The Colonies, 1492-1750

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

The second colonial congress.

In 1754 the Lords of Trade recommended a second general congress of the colonies, to treat with the Iroquois again; they also favored "articles of union and confederation with each other for the mutual defence of his Majesty's subjects and interests in North America, as well in time of peace as war." The congress was held at Albany. Only seven of the colonies were represented,—New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The convention adopted a plan of union prepared by Franklin, providing for a general government that should be self-sustaining and control federal affairs,—war, Indians, and public lands,—while the colonial governments were to retain their constitutions intact. |Its plan of union rejected.| The plan was rejected by the colonial assemblies. Franklin himself wrote: "The Crown disapproved it, as having too much weight in the democratic part of the constitution, and every assembly as having allowed too much to prerogative." The defeat of the Albany plan marks the end of efforts at union on the part of the official class. The next movement came from the people themselves, as the result of oppression on the part of the mother-country.

123. Quarrels with Royal Governors (1700-1750).

Quarrels between governors and assemblies.

The history of the English continental colonies during the first half of the seventeenth century was largely made up of petty bickerings between the popular assemblies and the royal governors. The salary question was the most prominent feature of these disputes. Acting under orders from the Crown, the governor in each colony insisted on being paid a regular salary at stated intervals; but the assembly as persistently refused, and desiring to keep him dependent upon them, voted from time to time such sums as they chose. The principle at stake was important: a fixed salary grant would have been in the nature of a tax imposed by the Crown. Had the assembly been complaisant, the government would have been thrown into the hands of the royal governor and council, through their absolute power to veto laws. The acrimonious contention was greatly disturbing to all material interests, but it served as a most valuable constitutional training school for the Revolution.

The salary question in Massachusetts.

At times, in Boston, excitement over this perennial quarrel ran to a high pitch, and now and then it looked as though the assembly would be obliged to yield; but the men of Massachusetts were of stubborn clay, and never displayed more bravery than when the governor, backed by writs from England, threatened them the loudest. In 1728, the assembly, defended itself, saying it was "the undoubted right of all Englishmen, by Magna Charta, to raise and dispose of money for the public service of their own free accord, without compulsion." The Privy Council at last yielded the point (1735), and left the Massachusetts governor free to receive whatever the assembly chose to grant. In some of the colonies this salary question resulted in frequent deadlocks, in which all public business was at a standstill.

124. Governors of Southern Colonies.

Other differences.

Other differences between the governors and their assemblies hinged on claims of prerogative, fees for issuing land-titles, issues of paper money, official attempts to favor the Church of England at the expense of dissenters, and levies of men and money for the public defence. There were also special grievances in many of the provinces. |South Carolina's experience.| In South Carolina (1704-1706), the proprietors attempted to exclude all but Church of England men from the assembly. This led to a bitter controversy, in which the dissenters successfully appealed to the House of Lords, and legal proceedings were commenced by the Crown for the revocation of the Carolina charter; but they were not then pushed to an issue. In 1719 the meddlesome executive policy of the proprietors resulted in a popular uprising, in which the governor was deposed. Later, the authorities (1754-1765) attempted to resist the issue of paper money, and also to reduce representation in the assembly, while at the same time the home government introduced some offensive regulations regarding land patents. Popular indignation again expressed itself in bloody turbulence, and the colony fell into great disorder.