Download colonial government and politics

American Government
print page
Page 1 of 5
close window
colonial government and politics
The establishment of colonial governments dominated the political development of British North America in the
17th century. Although each colony in the British Empire in North America developed independent political and
governing structures, all were closely tied to the Crown, which attempted to exert political and economic authority
over the colonies until the American Revolution. The most powerful influence on the colonial governments was a
rebellion against the divine right of kings and a move toward a limited government with a branch that represented
the people.
The first iteration of the idea of limited government in England was the Magna Carta (1215), which stated that the
king was subject to the law and could not change the law without parliamentary consent. Further victories for
limiting the power of the monarch and increasing the power of the British Parliament occurred during the English
Civil War of 1642-1651 and with passage of the English Bill of Rights (1689).
Movements toward a limited government were inspired in part by the writings of English philosophers. Thomas
Hobbes thought society was unruly and needed to be ruled by an absolute monarch, but he was a founder of the
social contract theory, the belief that a contract exists between government and the governed. In John Locke's
Second Treatise of Government, published in 1690, Locke differed from Hobbes in that he believed people
establish societies and enter into a contractual relationship with a government for convenience and "the
preservation of their property." His views of a contract with the consent of the governed greatly influenced
colonial leaders in British North America and the development of capitalism.
In 1620, more than 100 Pilgrims, including women and children, had sailed on the Mayflower from Plymouth,
England. After arrival in New England, they selected a site for a town and drafted a charter of government, the
first in British North America. According to William Bradford, the Pilgrims' leader, the men of the colony agreed to
"covenant and combine [themselves] together into a civil body politic." The Mayflower Compact was signed to
promise "due submission and obedience" to "such just and equal Laws." The compact was primarily a religious
document, but it was an early example of the contractual self-government of the later colonial constitutions.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony began in 1629 when a royal charter was granted to a group of leading Puritans
who protested the corruption and ceremony of the established Church of England. They had been attacked for
their beliefs and wanted to remove their congregations to a place where they could freely practice their faith.
Naming their enterprise the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Puritan leaders accompanied 200 settlers and
their families to the Indian fishing town of Naumkeag in Massachusetts Bay. They renamed the town Salem. In a
great migration, more than 20,000 people immigrated to New England from 1629 to 1643. Like the Pilgrims of the
Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay residents organized local governments based on the English model of
virtual representation.
Throughout the 17th century, colonial governments developed on Hobbes' idea of a social contract. The Exeter
Compact (1639), signed in Exeter, New Hampshire (then Massachusetts), was an extension of the principles of
self-government and the spread of democratic ideals throughout New England. Also in 1639, a few Connecticut
towns adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639), which called for a representative assembly and
http://americangovernment.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/445323?sid=445323&cid=0&vie...
10/4/2012
American Government
Page 2 of 5
the popular election of a governor and judges. In 1641, Massachusetts adopted the Massachusetts Body of
Liberties (1641) to limit the powers of the colonial governor and his magistrates. The document relied both on
English common law and the Ten Commandments in its support for protection of individual rights.
In the New England colonies, colonial government at the local level reflected a nascent democracy. The General
Courts of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut bestowed townships, areas of land measuring six by 10 miles, on
groups of settlers who petitioned the general assembly and obtained permission to settle new lands. The settlers,
known collectively as proprietors, decided who got the lands. Most of the available lands went to the richest men,
while middling colonials received a lesser share. The lands were granted in fee simple, a relatively new concept
that entailed the ownership of land without encumbrances from feudal obligations.
The male heads of families ran the local town governments through town meetings. Each year, proprietors chose
selectmen to orchestrate and manage the affairs of the town. Town meetings witnessed the passage of local laws
levying taxes, building fences, administering the common fields, and deciding the size of new town lots. However,
voting was limited only to men who held a certain level of property. Women and white men of lesser means did
not participate. Although many groups were excluded from civic participation, the New England form of
government was much more democratic than any other political institution then existing in Europe.
Other colonies received their governing charters in an alternate form. The creation of proprietary colonies from
grants of land to noblemen served as the foundation of governments in the Carolinas, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania. In 1681, King Charles II gave land to William Penn in payment for a large debt owed Penn's father,
the admiral Sir William Penn. The younger Penn was a defender of the Quaker religion. As a result, he
established Pennsylvania as a land of free worship. Penn's Pennsylvania Frame of Government (1682) was
designed to provide government support for religious diversity. His plan of government did not create an
established church, levied no taxes on religion, and allowed Christians of all faiths to hold office.
Penn also established the colony of Delaware along similar lines. Formerly a colony of Sweden, Delaware had
passed through the Dutch and English before becoming part of Penn's plan to give more religious and political
freedom to British colonists. Penn made Delaware the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania but allowed them to
select their own representative assembly in 1703.
The foundation of Georgia developed in a pattern different from other English colonies in America. Established
much later than other colonies, Georgia began in the early 18th century as a colony of the poor envisioned by
Gen. James Oglethorpe and a group of social reformers influenced by the Enlightenment. To further the class
equality that lay at the heart of the colony's distribution of political power, Oglethorpe forbade slavery in Georgia,
limited land grants to small holdings of 500 acres, and encouraged indentured servants to migrate to provide a
labor force for the development of small farms. The colony of Georgia embraced slavery in the 1750s, however,
when cheap slave labor became irresistible for white landowners.
The creation of the Virginia colony was also unique, as it proceeded along strictly capitalistic lines. In 1607, a
group of London bankers and investors organized themselves as the Virginia Company of London (a joint stock
company) and sent ships to establish the colony of Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay. They had been granted a
royal charter by King James I to colonize the mid-Atlantic region. The English investors sold shares to other
wealthy merchants and royal elite to pay the expenses to start the colony. The government established by the
100 male settlers in Jamestown, the Virginia capital, was based on strict adherence to company rule. Men caught
stealing pigs or running away, for example, had their ears, noses, or tongues split.
http://americangovernment.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/445323?sid=445323&cid=0&vie...
10/4/2012
American Government
Page 3 of 5
During their first years of the colonies' existence, the English settlers depended heavily on forming political
alliances with local Indians for survival. Virginia colonists attempted to orchestrate peaceful and pragmatic
relationships with the estimated 20,000 Algonquian people in the region. The generosity of the Algonquian was
remarkable given the challenge the English presented to their political domination of the Chesapeake Bay region.
When the Virginia colonists began to starve, they received assistance from local Native Americans. John Smith,
the leader of the colony in the 1610s, wrote, "In our extremity the Indians brought us corn when we rather
expected they would destroy us."
In 1619, the Virginia Company created the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first elected legislature in Britain's
colonial empire, to make laws "for the good and welfare" of the colony. Virginia governor George Yeardley
presided over the assembly with a group of 22 elected officials, two from each of the 11 settlements in Virginia.
As the population of Virginia grew, the representative assembly grew as well, reaching a total of 100 seats by
1750.
The House of Burgesses lasted until 1776, when Virginia declared independence from Great Britain with the
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and established the Virginia General Assembly. The House of Burgesses
proved to be the school for many who developed the American government. Four of the first five presidents of the
United States were from Virginia. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe
constituted the "Virginia dynasty," which continued to influence the development of the U.S. government well
after the American Revolution.
Warfare in the 17th and 18th centuries was a constant part of colonial politics, and it contributed to the increasing
need for independence. Colonists fought beside the British in King William's War, Queen Anne's War, and the
War of Jenkins' Ear. In 1754, at the beginning of the French and Indian War, the English Board of Trade
convened the Albany Congress to develop a plan to strengthen ties with the Iroquois Confederacy and develop a
common defense of the colonies. The colonial assemblies rejected the plan, the Albany Plan of Union (1754),
because it gave too much power to the Albany Congress.
The American Revolution represented the last chapter in British colonial politics. The war grew from political
disagreements between the philosophy of the British Parliament and King George III and a large segment of
American elites who wanted a greater say in how the colonies supported the Crown. Although the Treaty of Paris
ended the French and Indian War in 1763, the war bankrupted British royal coffers, compelling the king to tap the
colonies for greater sums to support the empire. When colonists protested higher taxes, the English government
responded with increasing autocracy, which further alienated colonial Americans.
The British Parliament enacted the Stamp Act of 1765, the first direct tax ever laid on its colonies in North
America, on March 22, 1765. Passed to raise money for the British government, the tax caused protests
throughout the colonies. The Virginia House of Burgesses led the way in the protest, as Patrick Henry proposed
the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions in May 1765. The House of Burgesses broke into factions but remained
efficient, proving the success of elected legislatures in the colonies.
Under the protest of "no taxation without representation," the colonial legislatures sent delegates to the Stamp
Act Congress, which drew up 13 resolutions that opposed the British actions and petitioned the king and the
British Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act. Although unsuccessful in stopping future British taxation, the Stamp
Act Congress was the first time the 13 separate colonial governments worked together toward a single goal.
http://americangovernment.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/445323?sid=445323&cid=0&vie...
10/4/2012
American Government
Page 4 of 5
That unity continued as the Crown continued to levy taxes and limit colonial freedoms. The Coercive Acts of
1774, passed in response to the Boston Tea Party, led to the creation of the First Continental Congress, which
was intended to organize the 13 colonies in support of protests to British actions. The First Continental Congress
aimed to limit the power of the British Parliament and bring more autonomy to the colonies.
The prosecution of the American Revolution and the creation of a centralized government were difficult due to the
political heterogeneity of the 13 colonies. To overcome that problem, committees of correspondence were formed
in each colony. They acted as revolutionary governments to help unite the colonies against England. The sons of
liberty and other ad hoc political protest groups made England more aware of colonial distaste for its mercantile
policies. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was reproduced into a half-million copies read in America and abroad.
In brilliant and compelling prose, it called attention to the economic slavery imposed on the colonies by the
English monarchy.
Strapped for funds, American colonials formed the Second Continental Congress in 1776 that attempted over
seven years to unite the colonies and win the conflict. Washington was given command of the Continental Army,
and various Virginia planters like Jefferson, George Mason, and Madison (all slave owners) assumed important
roles in the new government. While Benjamin Franklin attempted the difficult task in England of persuading the
British to cease war against the American colonies, Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence (1776),
the blueprint for freedom from colonial rule.
Although colonial governments in North America operated differently, they established the need for a written
constitution, an elected legislature, and the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature. John
Dickinson of Pennsylvania wrote the Articles of Confederation, which called for a loose organization of states with
a weak central authority. The Second Continental Congress adopted the articles on November 15, 1777. The
articles required unanimous approval from the states, however, and did not go into effect until Maryland finally
granted approval on March 2, 1781.
Because of the inefficiency of the confederate government, leaders called for a convention to revise the Articles
of Confederation in 1787. The Constitutional Convention, however, decided to establish a new government on
republican principles. The resulting U.S. Constitution outlines the checks and balances between the three
branches of government and suggests a federalist relationship between the national and state governments. The
Constitution required three-fourths of the states' approval.
Ratification was met with controversy. Antifederalists opposed the Constitution and the strong central government
that it created, fearing that the new government would simply replace the old tyrant in England with a new one at
home and deprive the people of liberties. From October 1787 to August 1788, Alexander Hamilton, Madison, and
John Jay published the Federalist Papers to influence state ratification conventions in support of the Constitution.
In an act of compromise, Congress passed the Bill of Rights (1791) to guarantee citizens fundamental liberties,
reassuring the Antifederalists, who thought the Constitution gave too much power to the national government.
With ratification of the Constitution by New Hampshire in June 1788, the new form of government had the
necessary support of three-fourths of the states to go into effect. The U.S. government under the Articles of
Confederation, given birth to over time by the various colonial governments, came to an end.
Further Reading
Select Citation Style: MLA
http://americangovernment.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/445323?sid=445323&cid=0&vie...
10/4/2012
American Government
Page 5 of 5
Carr, Lois Green, and David W. Jordan, Marylandís Revolution of Government, 1689-1692, 1974; Kammen,
Michael, Empire and Interest: The American Colonies and the Politics of Mercantilism, 1970; Olson, Allison G.,
Anglo-American Politics, 1660-1775, 1973; Ritchie, Robert C., The Dukeís Province: Politics and Society in New
York, 1660-1691, 1977; Sosin, Jack M., English America and the Restoration Monarchy of Charles II:
Transatlantic Politics, Commerce, and Kinship, 1980.
MLA
Newman, Jason. "colonial government and politics." American Government. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 4 Oct. 2012.
back to top
Entry ID: 445323
Server: WEB1 | Client IP:
138.210.83.141 | Session ID: mwvyxphurlp2fv20imsne3wt | Token: 445EDCA49F6BE2C8AFCAD93F43945D38
Referer:
http://americangovernment.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/445323?sid=445323&cid=0&vie...
10/4/2012