When Lord Cornbury assumed the government of New Jersey in 1701, his instructions directed him to permit liberty of conscience to all persons except papists. Matters remained thus with the Romish Church in New Jersey until the end of British rule.
Another incident of Leisler’s brief administration was of greater importance and farther-reaching consequences than his proscription of persons differing from his religious opinions. It will be remembered[471] that a general assembly of the province had been elected in 1683, holding two sessions that year and another in 1684; also that it had been dissolved in 1687, pursuant to the instructions of King James II. to Sir Edmond Andros, directing him “to observe in the passing of lawes that the Stile of enacting the same by the Governor and Council be henceforth used and no other.” The laws enacted by the first assembly, and not repealed by the king, remained in force, and the government was carried on with the revenues derived from the excise on beer, wine, and liquors, from the customs duties on exported and imported goods, and from tax levies; but the people had no voice in the ordering of this revenue, as they had had none during the Dutch period and before 1683. Leisler and his party, however, firmly believed in the Aryan principle of “no taxation without representation,” and when a necessity for money arose out of the French invasion and the subsequent plan to reduce Canada, Leisler issued writs of election for a general assembly, which in the first session, in April, 1690, enacted a law for raising money by a general tax. Adjourned to the following autumn, it again ordered another tax levy, and passed an act obliging persons to serve in civil or military office.
In calling together this general assembly, notwithstanding the repeal by James II. of the Charter of Liberties of 1683, Leisler assumed for the colony of New York a right which the laws and customs of Great Britain did not concede to her as a “conquered or crown” province. The terms on which New York had been surrendered to the English, both in 1664 and in 1674, ignored a participation by the people in the administration of the government, and the king in council could therefore, without infringing upon any law of England or breaking any treaty stipulation, deal with the conquered province as he pleased; while all the other colonies in America were “settled or discovered” countries, which, because taken possession of as unoccupied lands or under special charters and settled by English subjects, had thereby inherited the common law of England and all the rights and liberties of Englishmen, subject only to certain conditions imposed by their respective charters, as against the prerogatives of the crown. The action of Leisler showed to the English ministry the injustice with which New York had been treated so long, and the instructions given to Governor Sloughter in November, 1690, directed him “to summon and call general Assemblies of the Inhabitants, being Freeholders within your Government, according to the usage of our other Plantations in America.” This general assembly was to be the popular branch of the government, while the council, appointed by the king upon the governor’s recommendation, took the place of the English House of Lords. The governor had a negative voice in the making of all laws, the final veto remaining with the king, to whom every act had to be sent for confirmation. Three coördinate factors of the government—the assembly, the council, and the governor—were now established in theory; in reality there were only two, for the governor always presided at the sessions of the council, voting as a member, and in case of a tie gave also a casting vote. This state of affairs, by which the executive branch possessed two votes on every legislative measure, as well as the final approval, continued until 1733, when, Governor Cosby having quarrelled with the chief justice and other members of the council, the question was submitted to the home government. The law officers now declared that it was inconsistent with the nature of the English government, the governor’s commission, and his majesty’s instructions for the governor in any case whatsoever to sit and vote as a member of the council. Governor Cosby was therefore informed by the Lords of Trade and Plantations that he could sit and advise with the council on executive business, but not when the council met as a legislative body.
The first assembly called by Governor Sloughter enacted, in 1691, the Bill of Rights, which was the Charter of Liberties of 1683, with some modifications relative to churches. It met with the same fate as before, as the Lords of Trade could not recommend it to the king for approval, because it gave “great and unreasonable privileges” to the members of the general assembly, and “contained also several large and doubtful expressions.” The king accordingly vetoed it in 1697, after the ministry had required six years to discover the objections against it. They could not very well give the real reason, which was that this Bill of Rights vested supreme power and authority, under the king, in the governor, council, and the people by their representatives, while it was as yet undecided whether in New York, a “conquered” province, the people had any right to demand representation in the legislative bodies.
GOVERNOR FLETCHER.
From a plate in Valentine’s N. Y. City Manual, 1851.
Governor Sloughter died within a few months after his arrival in New York (June, 1691), and was succeeded by Colonel Benjamin Fletcher, “a soldier, a man of strong passions and inconsiderable talent, very active and equally avaricious,” who, as his successor Bellomont said, allowed the introduction into the province of a debased coinage (the so-called dog dollars); protected pirates, and took a share of their booty as a reward for his protection; misapplied and embezzled the king’s revenue and other moneys appropriated for special and public uses; gave away and took for himself, for nominal quit-rents, extensive tracts of land; and used improper influence in securing the election of his friends to the general assembly.
A man of such a character could hardly be a satisfactory governor of a province, the inhabitants of which were still divided between the bitterly antagonistic factions of Leislerians and anti-Leislerians, without in a short time gaining the ill-will and enmity of one of them. The men whose official position, as members of the council, gave them the first opportunity of influencing the new governor were anti-Leislerians. Fletcher therefore joined this party, without perhaps fully understanding the cause of the dissensions. His lack of administrative abilities, coupled with his affiliation with one party, gave sufficient cause to the other to make grave charges against him, which resulted in his recall in 1697.
In the mean time the assembly had begun the struggle for legislative supremacy which characterizes the inner political life of New York during the whole period of British dominion.