Mar. CHAP. New World, and bear date in Philadelphia.1 "To the XVI. people of this place," said Penn, "I am not like a 1683. selfish man; through my travail and pains the province came; it is now in Friends' hands. Our faith is for one another, that God will be our counsellor forever." And when the general assembly came together, he referred to the frame of government proposed in England, saying, "You may amend, alter, or add; I am ready to settle such foundations as may be for your happiness." The constitution which was established created a legislative council and a more numerous assembly; the former to be elected for three years, one third being renewed annually; the assembly to be annually chosen. Rotation in office was enjoined. The theory of the constitution gave to the governor and council the initiation of all laws; these were to be promulgated to the people; and the office of the assembly was designed to be no more than to report the decision of the people in their primary meetings. Thus no law could be enacted but with the direct assent of the whole community. Such was the system of the charter of liberties. But it received modifications from the legislature by which it was established. The assembly set the precedent of engaging in debate, and of proposing subjects for bills by way of conference with the governor and council. In return, by unanimous vote, a negative voice was allowed the governor on all the doings of the XVI. council, and such a power was virtually a right to neg- CHAP. ative any law. It had been more simple to have left the assembly full power to originate bills, and to the governor an unconditional negative. This was virtually the method established in 1683; it was distinctly recognized in the fundamental law in 1696. Besides, the charter from Charles II. held the proprietary responsible for colonial legislation; and no act of provincial legislation could be perfected till it had passed the great seal of the province. That a negative voice was thus reserved to William Penn, was, I believe, the opinion of the colonists of that day;1 such was certainly the intention of the royal charter, and was necessary, unless the proprietary relation was to cease. In other respects, the frame of government gave all power to the people; the judges were to be nominated by the provincial council, and, in case of good behavior, could not be removed by the proprietary during the term for which they were commissioned. But for the hereditary office of proprietary, Pennsylvania had been a representative democracy. In Maryland, the council was named by Lord Baltimore; in Pennsylvania, by the people. In Maryland, the power of appointing magistrates, and all, even the subordinate executive officers, rested solely with the proprietary;3 in Pennsylvania, William Penn could not appoint a justice or a constable; every executive officer, except the highest, pare, too, Council Books, in Hazard's Register, i. 16, for March 15, 1683. The chamber of deputies under Louis XVIII. could petition the king to introduce a bill. Practically, the house gained the initiative, and Penn the negative voice. 1 Votes, &c. p. 21. "Recommended to the great seal." 2 Compare First Charter, section xvii., with Second Charter, section xvi. Proud, ii. App. 13, 25. The CHAP. Was elected by the people or their representatives; and XVI. the governor could perform no public act, but with the consent of the council. Lord Baltimore had a revenue derived from the export of tobacco, the staple of Maryland; and his colony was burdened with taxes: a similar revenue was offered to William Penn, and declined;1 and tax-gatherers were unknown in his province. In the name of all the freemen of the province, the charter was received by the assembly with gratitude, as one "of more than expected liberty.' "2 "I desired," says Penn, "to show men as free and as happy as they can be." In the decline of life, the language of his 1710. heart was still the same. "If, in the relation between us," he writes in his old age," the people want of me any thing that would make them happier, I should readily grant it."4 When Peter, the great Russian reformer, attended in England a meeting of Quakers, the semibarbarous philanthropist could not but exclaim, “How happy must be a community instituted on their principles!" "Beautiful!" said the philosophic Frederic of Prussia, when, a hundred years later, he read the account of the government of Pennsylvania; "it is perfect, if it can endure." To the charter which Locke invented for Carolina, the palatines voted an immutable immortality; and it never gained more than a short, partial existence to the people of his province Penn left it free to subvert or alter the frame of government; and its essential principles remain to this day without change. Such was the birth of popular power in Pennsyl 1 Penn to a society of traders. 2 Votes, &c. 21. 3 Watson, 20. 4 Watson, 29. Proud, ii. 45. 5 Herder, xiii. 116. XVI. 27. vania and Delaware. It remained to dislodge super- CHAP. stition from its hiding-places in the mind. The Scandinavian emigrants came from their native forests with imaginations clouded by the gloomy terrors of an invisible world of fiends; and a turbulent woman was 1684. brought to trial as a witch. Penn presided, and the Feb. Quakers on the jury outnumbered the Swedes. The grounds of the accusation were canvassed; the witnesses calmly examined; and the jury, having listened to the charge from the governor, returned this verdict: "The prisoner is guilty of the common fame of being a witch, but not guilty as she stands indicted." The friends of the liberated prisoner were required to give bonds, that she should keep the peace; and in Penn's domain, from that day to this, neither demon nor hag ever rode through the air on goat or broomstick; and the worst arts of conjuration went no farther than to foretell fortunes, mutter powerful spells over quack medicines, or discover by the divining rod the hidden treasures of the bucaniers.1 2 1688 Meantime the news spread abroad, that William 1683Penn, the Quaker, had opened "an asylum to the good, to and the oppressed of every nation;" and humanity went through Europe, gathering the children of misfortune. From England and Wales, from Scotland and Ireland, and the Low Countries, emigrants crowded to the land of promise. On the banks of the Rhine, it was whispered that the plans of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstiern were consummated; new companies were formed under better auspices than those of the Swedes; and from the highlands above Worms, the humble people who had melted at the eloquence of 1 Hazard's Register, i. 16, 108, 289. VOL. II. 2. Ibid. vi. 238, 239. XVI. CHAP. Penn, the Quaker emissary, renounced their German homes for the protection of the Quaker king. There is nothing in the history of the human race like the confidence which the simple virtues and institutions of William Penn inspired. The progress of his province was more rapid than the progress of New England. In August, 1683, "Philadelphia consisted of three or four little cottages;" the conies were yet undisturbed in their hereditary burrows; the deer fearlessly bounded past blazed trees, unconscious of foreboded streets; the stranger that wandered from the river bank was lost in the thickets of the interminable forest; and, two years afterwards, the place contained about six hundred houses, and the schoolmaster and the printingpress had begun their work.3 In three years from its foundation, Philadelphia gained more than New York had done in half a century. This was the happiest season in the public life of William Penn. "I must, 1684. without vanity, say "-such was his honest exultation9. "I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it, are to be found among us."4 Mar. The government had been organized, peace with the natives confirmed, the fundamental law established, the courts of justice instituted; the mission of William Penn was accomplished; and now, like Solon, the most humane of ancient legislators, he prepared to leave the commonwealth, of which he had founded the happiness. Intrusting the great seal to his friend Lloyd, and the executive power to a com 1 Pastorius, in Watson, 61. ii. 8, 9. Council Records, in Proud, i. 345. 19. 4 Penn to Halifax, in Watson, |