SEAL AND AND SIGNATURES TO THE FRAME OF GOVERNMENT.
[This is reduced from the fac-simile in Smith and Watson’s American Historical and Literary Curiosities, pl. lvii.; and another reduction will be found in Mag. of Amer. Hist., October, 1882; cf. Lossing’s Fieldbook of the Revolution, ii. 256.—Ed.]
The good men of a nation, he argues, should make and keep its government, and laws should bind those who make laws necessary. As wisdom and virtue are qualities that descend not with worldly inheritances, care should be taken for the virtuous education of youth.
The Frame of Government which followed these remarks was signed by Penn on the 25th of April, 1682. By this Act the government was vested in the governor and freemen, in the form of a provincial council and an assembly. The provincial council was to consist of seventy-two members. The first election of councilmen was to be held on the 20th of February, 1682-83, and they were to meet on the 10th of the following month. One-third of the number were to retire each year when their successors were chosen. An elaborate scheme was devised for forming the council into committees to attend to various duties.
The assembly for the first year was to consist of all the freemen of the province, and after that two hundred were to be annually chosen. They were to meet on April 20; the governor was to preside over the council. Laws were to originate with the latter, and the chief duty of the assembly was to approve such legislation. The governor and council were to see the laws executed, inspect the treasury, determine the situation of cities and ports, and provide for public schools.
On May 5 forty laws were agreed upon by the purchasers in England as freemen of the province. By these all Christians, with the exception of bound servants and convicts, who should take up land or pay taxes were declared freemen. The merits of this proposed form, which was to be submitted for approval to the first legislative body assembling in Pennsylvania, have been widely debated. Professor Ebeling says it “was at first too highly praised, and afterwards too lightly depreciated.” It was without doubt too elaborate in some of its details, and the number proposed for the council and assembly were out of all proportion to the wants of a new country.
Shortly after his arrival, Penn found circumstances to require that the laws should be put in force with as little delay as possible. He therefore decided to call an assembly before the time provided, and extended to the inhabitants of the Delaware counties the right to participate in it. Writs were issued to the sheriffs of those parts to hold elections on the 20th of November for the choice of delegates to meet at Chester on the 4th of December, and the inhabitants of Pennsylvania were notified to attend.
The Assembly met at the appointed time. Upon petition from the lower counties, an Act uniting them with Pennsylvania was passed, and at the request of the Swedes a bill of naturalization became a law. Penn submitted to the House the Frame of Government and the code of laws agreed upon in England, together with a new series which he had prepared. In doing this he acted without the advice of a provincial council. The laws agreed upon in England, “more fully worded,” were passed, together with such others as were thought to be necessary, and the Assembly adjourned for twenty-one days. The members, however, do not appear to have met again.
In January Penn issued writs for an election, to be held on the 20th of February, of seventy-two members of the provincial council, and gave notice that an assembly would be held as provided in the Frame of Government. This was not strictly in accord with that document, as it provided that the seventy-two councilmen should be chosen from the province of Pennsylvania, and Penn made the passage apply equally to the Delaware counties, over which he had had no jurisdiction at the time the Frame was signed.