and assistants were chosen by the freemen, all power centered in the people, and the moment the Government was organized, it naturally, and of necessity, became a republic. Whatever authority the General Court exercised, was delegated by qualified voters, and the officers they appointed received their commissions from those whom they empowered to issue them. The fundamental principle, therefore, of this little commonwealth was originally the same as that which now distinguishes and animates the individual states and great federal republic of the present day-namely, that the people are the source of all power.

At first, little could be done in matters of legislation, when the individual wants and general weakness of the whole community required the personal and continued exertion of all its members.. The Governor, his deputy, and four assistants, were appointed justices of the peace, with the same. powers exercised by persons holding similar situations in England. A court of civil and criminal jurisdiction was also created, consisting of the higher officers of the corporation. In the absence of all statute law, the Bible was substituted as a model and guide. In organizing the judiciary, a difficulty arose as to the nature of the oaths. The customary form of acknowledging the royal authority was evidently inapplicable, for the people, and not the King, was supreme, and

his name, therefore, was very quickly dispensed with. The oath of allegiance required some consideration, not whether it should be adopted, for that was not to be thought of, but whether it could be so qualified as to consist with their own independence, or be made contingent on residence and protection.* Sins of omission are so much safer than sins of commission, so much more difficult of detection, and so much more capable of explanation when discovered, that it was deemed prudent to omit it altogether, and to substitute one of fidelity to the local government instead. The King's arms were not only liable to the same objections, but had no warrant in Scripture; and a tender conscience supplied a better reason for declining to set them up, than the silence of the charter, or their own repugnance. The royal colours were no less exceptionable. To substitute new ones would be to hoist a flag of independence, which it was far more prudent quietly to maintain than openly proclaim, but there was no valid objection why they should not be altered in such a manner as to retain their form and general appear ance, and yet destroy their identity.

Their ministers suggested a mode of mutilation that would effectually answer their purpose, and a reason for their conduct which rendered it an

* See an abstract of laws prepared for Massachusetts, by Mr. Cotton,

imperative duty. They told them the cross was a relic of Romish superstition, and as such must be removed, if they were desirous of securing a blessing on their undertakings. The uninitiated militia at first refused to muster under this "newfangled flag," but when its unscriptural character was pointed out to them, they admitted the propriety of the alteration, and the cross was accordingly condemned as unlawful. Foreign gold and silver coins marked in a similar manner could not be so conveniently defaced, and were suffered to pass current without objection. They were unobtrusive, and, humanly speaking, merited toleration by their intrinsic value, but when weighed in the balance with political and religious principles, were found wanting, and treated as mere dross, unworthy of the consideration of a people who had forsaken Mammon, and crossed the Atlantic, to preserve and perpetuate the true faith.

Thus we see how carefully they abstained at the very outset, from all recognition of the power of the Crown, either directly or indirectly. Drinking to the health of each other at table, as it was followed by toasts, and long usage had sanctioned the priority of the King's name, with the usual benediction of "God bless him," it was thought advisable to abolish, as it would, as a matter of course, cause a discontinuance of the other practice, which might be a snare to those whose

intimate associates in England thought no harm in usurping his authority, and could see no sin in compassing his death.

They were now a sovereign people, but the exercise of such unlimited power was new to them, and this novelty, as yet wholly unrestrained by constitutional checks, increased their impatience of individual resistance, which is at all times the natural tendency of a democracy,* and made them both arbitrary and vindictive in their conduct. An English Dissenter of the name of Blackstone, whom they found living at Boston, and claiming it by virtue of his discovery and possession, was soon made to feel the difference between republican and royal compulsion; and on quitting the community, remarked, in the bitterness of disappointed feeling, "that he had left England because he did not like the Lord's Bishops, but that he should now leave them, for he could not stand the Lord's Brethren."

The first emigrants who had a community of feeling both on political and religious matters, were resolved that their country should not merely be independent, but that its government should be freed from the interference of any new-comers who entertained different opinions from themselves. Dissent they knew they could deal with, but they knew also, that members of the Church of EngWonder

*Hubbard's New England, Chap. xxvi.

Working Providence, 39.

land, if allowed to obtain a footing among them, would, as a matter of course, acknowledge the King to be their sovereign, keep him informed of their usurpations, and be protected in their worship. They therefore at this early date, 18th of May, 1631, enacted in "order that the body of the commons might be preserved of good and honest men," that no person should be admitted to the freedom of the company, but such as were members of some of the churches established by law. So effectually did this check the introduction of Episcopalians, that during the whole continuance of the Charter, not a single congregation was collected in all Massachusetts.

This bold attempt at exclusive sovereignty, is thus lamented by Leechford: "None may now be a freeman of that company unless he be a Church member among them. None have voice in elections of Governor, deputy, and assistants, none are to be magistrates, officers or jurymen, grand or petit, but freemen. The ministers give their votes in all elections of magistrates. Now the most of the persons at New England are not admitted of their Church, and therefore are not freemen, and when they come to be tried there, be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too by those of the Church, who are in a sort their adversaries. How equal that hath been or may be, some by ex