took a leading legislative and executive part, were vaguely gentry. They were fluent orators, by
virtue of their education, and spoke the language of political discourse-very significant in the
18th century, on both sides of the Atlantic. Lesser men, even those proud to call themselves 'free-
born Americans,' looked up to them. This was important, because it gave such members of the
political elite self-confidence, made them feel they `spoke for the people' without in any way
being demagogs.'
Bearing all these factors in mind, it was inevitable that the lower houses would eventually get
the upper hand in all the colonial assemblies. And so they did, but at different speeds. The
chronological scorecard reads as follows. The Rhode Island and Connecticut Houses of
Representatives were all-powerful from well before the beginning of the 18th century. Next
came the Pennsylvania House, building on its 1701 Charter of Privileges, and so securing
complete dominance in the 1730s, despite the opposition of governors. The Massachusetts House
of Representatives actually shared in the selection of the council under its new charter of 1691
that was unique-and in the 1720s it became paramount in finance. By the 1740s it was dominant
in all things. The South Carolina Commons and the New York House of Assembly came along
more slowly, and trailing behind them were the lower houses in North Carolina, New Jersey, and
Virginia-in fact Virginia's burgesses did not get on top until about the mid-1750s. In Maryland
and New Hampshire the victory of the lower house had still not been achieved by 1763. But
every one had got there by 1770 except remote and under-populated Nova Scotia. The movement
was all in one direction-towards representative democracy and rule by the many.
This triumph of the popular system had one very significant consequence for everyday life. It
meant that the American mainland colonies were the least taxed territories on earth. Indeed, it is
probably true to say that colonial America was the least taxed country in recorded history.
Government was extremely small, limited in its powers, and cheap. Often it could be paid for by
court fines, revenue from loan offices, or sale of lands. New Jersey and Pennsylvania
governments collected no statutory taxes at all for several decades. One reason why American
living standards were so high was that people could dispose of virtually all their income. Money
was raised by fees, in some cases by primitive forms of poll-tax, by export duties, paid by
merchants, or import duties, reflected in the comparatively high price of some imported goods.
But these were fleabites. Even so, there was resentment. The men of the frontier claimed they
should pay no tax at all, since they bore the burden of defense on behalf of everyone. But this
argument was a self-righteous justification of the fact that it was hard if not impossible to get
them to pay any tax at all. Until the 1760s at any rate, most mainland colonists were rarely, if
ever, conscious of a tax-burden. It is the closest the world has ever come to a no-tax society. That
was a tremendous benefit which America carried with it into Independence and helps to explain
why the United States remained a low-tax society until the second half of the twentieth century.
By the mid-18th century, America appeared to be progressing rapidly. It was unquestionably a
success story. It was to a large extent self-governing. It was doubling its population every
generation. It was already a rich country and growing richer. Most men and women who lived
there enjoyed, by European standards, middle-class incomes once the frugality and struggles of
their youth were over. The opportunities for the skilled, the enterprising, the energetic, and the
commercially imaginative were limitless. Was, then, America ceasing to be the City on the Hill' and becoming merely a materialistic, earthly paradise? Had Cotton Mather's Daughter Prosperity destroyed her Mother Religion? A visitor might have thought so. In Boston itself, with its42
streets, 36 lanes and 22 alleys' (in 1722), its `houses near 3,000, 1,000 brick the rest timber,' its