Virginia from Maryland, was settled in 1746. The most troublesome of all these controversies was that between Pennsylvania and Maryland (see p. 81): Baltimore's grant of 1632 -"unto that part of Delaware Bay on the north which lieth under the 40th degree of north latitude"-included the whole of upper Chesapeake Bay, and even the site of Philadelphia; but Penn insisted that his grant "unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of Northern Latitude" meant the 39th parallel, and not the 40th. Baltimore had the legal advantage; Penn had the king's favor; therefore the English government gave a strip comprising Philadelphia to

Penn, and the two proprietary families agreed on a compromise line, which was finally run by the surveyors Mason and Dixon (1763-1767). Later that line became also the

PENNSYLVANIA BOUNDARY

CONTROVERSIES.

boundary between free and slaveholding states- that is, between the North and "Dixie's Land."

New York took advantage of the Pennsylvania plea that a degree of latitude "began" at the parallel of the next lower degree, to push the northern line of Pennsylvania one degree south. In New England, Massachusetts had controversies with every neighbor, but finally came down to substantially her present bounds. The region north of Massachusetts and west of the Connecticut River was claimed by Massachusetts, settled under grants from New Hampshire, and then was assigned to New York (1764) by the British government.

The colonies pressed their claims to territory because they felt responsible for their own future. Nowhere on earth were there such free commonwealths; nowhere was there so much discussion of public questions by the people at large; nowhere was there such a "fierce spirit of liberty," as Edmund Burke called it.

81. Growth of colonial democracy

The foundation of this lively colonial democracy was the conviction that Americans were entitled to inborn rights, which could not be taken away by either British or colonial governments. Among them were: (1) the personal rights of Englishmen set forth in the old common law, such as speedy and open trial by jury, and freedom from arbitrary arrest; (2) rights asserted for the English by such statutes as the Petition of Right (1628), the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), and the Bill of Rights (1689); (3) the right to make statutes in local matters. through town meetings and other local assemblies.

Voting was in every colony restricted to owners of real estate, or payers of considerable personal taxes-that is, to about one half or one third of the adult free men. There were no political parties in the modern sense: the usual division was between the friends of the governor and the opposition. In all the colonies the local dignitaries - ministers in New England, merchants in the middle colonies, planters in the Southcontrolled their neighbors' votes; and the public honors fell to a small number of families of social distinction.

82. Prin

The colonial democracies were organized in one or another of three official forms: (1) under charters, in the three colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; ciples (2) under orders and grants of the proprietors, holders of government patents, in the three colonies of Pennsylvania, Delaware,

and Maryland; (3) under orders and instructions to governors, issued by the home government in the seven "provinces" of New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and (after 1752) Georgia.

All these groups of colonies had governments divided into three departments:

(1) The governors of two of the charter colonies were elective; in the three proprietary colonies they were sent out by the proprietors; in the eight other colonies they were appointed by the crown. They were paid under acts of the assemblies, and hence had to come to an understanding with their people. Associated with the governor was a small council appointed by the crown or governor, which was in most colonies both the highest court and the upper house of the legislature.

(2) The assembly (lower house of the legislature) was elected from counties or towns, as units of representation. In conjunction with the governor and council, it made laws, and had the right of voting taxes; and it appointed certain colonial executive officers and audited the accounts.

(3) In the colonial courts the judges were appointed by the governor or the crown, except in Rhode Island and Connecticut. This was the weakest department of the colonial govern. ments; for the judges had no authority to hold that a colonial statute was invalid. But in all criminal and most civil cases juries were used, and justice was speedy and cheap.

tions on colonial gov

ernments

The freedom of action of the colonial governments was limited in several ways: (1) The colonists acknowledged the personal sovereignty of the king and the right of Parlia- 83. Restricment to legislate for all parts of the British Empire in matters of trade; and in every war the enemies of England were the enemies of the colonies. (2) The general conduct of the colonies was subject to the supervision of the home government, exercised by instructions sent out to the appointed governors; these included the obligation to call assemblies, but also forbade the governor to sign certain kinds of bills. Most colonies had in London an agent to represent the colony there and watch its interests. (3) The legislature could be dissolved by the governor, and its acts (except in

Rhode Island and Connecticut) were subject to his veto; and the home government or proprietor could disallow a colonial act even if the governor had signed it. (4) Appeal lay from the colonial courts to the Privy Council in England.

The colonial governments had the power to set up local gov ernments of various kinds, and to alter or abolish them.

84. Local

governments

(1) The county system, most distinct in the southern colonies, was an attempt to reproduce the English county government; there was a board appointed by the governor, and called the court of quarter sessions, or county court, which laid local taxes and made local ordinances, and, as a court, administered a crude and offhand justice for petty offenses.

(2) In Pennsylvania and New York both counties and towns were established: in Pennsylvania, the county officials were chosen as such by direct election; in New York the regular "supervisor" elected by each town or township was also a member of the county board. Both these types are now very common in the northwestern states.

(3) New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey set up a few city and borough governments.

(4) The smallest unit of local government in England, at the time of colonization, was the parish, often called a town. Some parishes were governed by a "select vestry," filling its own vacancies; others by a parish meeting of the taxpayers. Both these types were brought over to America: the select vestry was introduced into the so-called parishes in the South (but left no imprint on the government of the country and has long since ceased to exist); while the taxpayers' meeting was adopted for the villages (towns) of New England, and developed into the town meeting.

85. Colo

nial town meetings

Once a year, and at other times if necessary, all the voters of a New England town were summoned to a public meeting, in which most of the town business was performed. Town officers were chosen for the year, especially the

"townsmen," or selectmen a board of executive officers who
sat from time to time during the year. Other officers were
the town clerk, town treasurer, and a bewildering list of petty
officers, such as constables, surveyors of the highway, over-
seers of the poor, pound
keepers, and hog reeves.

The main business of
the town meeting, how-
ever, was to legislate for
the town, and it was a
place for vigorous discus-
sion, and for the develop-
ment of parliamentary law
and political patience; and
in troubled times it was
the center of protest, as
when the Cambridge town
meeting in the Stamp Act
days instructed its repre-
sentatives that "they use their utmost endeavours, that the
same may be repealed; that this vote may be recorded in the
Town Book, that the children yet unborn may see the desires
that their ancestors had for their freedom and happiness."

of colonial union

Though officially quite distinct from one another, and connected only by common adherence to the British government, the colonies had many relations with one another. It 86. Germs was easy for an Englishman or a foreigner to become. a citizen of a colony, or to move from one to another, (1690-1750) for every colony was Protestant, every colony had the same system of laws, every colony was English-speaking.

In the period from 1690 to 1750 several intercolonial meetings were held to discuss Indian relations and other matters of common interest. William Penn even proposed (1696) an annual meeting of deputies of all the provinces, to discuss