead, and Hannis Taylor.
Section 3. GOVERNMENT OF CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES.--_J.H.U. Studies_,
III., xi.-xii., J.A. Porter, _The City of Washington_; IV., iv., W.P.
Holcomb, _Pennsylvania Boroughs_; IV., x., C.H. Lovermore, _Town and
City Government of New Haven_; V., i.-ii., Allinson and Penrose, _City
Government of Philadelphia_; V., iii., J.M. Bugbee, _The City Government
of Boston_; V., iv., M.S. Snow, _The City Government of St. Louis_;
VII., ii.-iii., B. Moses, _Establishment of Municipal Government in San
Francisco_; VII., iv., W.W. Howe, _Municipal History of New Orleans_;
also _Supplementary Notes_, No. 4, Seth Low, _The Problem of City
Government_ (compare No. 1, Albert Shaw, _Municipal Government in
England_.) See, also, the supplementary volumes published at
Baltimore,--Levermore's _Republic of New Haven_, 1886, Allinson and
Penrose's _Philadelphia_, 1681-1887: _a History of Municipal
Development_, 1887.
CHAPTER VI.
THE STATE.
Section 1. _The Colonial Governments._
[Sidenote: Claims of Spain to the possession of North America.]
In the year 1600 Spain was the only European nation which had obtained
a foothold upon the part of North America now comprised within the
United States. Spain claimed the whole continent on the strength of
the bulls of 1493 and 1494, in which Pope Alexander VI. granted her
all countries to be discovered to the west of a certain meridian
which, happens to pass a little to the east of Newfoundland. From
their first centre in the West Indies the Spaniards had made a
lodgment in Florida, at St. Augustine, in 1565; and from Mexico they
had in 1605 founded Santa Fe, in what is now the territory of New
Mexico.
[Sidenote: Claims of France and England.]
France and England, however, paid little heed to the claim of Spain.
France had her own claim to North America, based on the voyages of
discovery made by Verrazano in 1524 and Cartier in 1534, in the course
of which New York harbour had been visited and the St. Lawrence partly
explored. England had a still earlier claim, based on the discovery
of the North American continent in 1497 by John Cabot. It presently
became apparent that to make such claims of any value, discovery must
be followed up by occupation of the country. Attempts at colonization
had been made by French Protestants in Florida in 1562-65, and by the
English in North Carolina in 1584-87, but both attempts had failed
miserably. Throughout the sixteenth century French and English sailors
kept visiting the Newfoundland fisheries, and by the end of the
century the French and English governments had their attention
definitely turned to the founding of colonies in North America.
[Sidenote: The London and Plymouth Companies.]
In 1606 two great joint-stock companies were formed in England for
the purpose of planting such colonies. One of these companies had its
headquarters at London, and was called the London Company; the other
had its headquarters at the seaport of Plymouth, in Devonshire, and
was called the Plymouth Company. To the London Company the king
granted the coast of North America from 34 deg. to 38 deg. north latitude;
that is, about from Cape Fear to the mouth of the Rappahannock. To the
Plymouth Company he granted the coast from 41 deg. to 45 deg.; that is, about
from the mouth of the Hudson to the eastern extremity of Maine. These
grants were to go in straight strips or zones across the continent
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Almost nothing was then known
about American geography; the distance from ocean to ocean across
Mexico was not so very great, and people did not realize that further
north it was quite a different thing. As to the middle strip, starting
from the coast between the Rappahannock and the Hudson, it was open to
the two companies, with the understanding that neither was to plant a
colony within 100 miles of any settlement already begun by the
other. This meant practically that it was likely to be controlled by
whichever company should first come into the field with a flourishing
colony. Accordingly both companies made haste and sent out settlers in
1607, the one to the James River, the other to the Kennebec. The
first enterprise, after much suffering, resulted in the founding of
Virginia; the second ended in disaster, and it was not until 1620 that
the Pilgrims from Leyden made the beginnings of a permanent settlement
upon the territory of the Plymouth Company.
[Sidenote: Their common charter.]
These two companies were at first organized under a single charter.
Each was to be governed by a council in England appointed by the king,
and these councils were to appoint councils of thirteen to reside in
the colonies, with powers practically unlimited. Nevertheless the king
covenanted with his colonists as follows: Also we do, for us, our
heirs and successors, declare by these presents that all and every the
persons, being our subjects, which shall go and inhabit within the
said colony and plantation, and every their children and posterity,
which shall happen to be born within any of the limits thereof, shall
have and enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities of free
denizens and natural subjects within any of our other dominions, to
all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within
this our realm of England, or in any other of our dominions. This
principle, that British subjects born in America should be entitled to
the same political freedom as if born in England, was one upon which
the colonists always insisted, and it was the repeated and persistent
attempts of George III. to infringe it that led the American colonies
to revolt and declare themselves independent of Great Britain.
[Sidenote: Dissolution of the two companies.]
[Sidenote: Settlement of the three zones.]
Both the companies founded in 1606 were short-lived. In 1620 the
Plymouth Company got a new charter, which made it independent of the
London Company. In 1624 the king, James I., quarreled with the London
Company, brought suit against it in court, and obtained from the
subservient judges a decree annulling its charter. In 1635 the
reorganized Plymouth Company surrendered its charter to Charles I.
in pursuance of a bargain which need not here concern us.[1] But the
creation of these short-lived companies left an abiding impression
upon the map of North America and upon the organization of civil
government in the United States. Let us observe what was done with the
three strips or zones into which the country was divided: the northern
or New England zone, assigned to the Plymouth Company; the southern or
Virginia zone, assigned to the London Company; and the central zone,
for which the two companies were, so to speak, to run a race.
[Footnote 1: See my _Beginnings of New England_, p. 112.]
[Sidenote: 1. the northern zone.]
[Sidenote: 2. The southern zone.]
In 1663 Charles II. cut off the southern part of Virginia, the area
covering the present states of North and South Carolina and Georgia,
and it was formed into a new province called Carolina. In 1729 the
two groups of settlements which had grown up along its coast were
definitively separated into North and South Carolina; and in 1732
the frontier portion toward Florida was organized into the colony of
Georgia. Thus four of the original thirteen states--Virginia, the two
Carolinas, and Georgia--were constituted in the southern zone.
To this group some writers add Maryland, founded in 1632, because its
territory had been claimed by the London Company; but the earliest
settlements in Maryland, its principal towns, and almost the whole of
its territory, come north of latitude 38 deg. and within the middle zone.
[Sidenote: 3. The middle zone.]
Between the years 1614 and 1621 the Dutch founded their colony of New
Netherland upon the territory included between the Hudson and Delaware
rivers, or, as they quite naturally called them, the North and South
rivers. They pushed their outposts up the Hudson as far as the site
of Albany, thus intruding far into the northern zone. In 1638 Sweden
planted a small colony upon the west side of Delaware Bay, but in 1655
it was surrendered to the Dutch. Then in 1664 the English took New
Netherland from the Dutch, and Charles II. granted the province to his
brother, the Duke of York. The duke proceeded to grant part of it to
his friends, Berkeley and Carteret, and thus marked off the new colony
of New Jersey. In 1681 the region west of New Jersey was granted to
William Penn, and in the following year Penn bought from the Duke of
York the small piece of territory upon which the Swedes had planted
their colony. Delaware thus became an appendage to Penn's greater
colony, but was never merged in it. Thus five of the original
thirteen states--Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware--were constituted in the middle zone.
As we have already observed, the westward movement of population in
the United States has largely followed the parallels of latitude, and
thus the characteristics of these three original strips or zones have,
with more or less modification, extended westward. The men of New
England, with their Portland and Salem reproduced more than 3000 miles
distant in the state of Oregon, and within 100 miles of the Pacific
Ocean, may be said in a certain sense to have realized literally the
substance of King James's grant to the Plymouth Company. It will be
noticed that the kinds of local government described in our earlier
chapters are characteristic respectively of the three original zones:
the township system being exemplified chiefly in the northern zone,
the county system in the southern zone, and the mixed township-county
system in the central zone.
[Sidenote: House of Burgesses in Virginia.]
The London and Plymouth companies did not perish until after state
governments had been organized in the colonies already founded upon
their territories. In 1619 the colonists of Virginia, with the aid of
the more liberal spirits in the London Company, secured for themselves
a representative government; to the governor and his council,
appointed in England, there was added a general assembly composed of
two burgesses from each "plantation," [2] elected by the inhabitants.
This assembly, the first legislative body that ever sat in America,
met on the 30th of July, 1619, in the choir of the rude church at
Jamestown. The dignity of the burgesses was preserved, as in the House
of Commons, by sitting with their hats on; and after offering prayer,
and taking the oath of allegiance and supremacy, they proceeded to
enact a number of laws relating to public worship, to agriculture, and
to intercourse with the Indians. Curiously enough, so confident was
the belief of the settlers that they were founding towns, that they
called their representatives "burgesses," and down to 1776 the
assembly continued to be known as the House of "Burgesses," although
towns refused to grow in Virginia, and soon after counties were
organized in 1634 the burgesses sat for counties. Such were the
beginnings of representative government in Virginia.
[Footnote 2: The word "plantation" is here used, not in its later and
ordinary sense, as the estate belonging to an individual planter,
but in an earlier sense. In this early usage it was equivalent to
"settlement." It was used in New England as well as in Virginia;
thus Salem was spoken of by the court of assistants in 1629 as "New
England's Plantation."]
[Sidenote: Company of Massachusetts Bay.]
The government of Massachusetts is descended from the Dorchester
Company formed in England in 1623, for the ostensible purpose of
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