istrates” and assembled together as the colony’s first “Generall Court”
or legislature. That body then appointed itself a ruling council as the
“Governor’s Court of Assistants” in which all executive, legislative, and
judicial powers were to be lodged. Sure of their mission and driven by the
urgency of getting the community organized, the governor, John Winthrop,
and the “assistants” set to work. They made no pretence of election, enter-
tained no concept of the division of powers, and certainly planned no toler-
ance for opposition. They acted as they thought “meete,” that is, in line
with their interpretation of biblical commandments and current needs.
They moved fast and comprehensively. With control of both the propri-
etary company and the charter, they granted land to incoming Puritans,
incorporated towns, assessed taxes, and appointed officers of government.
Since they always intended Massachusetts to be a self-governing theocracy
as defined by their church, they made no pretence of allowing freedom of
religion to others; “non-Puritans” were outsiders, living on sufferance so
long as they conformed to strictly enforced codes of dress, drink, and
deportment. If they did not conform, they were to be punished, driven
away, mutilated, or even executed. As though to prove their growing alien-
ation from England, the new government required all inhabitants to pledge
allegiance not to the king but to Massachusetts.
Foreshadowing the great issue of the eighteenth century, the first signif-
icant dissent from the government of Massachusetts came over the issue of
“taxation without representation.” The Puritan minister at Watertown,
Deacon George Phillips, advised his parishioners in 1632 that it would be
wrong to pay taxes they had not been represented in levying. Stung by this
criticism, Governor Winthrop took the first small step toward representa-
tive government by allowing each township to elect two delegates “to
advise with the governor and assistants.” But they were not to enact laws.
Laws were to be created only by the Puritan elders. In fact, Massachusetts
moved away from popular participation in government and law by mandat-
ing, in 1641, a comprehensive and intrusive list, not of rights but of crimes
and punishments.
Meanwhile, in England, Archbishop William Laud, the chief ideologist
in Charles I’s authoritarian government, undertook a vigorous program to
revitalize the Church of England. Watching the departure of a growing num-
“Mother England” Loses Touch 129