The primary assembly.
Initiative in legislation.
The assembly, at the mention of which we have thus arrived, was the principal point of difference between the palatinate of Maryland and that of Durham. The governor of Maryland, like the bishop of Durham, had his council, consisting solely, as the other consisted chiefly, of high officials; but in Maryland there was popular representation, while in Durham there was not. At first, however, the popular house was not a representative but a primary assembly, and its sittings were not separate from those of the council. In the first assembly, which met at St. Mary's in February, 1635, all the freemen, or all who chose to come, were gathered in the same room with Leonard Calvert and his council. They drew up a body of laws and sent it to England for the lord proprietor's assent, which was refused. The ground of the refusal was far more than the mere technicality which on a hasty glance it might seem to be. Cecilius refused because the charter gave the lord proprietor the power of making laws with the assent of the freemen, but did not give such power to the freemen with the assent of the lord proprietor. In other words, the initiative in legislation must always come from above, not from below. Obviously there could be no higher authority than Cecilius as to what the charter really intended. But the assembly of Maryland insisted upon the right of initiating legislation, and Cecilius was wise enough to yield the point gracefully. He consented, in view of the length of time required for crossing the ocean, that laws enacted by the assembly should at once become operative and so remain unless vetoed by him. But he reserved to himself the right of veto without limitation in time. In other words, he could at any time annul a law, and this prerogative was one that might become dangerous.
The representative assembly.
In 1638 the primary assembly was abandoned as cumbrous. For purposes of the military levy the province was divided into hundreds, and each hundred sent a representative to the assembly at St. Mary's. At a later date the county came to be the basis of representation, as in Virginia. For some time the representatives sat with the council, as at first in Massachusetts and Virginia; but in 1650 the representatives began to sit as a lower house, while the council formed an upper house. As there was a tendency, which went on increasing, for the highest offices to be filled by Calverts and their kinsmen, the conditions were soon at hand for an interesting constitutional struggle between the two houses. It was to be seen whether the government was to be administered for the Calverts or for the people, and to the story of this struggle we shall presently come.
Regal power of Lord Baltimore.
As a result of our survey it appears that Lord Baltimore occupied a far more independent position than any bishop of Durham. Not only was he exempt from imperial taxation, but in case of a controversy between himself and his subjects no appeal could be taken to any British court. His power seemed to approach more nearly to despotism than that of any king of England, save perhaps Henry VIII. The one qualifying feature was the representative assembly, the effects of which time was to show in unsuspected ways. From various circumstances mentioned in the course of the present chapter there resulted a strange series of adventures, which will next claim our attention.