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§ 91]

THE WATERTOWN PROTEST

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to make or alter laws themselves, but are to be subject." 1 The great founders of America were far from believing in government "of the people and by the people."

91. The first effective protest against oligarchic usurpation came, after good English precedent, upon a matter of taxation. This event is called the Watertown Protest.

In February, 1632, the Assistants voted a tax for fortifications. Watertown was called upon to pay eight pounds. The Watertown minister then called the people together and secured a resolution "that it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage." Governor Winthrop at once summoned the men of Watertown before him at Boston as culprits, rebuked them for their "error," and so overawed them that they "made a retraction and submission . . . and so their offence was pardoned." Probably, however, on the walk back to Watertown through the winter night, the "error" revived. Certainly, during the next months, there was secret democratic plotting and sending to and fro among the towns of which we have no record. At all events, a week before the next General Court met in May, Winthrop warned the Assistants "that he had heard the people intended ... to desire [vote] that the Assistants might be chosen anew every year, and that the governor might be chosen by the whole court, and not by the Assistants only." (These were charter provisions, of which the freemen must have heard some rumor.) "Upon this," adds Winthrop's "Journal," "Mr. Ludlow [an Assistant] grew into a passion and said that then we should have no government, but there would be an interim wherein every man might do what he pleased." In spite of such silly passion, when the General Court met, the freemen calmly took back into their

1 The quotations from Winthrop come from his History of New England. This has been printed only with modernized spelling. When a Winthrop quotation is given with antique spelling, it comes from his Letters.

2 Our information comes almost wholly from the brief" Colonial Records" and from Winthrop. The democrats never wrote their story, and many important steps have no history.

own hands the annual election of governor and of Assistants. Then they went further, and sanctioned the Watertown protest by decreeing that each town should choose two representatives to act with the magistrates in matters of taxation.

92. This was not yet representative government. The new deputies acted in taxation only: the magistrates kept their usurped power to make laws.

True, the magistrates now had to come up for reëlection each year, but this was little more than a polite form. No chance was given, for some years, to nominate two or three candidates for a position, and then to choose between them. The Secretary of the Assistants made nominations-in some such form as, "Mr. Ludlow's term as Assistant has expired; will you have him to be an Assistant again?" On this sort of nomination the people had to vote Yes or No, by erection of hands. Unless they first rejected an old officer, there was no chance to elect a new one.

93. In spite of such drawbacks, the reform of 1632 was a democratic advance. Two years later, came the second step, the peaceful revolution of 1634.

This movement began as a protest against "special privilege." The Assistants had made laws to favor their own class - trying repeatedly to keep wages down to the old level of England, and ordering that swine found in grain fields might be killed.

Winthrop speaks often of the high cost of food and other necessities, as compared with English prices; but he was honestly dismayed that carpenters should ask more than the old English wage. Indeed he puts the cart before the horse, and blames the higher cost of living upon the rise in wages. As to the swine law, the poor man wanted his pig to find part of its living in the woods, but the rich men were not willing to fence their large fields. This matter caused harder feeling even than the wage laws.

The common freemen determined to stop some of this "class legislation." In April, 1634, Governor Winthrop sent out the usual notice calling all freemen to a General Court in May. Soon after, on a given day, two men from each of the eight

§ 93]

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

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towns (§ 80) met at Boston. How the meeting was arranged and the "committees" chosen, we have no record; but again there must have been much democratic planning, and many a journey through the forest, to secure this "first political convention in America."

The "convention " asked to see the charter. After reading it, they called Winthrop's attention to the fact that the making of laws belonged properly to the whole body of freemen (now some 200), instead of to the nine Assistants. Winthrop told them loftily that the freemen did not have men among them "qualified for such a business." He suggested, however, that perhaps they might once a year choose a committee to make suggestions to the Assistants.

The good governor felt sure— as his "Journal" shows that this condescension had quieted the trouble. But when the General Court met (May 14), three deputies appeared from each of the eight towns, to sit with the Assistants, not merely to suggest laws, but to make them. Representative government had begun.

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The aristocrats had had warning that their power was in danger, and they put forward their leading clerical champion. John Cotton preached the usual sermon to open the Court, "and delivered this doctrine, that a magistrate ought not to be turned into the condition of a private man without just cause [and after a formal trial], no more than the magistrate may not turn a private man out of his freehold, etc., without like public trial."

This was a claim that public office was private aristocratic property. The answer of the freemen was to demand a ballot, instead of the usual "erection of hands," in choosing a governor. Then they dropped Winthrop from the office he had held for four years, and fined some of the Assistants for illegal abuse

1 At another time Winthrop tells, with approval, how Cotton "showed from the Word of God that the magistracy ought to be for life."

2 The aristocratic doctrine of Cotton was further rebuked by the election of a new governor for each of the two following years. Then, in a period of great trouble, the trusted Winthrop was chosen again, and kept in office by annual elections, except for five years, until his death in 1649.

of power. They also ordered jury trial for all important criminal cases, and admitted 81 new freemen whom the Assistants the day before had refused to admit.

The Court then made the revolution permanent. It decreed that every General Court in future should consist (like this one) of deputies chosen by the several towns and of the governor and Assistants. Only such Courts could admit freemen, lay taxes, or make laws. The May Court each year was also to be a Court of Elections. At the opening of this Court, all freemen might be present, to choose governor and Assistants; but after the election all but deputies and magistrates had to withdraw.

For the most part, the old rulers took these changes in good part, quite in English temper; and the generous Winthrop, after recording his defeat, adds magnanimously,-"This Court made many good orders."

Massachusetts had now grown from a narrow oligarchy into a representative aristocracy. It was still far short of a democracy. 94. There was even more aristocracy in society than in politics. The people were divided into five distinct classes :gentlemen, who alone had a right to the title Master (Mr.); skilled artisans and freeholders, the backbone of the colony, usually addressed as "Goodman Brown" or "Goodman Jones" ";

unskilled laborers, for whose names no handle was needed, and for whom indeed the surname was not often used;

servants, who usually passed finally into the class of artisans or laborers;

slaves, of whom there were soon a small number, both Negro and Indian.

Gentlemen were set apart from the lower orders almost as distinctly as Lords in England were from gentlemen. In early Massachusetts, one family out of fourteen belonged to this gentry aristocracy. For ordinary "people" to show subordination to these social superiors was about as essential as to obey written law. And the law expressly gave some privileges to the aristocracy.

§ 95]

ARISTOCRACY VS. DEMOCRACY

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For instance, in 1631, Mr. Josias Plaistowe was convicted of stealing corn from the Indians. His servants-who had assisted, under orders were condemned to be flogged; but the court merely fined Plaistowe and ordered that thenceforward he should be called "by the name of Josias, and not Mr., as formerlie." This was severe punishment, equivalent to degrading an officer to the ranks. For another offense, Josias would no doubt be whipped, like an ordinary man. The aristocracy were always exempt from corporal punishment by custom; and in 1641

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dence, built in 1666 (date on chimney) by a son of Miles Standish.

this exemption was put into written law. Ten years later the court declared its "detestation " of the wearing of gold lace or silk by men or women "of mean condition," reserving such apparel for gentlemen.

95. The franchise, too, was far from democratic. The voting "freemen" were a small part of the free men. The General Court of 1631, which admitted the first new freemen (§ 88), ordered that thereafter only church members should be made

1 Body of Liberties, 43; in No. 78 of Source Book. The student may compare the class distinctions in England, as described by William Harrison in 1578, and those portrayed for Massachusetts in 1635 in Cotton's "Answer" to Lord Say (Source Book, Nos. 1 and 75).

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