Maryland had at most only twelve thousand. In these two provinces the royalist party had the ascendency, and greeted with joy the Restoration. In Massachusetts, on the other hand, the general feeling was republican; the fugitive regicides, Goffe and Whalley, found there favor and protection; and when the local government were compelled to proclaim Charles the Second as king, they forbade, at the same time, all tumultuous assemblies, all kinds of merry-making, and even the drinking of the King's health. There was, at that time, neither the moral unity, nor the physical strength, necessary to the foundation of a state.
After 1688, when England was finally in possession of a free government, the colonies felt but slightly its advantages. The charters, which Charles the Second and James the Second had either taken away or impaired, were but imperfectly and partially restored to them. The same confusion prevailed, the same struggles arose between the different powers. The greater part of the governors, coming from Europe, temporarily invested with the prerogatives and pretensions of royalty, displayed them with more arrogance than power, in an administration, generally speaking, inconsistent, irritating, seldom successful, frequently marked by grasping selfishness, and a postponement of the interests of the public to petty personal quarrels.
Moreover, it was henceforth not the crown alone, but the crown and the mother country united, with which the colonies had to deal. Their real sovereign was no longer the king, but the king and the people of Great Britain, represented and mingled together in Parliament. And the Parliament regarded the colonies with nearly the same eyes, and held, in respect to them, nearly the same language, as had lately been used towards the Parliament itself, by those kings whom it afterwards overcame. An aristocratic senate is the most intractable of masters. Every member of it possesses the supreme power, and no one is responsible for its exercise.
In the mean time, the colonies were rapidly increasing in population, in wealth, in strength internally, and in importance externally. Instead of a few obscure establishments, solely occupied with their own affairs, and hardly able to sustain their own existence, a people was now forming itself, whose agriculture, commerce, enterprising spirit, and relative position to other states, were giving them a place and consideration among men. The mother country, unable to govern them well, had neither the leisure nor the ill will to oppress them absolutely. She vexed and annoyed them without checking their growth.
And the minds of men were expanded, and their hearts elevated, with the growing fortunes of the country. By an admirable law of Providence, there is a mysterious connexion between the general condition of a country, and the state of feeling among the citizens; a certain, though not obvious, bond of union, which connects their growth and their destinies, and which makes the farmer in his fields, the merchant in his counting-room, even the mechanic in his workshop, grow more confident and high-spirited, in proportion as the society, in whose bosom they dwell, is enlarged and strengthened. As early as 1692, the General Court of Massachusetts passed a resolution, "that no tax should be levied upon his Majesty's subjects in the colonies, without the consent of the Governor and Council, and the representatives in General Court assembled." [Footnote 3]
[Footnote 3: Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, Vol. I. p. 62.]
In 1704, the legislative assembly of New York made a similar declaration. [Footnote 4]
[Footnote 4: Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. II. p. 17.]