[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Although the Privy Council and the king had final say on all colonial laws (in the-ory, such laws had to contain a clause that prevented them from going into opera-tion until they were approved in England), and the Privy Council annulled some ofthem, colonial legislatures often had passed new laws before the original law waseven quashed.The same theoretical subordination to English rule was true with thedecisions of colonial supreme courts.These could be appealed directly to crowncourts in England or to the Privy Council, but appeal took time and money becauseof the distance.The course of time had directly aided the development of this colonial auton-omy for the thousand kinds of passive resistance to English rule that the colonistspracticed had gained a kind of legitimacy through long usage.Persistence paid div-idends when the Privy Council or the Board of Trade conceded to colonial variationsfrom English law.For example, New England assemblies provided that when a per-son died intestate (without a will), the real estate was to be divided among the chil-dren.English law dictated that the land pass intact to the oldest son ( primogeni-ture ).In two cases, Winthrop v.Lechmere (Connecticut, 1728) and Phillips v.Savage(Massachusetts, 1733), colonial high courts upheld the American version of the lawand managed over time to convince the crown to allow the exception to primogeni-ture.Such victories could not claim the force of precedent in the same way that En-glish high court decisions rested upon precedent, but they created an expectation inthe colonies that old ways would be observed.Even when Governor Benning Went-worth of New Hampshire waved the opinions of the Privy Council in the face of re-calcitrant colonial representatives, as he did in a dispute over who had the right tocall for a new election to the assembly there, he could not make the assemblymenbow.It took him seven years, from 1745 to 1752, to win his point, though he had lawand authority on his side.The structure and function of colonial governance differed from English styles ofrule, providing another layer of insulation from direct imperial rule.As English im-perial governance became more efficient, professional, unitary, and centralized,colonial local government embraced localism, amateurism, committee governance,and partisanship.Examples of this country style of decision making appeared inthe work of the assembly and the operation of the courts.Colonial AssembliesIn their relations with governors, assemblies had taken for themselves the privi-leges of little parliaments.Had not Parliament itself, in the settlement at the end ofthe Glorious Revolution, won its supremacy from the king? By refusing to settle per-manent incomes on royal officials and scheduling fees and fines by statute, the as-semblies controlled the public purse.They wrested from colonial governors controlover the choice of Speakers of the lower house, appointment of militia commanders, 288 FROM PROVI NCES OF EMPI RE TO A NEW NATI ONthe right to look over the account books of the colony, and the writing of finance andtax bills.Some aimed even higher to control the time and place of their election,the length of their sessions, and the qualifications of their membership.They couldnot achieve this goal, but in the effort they defined a legislative sphere that gover-nors had to respect.The assemblies were more successful in their campaign to name or at least ap-prove the minor executive officers and to set the policies for the conduct of theseofficials.The governors (following instructions drafted in England) still named thejudges, but colonial assemblies created the courts, and resisted hotly, as duringCosby s tenure in New York, executive attempts to create new courts without as-sembly approval.The manner of elections and the theory of representation for the assembly furtherinsulated the assembly from crown supervision.Property, gender, and religiousqualifications for voting for the House of Commons in England limited the franchiseto a small portion of men.In the colonies, only those free men with property couldvote for the assembly, but in many of the colonies, just about every free white malecould muster the minimum property qualifications for voting.The American as-semblies were thus far more representative bodies than the House of Commons, andknew it.The official British rejoinder to American criticism of the unrepresentativeness ofthe Commons was that members of Parliament represented the people of Englandas a whole, rather than the voters of their particular districts.This ideal of virtualrepresentation was a fiction, and Americans were not fooled.Nothing of the sortcould describe the conduct of the colonial legislators.They held instead to a dele-gate theory, wherein elections were frequent and elected assemblymen promised totake care of the needs of their voters.As Richard Beeman has conclusively demonstrated, the proportion of the popu-lation eligible to vote (the franchise ) and the actual number of voters participatingin elections varied from colony to colony.(Bear in mind that at the maximum esti-mate, less than one-fourth of all free white propertied Protestant adult Englishmencould vote for members of the House of Commons [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl odbijak.htw.pl
.Although the Privy Council and the king had final say on all colonial laws (in the-ory, such laws had to contain a clause that prevented them from going into opera-tion until they were approved in England), and the Privy Council annulled some ofthem, colonial legislatures often had passed new laws before the original law waseven quashed.The same theoretical subordination to English rule was true with thedecisions of colonial supreme courts.These could be appealed directly to crowncourts in England or to the Privy Council, but appeal took time and money becauseof the distance.The course of time had directly aided the development of this colonial auton-omy for the thousand kinds of passive resistance to English rule that the colonistspracticed had gained a kind of legitimacy through long usage.Persistence paid div-idends when the Privy Council or the Board of Trade conceded to colonial variationsfrom English law.For example, New England assemblies provided that when a per-son died intestate (without a will), the real estate was to be divided among the chil-dren.English law dictated that the land pass intact to the oldest son ( primogeni-ture ).In two cases, Winthrop v.Lechmere (Connecticut, 1728) and Phillips v.Savage(Massachusetts, 1733), colonial high courts upheld the American version of the lawand managed over time to convince the crown to allow the exception to primogeni-ture.Such victories could not claim the force of precedent in the same way that En-glish high court decisions rested upon precedent, but they created an expectation inthe colonies that old ways would be observed.Even when Governor Benning Went-worth of New Hampshire waved the opinions of the Privy Council in the face of re-calcitrant colonial representatives, as he did in a dispute over who had the right tocall for a new election to the assembly there, he could not make the assemblymenbow.It took him seven years, from 1745 to 1752, to win his point, though he had lawand authority on his side.The structure and function of colonial governance differed from English styles ofrule, providing another layer of insulation from direct imperial rule.As English im-perial governance became more efficient, professional, unitary, and centralized,colonial local government embraced localism, amateurism, committee governance,and partisanship.Examples of this country style of decision making appeared inthe work of the assembly and the operation of the courts.Colonial AssembliesIn their relations with governors, assemblies had taken for themselves the privi-leges of little parliaments.Had not Parliament itself, in the settlement at the end ofthe Glorious Revolution, won its supremacy from the king? By refusing to settle per-manent incomes on royal officials and scheduling fees and fines by statute, the as-semblies controlled the public purse.They wrested from colonial governors controlover the choice of Speakers of the lower house, appointment of militia commanders, 288 FROM PROVI NCES OF EMPI RE TO A NEW NATI ONthe right to look over the account books of the colony, and the writing of finance andtax bills.Some aimed even higher to control the time and place of their election,the length of their sessions, and the qualifications of their membership.They couldnot achieve this goal, but in the effort they defined a legislative sphere that gover-nors had to respect.The assemblies were more successful in their campaign to name or at least ap-prove the minor executive officers and to set the policies for the conduct of theseofficials.The governors (following instructions drafted in England) still named thejudges, but colonial assemblies created the courts, and resisted hotly, as duringCosby s tenure in New York, executive attempts to create new courts without as-sembly approval.The manner of elections and the theory of representation for the assembly furtherinsulated the assembly from crown supervision.Property, gender, and religiousqualifications for voting for the House of Commons in England limited the franchiseto a small portion of men.In the colonies, only those free men with property couldvote for the assembly, but in many of the colonies, just about every free white malecould muster the minimum property qualifications for voting.The American as-semblies were thus far more representative bodies than the House of Commons, andknew it.The official British rejoinder to American criticism of the unrepresentativeness ofthe Commons was that members of Parliament represented the people of Englandas a whole, rather than the voters of their particular districts.This ideal of virtualrepresentation was a fiction, and Americans were not fooled.Nothing of the sortcould describe the conduct of the colonial legislators.They held instead to a dele-gate theory, wherein elections were frequent and elected assemblymen promised totake care of the needs of their voters.As Richard Beeman has conclusively demonstrated, the proportion of the popu-lation eligible to vote (the franchise ) and the actual number of voters participatingin elections varied from colony to colony.(Bear in mind that at the maximum esti-mate, less than one-fourth of all free white propertied Protestant adult Englishmencould vote for members of the House of Commons [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]