Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies

Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies of North America shared many attributes. While each of the Thirteen Colonies, eventually to become the original United States had its own unique history and development, many common features and patterns emerged in their governing institutions and operations.

The representatives of the government of the colonies represented the colony an extension of the English government. Courts enforced the common law of England. The Governor's Council or the Governor's Court was a body of senior advisers to the appointed royal Governor in each province.

The legislative body, which went by various names from colony to colony and through time, was elected by the enfranchised voters. By 1755, most free white men could vote. In colonial New England there were annual town meetings, where each colonist had a voice.

Diplomatic affairs were handled by London, as were some trade policies. The colonies generally handled domestic matters (and wars with the Native Americans), but England – and after 1707, Great Britain – handled foreign wars.

Relation to the Crown

The thirteen colonies were all founded with royal authorization, and authority continued to flow from the British monarch as colonial governments exercised authority in the king's name. A colony's precise relationship to the Crown depended on whether it was a charter colony, proprietary colony or royal colony as defined in its colonial charter. Whereas royal colonies belonged to the Crown, proprietary and charter colonies were granted by the Crown to private interests.

Control over a charter or corporate colony was granted to a joint-stock company, such as the Virginia Company. Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were founded as charter colonies. New England's charter colonies were virtually independent of royal authority and operated as republics where property owners elected the governor and legislators. Proprietary colonies were owned and governed by individuals. To attract settlers, however, proprietors agreed to share power with property owners. Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were founded as proprietary colonies.

In 1624, Virginia became the first royal colony when the bankrupt Virginia Company's charter was revoked. Overtime, more colonies transitioned to royal control. By the start of the American Revolution, all but five of the thirteen colonies were royal colonies. Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware remained proprietary, while Rhode Island and Connecticut continued as corporate colonies.

Historian Robert Middlekauff describes royal administration of the colonies as inadequate and inefficient because lines of authority were never entirely clear. Before 1768, responsibility for colonial affairs rested with the Privy Council and the Secretary of State for the Southern Department. The Secretary relied on the Board of Trade to supply him with information and pass on his instructions to colonial officials. After 1768, the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs was responsible for supervising the colonies; however, this ministry suffered from ineffective secretaries and the jealousy of other government ministers.

Parliament's authority over the colonies was also unclear and controversial in the 18th century. As English government evolved from government by the Crown toward government in the name of the Crown, the convention that the colonies were ruled solely by the monarch gave way to greater involvement of Parliament by the mid 1700s. Acts of Parliament regulated commerce (see Navigation Acts), defined citizenship, and limited the amount of paper money issued in the colonies.

The British government argued that Parliament's authority to legislate for the colonies was unlimited. The American view, shaped by Whig political philosophy, was that Parliament's authority over the colonies was limited. While the colonies initially recognized Parliament's right to legislate for the whole empire—such as on matters of trade—they argued that Parliamentary taxation was a violation of the principle of taxation by consent since consent could only be granted by the colonists' own representatives. In addition, Americans argued that the colonies were outside of Parliament's jurisdiction and that the colonists owed allegiance only to the Crown. In effect, Americans argued that their colonial legislatures were coequal—not subordinate—to Parliament.

Governor

Governor's Palace at New Bern, North Carolina

By the start of the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies had developed political systems featuring a governor exercising executive power and a bicameral legislature divided into two houses: the council and the assembly. The system was consciously modeled on the British constitution, with the governor corresponding to the king, the council to the House of Lords and the assembly to the House of Commons.

In royal colonies, governors were appointed by the Crown and represented its interests as expressed through official instructions. Officially, the governor was the dominant branch of colonial government: he could veto laws passed by the legislature and dissolve the assembly. The assembly, however, controlled taxation and spending, including the governor's own salary, and it could punish an overbearing governor by withholding his salary. Governors were often placed in an untenable position. The

ir official instructions from London demanded that they protect the Crown's power—the royal prerogative—from usurpation by the assembly; at the same time, they were also ordered to secure more colonial funding for Britain's wars against France. In return for military funding, the assemblies often demanded more power.

To gain support for his agenda, the governor distributed patronage. He could reward supporters by appointing them to various offices such as attorney general, surveyor general or as a local sheriff. These offices were sought after as sources of prestige and income. He could also reward supporters with land grants. As a result of this strategy, colonial politics was characterized by a split between a governor's faction (the court party) and his opposition (the country party).

Council

Further information: Virginia Governor's Council, Massachusetts Governor's Council, and Executive Council of New Hampshire

Governor's council members were appointed, and they served at the governor's pleasure, who in turn served at the monarch's pleasure. Often the councilors' terms of service lasted longer than the governor's. The usual first act of a new royal governor was to re-appoint or continue the council members in their offices.

When there was an absentee governor or an interval between governors, the council acted as the government.

Members of the council included ex-officio members, who served by virtue of their position. Others were appointed in order to have a representative cross-section of the diverse interests in the colony. Council members were theoretically subject to approval by the London government, either the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, or after 1768 the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In practice, the distance and delay in communications meant that a veto occurred only in rare cases.

The council as a whole would sit as the supreme court for the colony, as was needed. On the local level, justices of the peace periodically convened a county court session.

As with the House of Lords the council had to approve new laws, which usually originated in the legislature. The council was seen as serving continuously; whereas the elected lawmakers of the colony typically met just once a year, addressing at that time taxes, budgets, and other concerns. Like the assembly, most council positions were unpaid.

While lawyers were prominent throughout the Thirteen Colonies, merchants were important in the northern colonies and planters were more involved in the southern provinces. These were the groups from which the appointed councilors and elected delegates were chosen.

Assembly

The assemblies had a variety of names, such as: House of Delegates, House of Burgesses, or Assembly of Freemen. They had several features in common. Members were elected annually, by the propertied citizens of the towns or counties. Usually they met for a single, short session; but the council or governor could call a special session. Suffrage was allotted only to free white men and, in the early days at least, limited to landowners. Land ownership was widespread, however, which meant that most white men were able to cast a vote.

Tax issues and budget decisions originated in the assembly. Part of the budget went toward the cost of raising and equipping the colonial militia. As the American Revolution drew near, this subject was a point of contention and conflict between the provincial assemblies and their respective governors.

Conflict and problems

The perennial struggles between the colonial governors and the assemblies are sometimes viewed, in retrospect, as signs of a rising democratic spirit. However, those assemblies generally represented the privileged classes, and they were protecting the colony against unreasonable executive encroachments.

Legally, the crown governor's authority was unassailable. In resisting that authority, assemblies resorted to arguments based upon natural rights and the common welfare, giving life to the notion that governments derived, or ought to derive, their authority from the consent of the governed.

Union proposals

Before the American Revolution, attempts to create a unified government for the thirteen colonies were unsuccessful. Multiple plans for a union were proposed at the Albany Congress in 1754. One of these plans, proposed by Benjamin Franklin, was the Albany Plan.

See also

• Colonial history of the United States
• Executive Council of New Hampshire
• Massachusetts Governor's Council
• Proprietary governor
• Proprietary House

References

Sources

• Green, Fletcher Melvin (1930). Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic States, 1776-1860: A Study in the Evolution of Democracy. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781584779285. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cooke, Jacob Ernest, ed. (1993). Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies. Vol. 3 Volumes. C. Scribner's Sons. ISBN 9780684192697.
• Hulsebosch, Daniel J. (Summer 1998). "Imperia in Imperio: The Multiple Constitutions of Empire in New York, 1750-1777". Law and History Review. 16 (2). American Society for Legal History: 319–379. doi:10.2307/744104. JSTOR 744104 – via JSTOR. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Middlekauff, Robert (2005). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford History of the United States. Vol. Volume 3 (revised ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-531588-2. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Taylor, Alan (2001). American Colonies: The Settling of North America. Penguin History of the United States. Vol. Volume 1. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1-101-07581-4. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Andrews, Charles M. Colonial Self-Government, 1652-1689 (1904) full text online
• Andrews, Charles M. The Colonial Period of American History (4 vol. 1934-38), the standard overview to 1700
• Bailyn, Bernard. The Origins of American Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968): an influential book arguing that the roots of the American Revolution lie in the colonial legislatures' struggles with the governors.
• Dinkin, Robert J. Voting in Provincial America: A Study of Elections in the Thirteen Colonies, 1689-1776 (1977)
• Green, Fletcher Melvin (1930). Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic States, 1776-1860: A Study in the Evolution of Democracy. U. of North Carolina press. ISBN 9781584779285.
• Greene, Jack P. Negotiated Authorities: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History (1994)
• Hawke, David F.; The Colonial Experience; 1966, ISBN 0-02-351830-8. textbook
• Nagl, Dominik. No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Law, State Formation and Governance in England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630-1769 (2013).[1]
• Middleton, Richard, and Anne Lombard. Colonial America: A History to 1763 (4th ed. 2011) excerpt and text search
• Osgood, Herbert L. The American colonies in the seventeenth century, (3 vol 1904-07)' vol. 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3 online
• Osgood, Herbert L. The American colonies in the eighteenth century (4 vol, 1924–25)