charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were most favorable to the cause of popular government in the colonies. Rhode Island and Connecticut were pure republics and both branches of the legislative assembly were elected by the people. In fact, so satisfactory were the charters to the people of these two colonies that the charter of Connecticut remained as its only constitution until the year 1818, and in Rhode Island no other constitution was adopted until the year 1842.

The charter of Massachusetts vested the executive branch of the government in the governor, who was appointed by the English government. The legislative branch consisted of an assembly of two houses, the lower house being composed of representatives chosen by the people. The House of Representatives, or the lower house of the legislative assembly, had the power of electing the upper branch of the assembly, which was known as the Governor's Council. Such elections were subject, however, to the veto of the governor. Thus, while the colonial government of Massachusetts was much more liberal and democratic than the government of the Royal Provinces, still it was not to be compared in this respect with the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

3. Proprietary Colonies. These colonies were three in number-Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. They were called proprietary colonies because they originated in a grant of land from the King of Great Britain to an individual who was, by the terms of his grant, vested with the full power of framing and exercising a form of government over the territory under his jurisdiction. In these colonies the governor was appointed by the proprietary lord, but in some cases the proprietary himself acted as the governor.

In Maryland, under the terms of the grant from the King

of Great Britain, the office of proprietary was hereditary in the Calvert family. The government in this and other proprietary colonies was not unlike that of a limited monarchy. The people had no voice in the appointment of a governor, but did have the right to elect a legislative assembly to enact the laws for the government of the colony.

Pennsylvania and Delaware were separate colonies and had separate legislative assemblies, but they originated in the grant from the King of Great Britain to William Penn, who was the proprietary and in whose descendants the proprietorship vested, the same as in the case of the Calvert family in Maryland.

The Transition from the colonial forms of government to the government of a State was easy. In the case of Connecticut and Rhode Island, no change was necessary until many years after the independence of the United States, when the altered conditions due to the progress of the people in the nineteenth century made the former government antiquated and unsuitable. In Massachusetts only slight changes were necessary, such as providing for the election of a governor and both branches of the legislative assembly by the people and the removal of the name of the King of Great Britain from all legal documents and substituting, in lieu thereof, the name of the People of the State of Massachusetts. In the Royal Provinces the changes were more numerous, as the people in these colonies, by appropriate legislation, wiped out of existence all vestiges of royal authority, and enacted laws giving to themselves such rights as had formerly been granted by the King of Great Britain to the people of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Political Status of the Colonies.-In this way the State governments of the thirteen original States were

framed, and the same model has been used in providing a government for the new States upon their admission into the Union. The political status of the colonies, at the time of the Revolutionary War and of the respective States of the Union after the federal government was formed, has been the subject of much discussion among writers upon historical and political subjects. This subject has been admirably treated by Mr. Justice Story in so brief and forceful a manner that we cannot do better than adopt his words as a guide:

"Though the colonies had a common origin and owed a common allegiance, and the inhabitants of each were British subjects, they had no direct political connection with each other. Each was independent of all others; each, in a limited sense, was sovereign within its own territory. There was neither alliance nor confederacy between them. The assembly of one province could not make laws for another, nor confer privileges which were to be enjoyed or exercised in another, further than they could be in any independent foreign state. As colonies they were also excluded from all connections with foreign states. They were known only as dependencies; and they followed the fate of the parent country, both in peace and in war, without having assigned to them, in the intercourse or diplomacy of nations, any distinct or independent existence. They did not possess the power of forming any league or treaty among themselves which should acquire an obligatory force without the assent of the parent state.

"But, although the colonies were independent of each other in respect to their domestic concerns, they were not wholly alien to each other. On the contrary, they were fellowsubjects, and for many purposes one people. Every colonist had a right to inhabit, if he pleased, in any other

colony; and, as a British subject, he was capable of inheriting lands by descent in every other colony. The commercial intercourse of the colonies, too, was regulated by the general laws of the British Empire, and could not be restrained or obstructed by colonial legislation.”*

Such was the condition of the colonies in the year 1775. But when the final struggle with the parent country commenced, the necessity for some sort of union among the colonies was more apparent than ever, because it would have been impossible for thirteen small states to successfully prosecute a war against the most powerful nation of Europe without combining their resources and presenting a united front to the common enemy. For this purpose temporary expedients were adopted, probably the best that could have been devised under the circumstances, but, as experience proved, wholly insufficient to regulate the affairs of a great nation.

Consequently, during the period from 1775 to 1789, when the present constitution was adopted, the government of the United States, except as to the local affairs of each colony, was unsettled to such an extent that many statesmen despaired of ever being able to form a successful national government.

*Story's Commentaries on the Constitution.

CHAPTER V.

FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN UNION.

The fifteen years which intervened between the meeting of the First Continental Congress, in 1774, and the beginning of government under our present constitution, were probably the most critical for the cause of popular government that have ever passed. During these years, the country's future was often imperiled, not only by the successes of the British army, in the earlier stages of the Revolutionary War, but at all times by the inefficiency of our own central government, and later, after our arms had been victorious and the power of England had been banished from our shores, by the petty jealousy, suspicion and rivalry which prevailed among the respective colonies.

Prior to the year 1774 there had been no permanent union of the colonies, but each had been careful to preserve its political identity. Such attempts as had been made toward effecting a union had been viewed with distrust by the colonists and regarded with disfavor by England. During the seventeenth century, between the years 1643 and 1683, there had been a defensive alliance between the New England colonies for the purpose of protecting their settlements from the attacks of hostile Indians, but this union did not contemplate or include within its scope any plan for the government of all the colonies by a central authority.

Albany Convention.- From time to time the political thinkers of the colonies discussed the feasibility of union,