In these days great changes were taking place in England. Cromwell was dead. Richard Cromwell soon resigned the Protectorate. A general reaction for royalty followed, and Charles II. was received as King with general satisfaction. How would the young and dissolute monarch look upon the claims of Rhode Island? It was well for her that at this perilous moment she was represented at the new court by so earnest, clear-headed, and dexterous a diplomatist as John Clarke. By his exertions a new charter was obtained, and, on the 24th of November, 1663, accepted “at a very great meeting and assembly of the Colony of Providence Plantations, at Newport, in Rhode Island, in New England.” With the adoption of this charter begins a new period in the history of Rhode Island.
CHAPTER VIII.
TROUBLES IN OBTAINING A NEW CHARTER.—PROVISIONS OF THE CHARTER.—DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE NARRAGANSETT PURCHASE.—CURRENCY.—SCHOOLS.
The charter of Charles II. was a practical recognition of the right of self-government. The government which it established, like that instituted by the colonists in their first organization, was a pure democracy, emanating from the people and framed for their good. In form it consisted of a Governor, a Deputy-Governor, ten assistants, and a House of Deputies, six of whom represented Newport, four Providence, four Portsmouth, four Warwick, and two each other towns. The first appointments of Governor, Deputy-Governor, and assistants, as preparatory to a permanent organization, were made by the King. The organization once effected, they were chosen annually at Newport, on the first Wednesday in May. The deputies were elected by the people in their respective towns. Thus election day became the great civil festival of the year, bringing the inhabitants of the towns together to interchange thoughts and feelings, and make merry with their wives and children in the chief town of the Colony.
Although the new charter was negotiated by John Clarke, it is impossible not to recognize in it the spirit of Roger Williams. The original right of the natives to the soil was acknowledged, practically, in other colonies; but it was acknowledged as subordinate to the right of the King. The royal grant preceded the actual purchase. But in Rhode Island the royal grant followed the Indian title-deed, and was never accepted as sufficient of itself to justify the occupation of Indian territory. This doctrine, so widely at variance with the received doctrine of the age, stood first in the list of heresies for which Massachusetts had driven Roger Williams into exile.
No less prominent in the second charter was that great principle which had formed the leading characteristic of the first. “Noe person,” it says, “within the sayd colonye, at any tyme hereafter, shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any difference of opinion in matters of religion which doe not actually disturb the civill peace of our sayd colonye; but that all and everye person may, from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter, freelye and fullye have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, through the tract of lande hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceablie and quietlie, and not using this libertye to licentiousness, and profaneness, nor to the civill injurye or outward disturbance of others.”
There was much work for the new Assembly to do, and it addressed itself promptly to the task. The statute book contained laws which, arising from circumstances no longer existing, were “inconsistent with the present government.” To weed these out and replace them by others better suited to the new order of things, was an early object of attention. Hitherto the assistants had not been vested with legislative authority. They now held it by the charter, and henceforth acted in conjunction with the deputies, a change which at a later day led to the division into two houses. The increase of population brought with it an increase of litigation. The original courts were not sufficient to meet the demand for legal protection. They were reorganized.
There were two general courts of trials, composed of the Governor, with or without the aid of the Deputy-Governor, and of a body of assistants whose number was never less than six. Their place of meeting was Newport, the seat of government and largest town, and their regular sessions were held in May and October. Providence and Warwick had each a court of trials—Providence in September and Warwick in March. But in these, as if in indication of their subordinate authority, neither the Governor nor the Deputy-Governor had a seat, and the number of assistants absolutely required to give validity to its acts was reduced from six to three. To complete their organization twelve jurors were added, six from each town. Their decision, however, was not final, and the cases which they had tried could be carried by appeal to the General Court. To quicken the tardy steps of justice any litigant who was willing to bear the expense, might, with the sanction of the Governor or Deputy-Governor, have a special court convened for the immediate decision of his cause.