At the outset, the arrangements of the Pilgrims were extremely simple, and grew naturally from their needs, from their crude ideas of liberty, and their imperfect conception of a model state. Nominally, the sovereignty of Britain was recognized; in fact, all through these opening decades of American history, the colonists were despised by the home government, and left free to plant the most radical principles of a “proper democracy.” It was only when the greed of gain squeezed her heart, not repentance nor love, that England recognized the legitimacy of the neglected child whom she had pronounced a bastard, and left to freeze in the winter wilderness. When God wrote success upon the frontlet of the colony, the Shylocks on the Rialtos of the world were eager to invest in the enterprise, while England, with motherly pride, patted New England upon the head and said, “I rocked your cradle; but, bless me, how you are grown, and how like me you are. You may pay me your earnings, and I’ll send you a governor.”
But through the bitter months of the incipient settlement Shylock could see nothing in New England but a barren coast, while Britain could not discern Plymouth Rock across the water; nor if she had would any craving governor have itched to set up his chair of state in a cheerless Eldorado of ice and snow.
So the Pilgrims were left to shift for themselves until, strengthened by incessant tussles with a rugged climate and the savage foe, they expanded into robust manhood. In these first months, the Plymouth colonists regarded themselves as one family, at whose head stood the governor, in loco parentis.[310] But as business increased, the whole burden of government was felt to be too onerous for the single shoulders of the governor to bear; and when Bradford stepped into the gubernatorial chair left vacant by the death of Carver, he was voted an assistant.[311] In 1624, he was given five assistants. Afterwards, in 1633, the number was increased to seven; and these, called “the Governor’s Council,”[312] governed the commonwealth in conjunction with their primitive executive. The vote of each councillor counted one, and the vote of the chief magistrate was but double—the only check he had over the action of the Council.[313]
The governor was chosen annually, by general suffrage,[314] as were also the councillors.[315] The name of the man who was disposed to shirk his civil duty we do not know; “but a curious law was passed in 1632, that whoever should refuse the office of governor, being chosen thereto, should pay twenty pounds; and that of magistrate, ten pounds. Very singular, certainly; and we may suppose that that race has run out even in Massachusetts.”[316]
The legislative body was at first composed of the whole company of voters.[317] Then, when their numbers grew, church-membership was made the test of citizenship[318]—a test which endured till 1665, when it was reluctantly yielded at the requisition of the king’s commissioners.[319] It was not until 1669 that the increase of population warranted the establishment of a House of Representatives.[320]
“Narrow as the restriction of citizenship to church-members was, it is easy to explain it by remembering that toleration, in any large sense, was hardly entertained by the most liberal religionists in that twilight age, and that the one idea which inspired this emigration and nerved these men for the bitterest sacrifices was, that they and their children might be free from an ecclesiastical tyranny which, if it followed, would endanger them. It should also be borne in mind that the history they studied, and the guide they felt bound to follow, was the Jewish theocracy, ordained by God, as they doubted not, to be a model in church and state for all time; and that, under that dispensation, death was the punishment for smaller errors than dissent. These facts explain and palliate the religious precision and severity afterwards practised in New England. But the free idea with which they started gradually grew broader, overcame the evil customs of the time, and strangled the prejudices of the Pilgrims themselves.”[321]
So early as the 17th of December, 1623, it was decreed that “all criminal facts, and all manner of trespass and debt betwixt man and man, should be tried by the verdict of twelve honest men.”[322] Thus the jury trial, the distinctive badge of Saxon civilization, a right which a long line of able lawyers, from Coke and Hale to Mansfield and Erskine, have united in styling the palladium of civil liberty, was planted in America.
Previous to the year 1632, the laws of Plymouth colony were little more than the customs of the people.[323] In 1636 these were digested, and prefaced with a declaration of rights; and, with various alterations and additions, the whole manuscript collection was printed in 1671.[324] Let us open the ponderous old folio, and cull from the mass a few specimen and characteristic samples. Early provision was made for the education of youth. Many of the Pilgrims were men of liberal culture, as Winslow and Brewster,[325] and all recognized its value and necessity; so, in order that knowledge and civil liberty might clasp hands, it was enacted, “that twelve pounds should be raised for the salary of a teacher, and that children should be forced to attend school.”[326]
Decreed: “For ordering of persons and distributing the lands, That freemen shall be twenty-one years of age; sober and peaceable; orthodox in the fundamentals of religion. That drunkards shall be subject to fines, to the stocks, and be posted; and sellers be forbidden to sell them liquors.
“Horse-racing is forbidden; so also walking about late o’ nights.