Formation of the Union | Page 7

remained that a law was superior to the will of the ruler, and that the
constitution was superior to the law. Thus the ground was prepared for
a complicated federal government, with a national constitution
recognized as the supreme law, and superior both to national
enactments and to State constitutions or statutes.
[Sidenote: Principles of freedom.]
The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was
promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for
making laws and carrying on government. The older and the younger
branches of the race were alike accustomed to administer local affairs
in local assemblies, and more general affairs in a general assembly. The
two systems in both countries worked side by side without friction;
hence Americans and Englishmen were alike unused to the interference
of officials in local matters, and accustomed through their
representatives to take an educating share in larger affairs. The
principle was firmly rooted on both sides of the water that taxes were
not a matter of right, but were a gift of the people, voted directly or
through their representatives. On both sides of the water it was a
principle also that a subject was entitled to his freedom unless
convicted of or charged with a crime, and that he should have a speedy,
public, and fair trial to establish his guilt or innocence. Everywhere
among the English-speaking race criminal justice was rude, and
punishments were barbarous; but the tendency was to do away with
special privileges and legal exemptions. Before the courts and before
the tax-gatherers all Englishmen stood practically on the same basis.
5. COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH INSTITUTIONS.
Beginning at the time of colonization with substantially the same
principles of liberty and government, the two regions developed under
circumstances so different that, at the end of a century and a half, they
were as different from each other as from their prototype.

[Sidenote: Separation of departments.] [Sidenote: Aristocracy.]
The Stuart sovereigns of England steadily attempted to strengthen their
power, and the resistance to that effort caused an immense growth of
Parliamentary influence. The colonies had little occasion to feel or to
resent direct royal prerogative. To them the Crown was represented by
governors, with whom they could quarrel without being guilty of
treason, and from whom in general they feared very little, but whom
they could not depose. Governors shifted rapidly, and colonial
assemblies eventually took over much of the executive business from
the governors, or gave it to officers whom they elected. But while, in
the eighteenth century, the system of a responsible ministry was
growing up in England under the Hanoverian kings, the colonies were
accustomed to a sharp division between the legislative and the
executive departments. Situated as they were at a great distance from
the mother-country, the assemblies were obliged to pass sweeping laws.
The easiest way of checking them was to limit the power of the
assemblies by strong clauses in the charters or in the governor's
instructions; and to the very last the governors, and above the
governors the king, retained the power of royal veto, which in England
was never exercised after 1708. Thus the colonies were accustomed to
see their laws quietly and legally reversed, while Parliament was
growing into the belief that its will ought to prevail against the king or
the judges. In a wild frontier country the people were obliged to depend
upon their neighbors for defence or companionship. More emphasis
was thus thrown upon the local governments than in England. The titles
of rank, which continued to have great social and political force in
England, were almost unknown in America. The patroons in New York
were in 1750 little more than great land-owners; the fanciful system of
landgraves, palsgraves, and caciques in Carolina never had any
substance. No permanent colonial nobility was ever created, and but
few titles were conferred on Americans. An American aristocracy did
grow up, founded partly on the ownership of land, and partly on wealth
acquired by trade. It existed side by side with a very open and
accessible democracy of farmers.
[Sidenote: Powers of the colonies.]

The gentlemen of the colonies were leaders; but if they accepted too
many of the governor's favors or voted for too many of that officer's
measures, they found themselves left out of the assemblies by their
independent constituents. The power over territory, the right to grant
wild lands, was also peculiar to the New World, and led to a special set
of difficulties. In New England the legislatures insisted on sharing in
this power. In Pennsylvania there was an unceasing quarrel over the
proprietors' claim to quit-rents. Farther south the governors made vast
grants unquestioned by the assemblies. In any event, colonization and
the grant of lands were provincial matters. Each colony became