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VIRGINIA DURING THE COMMONWEALTH

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student to find in a given "source" the authority for some statement in the text, or to find a possible basis for deciding between two conflicting authorities.

For the class which does not use the Source Book, the following bibliography is suggested in connection with early Virginia.

Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, 1–97 (charming and scholarly) ; Fiske, Old Virginia and her Neighbors, I, 1-224; Channing, History of the United States, I, 115-241; Becker, Beginnings of the American People, 37-70.

In fiction, mention may be made, for this period, of Mary Johnston's To Have and to Hold and Eggleston's Pocahontas and Powhatan. Kingsley's Westward Ho pictures the rivalry between England and Spain in the Old World and the New.

SUGGESTIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND REVIEW

1. Quote from memory three or four memorable sentences or phrases (such as the quotation at the head of chapter iii and that in § 33). 2. Make a syllabus for Virginia to 1660.

3. Let each student present a list of twelve or fifteen questions for the others to answer, - the instructor criticizing when necessary. 4. Sample Questions. (1) Who chose the chief executive in Virginia in 1607? In 1611? In 1620? In 1625? In 1655? (2) Distinguish between the Virginia General Assembly and the Virginia Company's Great and General Court, as to place, composition, and powers. (3) Did any of the royal charters to the Virginia Company suggest self-government for the settlers? Justify the answer. (4) When and why did the Ordinance of 1621 cease to be valid? (5) Distinguish two stages in the attack of King James upon the liberal London Company. (6) Who had authority to make laws for the Virginians in 1608? In 1610 ? In 1616 ? In 1621? In 1631? (7) What facts about the colony in this period, not referred to in the text above, can you find in the Source Book? Do you learn anything from the story of Gilbert (§ 20) about European familiarity with the North Atlantic coast of America?

(Students should be trained to answer briefly but inclusively. For the fifth question, some such answer as the following should be required: First he tried in vain to secure control of the Company by dominating its elections in 1620 and 1622; then, he secured its overthrow through a decree of his subservient courts against the validity of the Company's charter, in 1624.)

CHAPTER VI

MARYLAND1: A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE

Among the people of Lord Baltimore's colony, as among Englishspeaking people in general, one might observe a fierce spirit of political liberty coupled with an ingrained respect for law. - FISKE, Old Virginia.

50. For Maryland, the plan of colonization was much like that of Raleigh's day. George Calvert, a high-minded gentleman, had been interested for many years in the expansion of England. He was a member of the London Company and of the New England Council (§ 58); and finally he took upon his own shoulders a separate attempt to build a colony.

a

In 1623, Calvert secured

charter from King James for a vast tract in Newfoundland, with authority to rule settlers there; and to this Province of Avalon he sent out GEORGE CALVERT, FIRST LORD BALTIAfter a portrait by Mytens, court several bodies of colonists. painter to James I, in the gallery of the Just after receiving the Earl of Verulam, Glastonbury. grant, Calvert became a Catholic, though that religion was then persecuted sternly in England. Until this time his life had been spent mainly

MORE.

1 From 1607 to 1620 Virginia was the only English colony on the continent. Then came the beginnings of New England; but for some time more the two

§ 52] GROWTH OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 45

in the service of the government; but now he had to withdraw from office. To reward his past services, the King made him Baron of Baltimore, and the new peer then spent some years in his colony-only to learn by bitter experience that he had been misled cruelly as to its climate and wealth.1

Broken in health and fortune, Baltimore at last abandoned that harsh location, and petitioned King Charles for a more southerly province. Before the new grant was completed, he died; but in 1632 the Charter for Maryland was issued to his son. Two years later this second Lord Baltimore sent

two hundred settlers to the colony.

51. The charter of 1632 sanctioned representative self-government. It put the head of the Baltimore family in the position, practically, of a constitutional king over the settlers: but his great authority was limited by one supreme provision, not found in the charter to Raleigh. In raising taxes and making laws, the proprietor could act only with the advice and consent of an Assembly of the freemen2 or of their representatives.

This recognition of political rights for the settlers, in a royal charter, is an onward step in the history of liberty. The creation of the Virginia Assembly, and the devotion of the Virginians to it, had borne fruit. Between 1620 and 1630, it became a settled conviction for all Englishmen, at last even for the court circle, that colonization in America was possible only upon the basis of a large measure of self-government.

The pro

52. The Assembly soon won unexpected power. prietors did not live in the colony. They ruled it through governors, whom they appointed and dismissed at will, and to whom they delegated such authority as they chose. The governor was assisted by a small Council, also appointed by the proprietor. This proprietary machinery was intended to groups of colonies, north and south, were separated by vast stretches of wil. derness. Maryland was Virginia's only neighbor in the first half century.

1 See Baltimore's letter to King Charles in Source Book, No. 41. The name Avalon, with such terms as Bay of Flowers and Harbor of Heartsease, suggest rosy anticipations. Cf. § 2.

2 In Maryland this term became equivalent to "landowners."

be the controlling part of the government. But within twenty years Maryland grew into a democratic commonwealth, with the Assembly for the center of authority. The most important steps in this transformation were taken in the first twenty years. Lord Baltimore directed the first governor to call an Assembly, but authorized him to adjourn and dissolve it at will and to veto any of its acts. Baltimore himself reserved a further veto. Moreover, he intended to keep for himself the sole right to initiate legislation. He meant to draw up all laws in full, and to submit them to the Assembly - which might then approve them or reject them, but might not amend them. The charter, he pointed out, declared that he was to make laws " with the advice and consent" of the freemen. But this phrase was the same that English kings had used for centuries to express the division of power between themselves and parliament, although, meantime, parliament had come to be the real law-making power. Accordingly, the people of Maryland insisted upon taking the words in the sense which history had given them, rather than in their literal meaning.

The first Assembly (1635) passed a code of laws. Baltimore vetoed them all, on the ground that the Assembly had exceeded its authority. To the next Assembly (1638) Baltimore sent a carefully drawn body of laws. After full debate, these were rejected by unanimous vote of all the representatives. Then the Assembly passed a number of bills, several of them based upon those that had been presented by Baltimore; but all these fell before the proprietor's veto. In the following year, however, Baltimore wisely gave way, and soon ceased all attempts to introduce bills.

53. Another contest concerned the make-up of the Assembly. The first Assemblies were "primary" gatherings, to which all freemen might come; but to the spring Assembly of 1639 each "hundred" (the local unit in early Maryland) chose two delegates. Notwithstanding this, from one of the hundreds there appeared two other men claiming a right to sit as members because they "had not consented" to the election!

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GAINS FOR DEMOCRACY

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Stranger still, the absurd claim was allowed! But the same Assembly decreed that in future there should sit only (1) delegates duly chosen and (2) gentlemen summoned by the governor's personal writs. In 1641 a defeated candidate claimed a right to sit "in his own person," but this time the plea was promptly denied. The Assembly had become representative.

54. The next step was for the Assembly to divide into two Houses. At first the Council sat as part of the Assembly in one body with the freemen or their delegates. Moreover, the governor summoned other gentlemen, as many as he pleased, by personal writs, independent of election. These appointed members sympathized naturally with the proprietor and the governor, while the delegates sometimes stood for the interests of the settlers. As early as 1642 the differences between the two elements, appointed and elected, led the representatives to propose a division into two "Houses." The attempt failed because of the governor's veto; but the arrangement became law in 1650.1

55. Summary of Political Progress. Thus the first generation of Marylanders won from the proprietor important rights guaranteed to him by the charter. The form of the Assembly was no longer determined by him from time to time: it was fixed, to suit democratic desires, by a law of the Assembly; and the Assembly took from the governor all his law-making powers, except his veto.

The Assembly of 1642 attempted also to secure stated meetings, independent of a governor's call, and to do away with the governor's right to dissolve them. In form, these radical attempts failed; but in reality the Assembly soon learned to control its own sittings, except in extreme crises, through its power over taxation. It granted supplies only for a year at a time (so that it had to be called each year), and it deferred this vote of supplies until it was ready to adjourn.

1 The first colony to establish a two-House legislature was Massachusetts in 1644 (§ 102); but the first attempt came in Maryland.