A History of the American People

exclaimed in exasperation: That old fool has taken away more lives in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father.' The governors, of course, did not rule alone. Each had some kind of council, which formed the executive or administrative body of the colony and constituted the upper chamber (like the House of Lords) of its assembly. They were appointed by the crown (in royal colonies) or by the proprietors, and their numbers varied-ten in Rhode Island, twenty-eight in Massachusetts. They also had judicial functions and (with the governor) served as courts of appeal, though certain important cases could be appealed again to the Privy Council in London. A good, firm-minded governor could usually get his council solidly behind him. It was a different matter with the Houses of Burgesses (or whatever they were called), the lower chambers of the assemblies. The first one dated from as far back as 1619. All the colonies had them. Most of them were older than any working parliaments in Europe, apart from Britain's. They aped the House of Commons and studied its history assiduously, especially in its more aggressive phases. Most of these assemblies kept copies of one or more volumes, for instance, of John Rushworth's Historical Collections, which documents the struggles of the Commons against James I and Charles I and was regarded by royalists as a subversive book. Whenever the Commons set a precedent in power-grabbing or audacity, one or other assembly was sure to cite it. However, there was an important different between the English parliament and the colonial assemblies. England had never had a written constitution. All its written constitutional documents, like Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, were specific ad hoc remedies for crises as they arose. They were never intended, nor were they used, as guides for the present and future. All the English had were precedents: their constitutional law operated exactly like their common law, organically The Americans inherited this common law. But they also had constitutions. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639) was the firs written constitution not only in America but in the world. Written constitutions were subsequently adopted by all the colonies. It is vital to grasp this point. It was the constitutions as much as the assemblies themselves which made the colonies unique. In this respect they could be seen as moremodern' than England, certainly
more innovatory. Its constitution was what made Connecticut, for instance, separate from and
independent of Massachusetts, its original Mother.' Having a constitution made a colony feel self-contained, mature, almost sovereign Having a constitution inevitably led you to think in terms of rights, natural law, and absolutes, things the English were conditioned, by their empiricism and their organic approach to change, not to trouble their heads about. That was abstract stuff.' But it was not abstract for Americans. And any body which has a constitution
inevitably begins to consider amending and enlarging it-a written constitution is a sign post
pointing to independence.
The early establishment of assemblies and written constitutions-self-rule in fact-arose from the
crown's physical inability, in the first half of the 17th century, to exercise direct control. The
crown was never able to recover this surrender of power. Nor could the English deny the
Americans the fruits of their own past. Their parliament had waged a successful struggle against
the crown in the 1640s and acquired powers which could never subsequently be taken away. The
colonial assemblies benefited from this. In 1688 the Glorious Revolution turned a divine-right
monarchy into a limited, parliamentary one. The colonies participated in this victory, especially
in New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland, which overthrew the royal government of James ii
and replaced it by popular rule. When William III, the beneficiary of the Glorious Revolution,
sought to reorganize the English colonies on Continental lines, he found it impossible and was