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In like CHAP.

levied taxes to meet their own expenses.1
manner, the self-perpetuating vestries made out their
lists of tithables, and assessed taxes without regard
to the consent of the parish. These private levies
were unequal and oppressive; were seldom, it is said,
never, brought to audit, and were, in some cases at
least, managed by men who combined to defraud the
public.3

For the organization of the courts, ancient usage could be pleaded. It was a series of innovations, which gradually effected a revolution in the system of representation.

4

XIV.

The members of the first assembly convened after 1662. the restoration, had been chosen for a term of service extending only through two years; the rule of biennial assemblies was adopted in Virginia. The law, which limited the duration of legislative service, and secured the benefits of frequent elections and swift responsibility, was now silently, but "utterly abrogated and repealed." Thus the legislators, on whom the people had conferred a political existence of two years, assumed to themselves, by their own act, an indefinite continuance of power. The parliament of England, chosen on the restoration, was not dissolved for eighteen years. The legislature of Virginia retained its authority for almost as long a period, and yielded it only to an insurrection. Meantime "the meeting of the people, at the usual places of election," had for their object, not to elect burgesses, but to present their grievances to the burgesses of the adjourned assembly."

1 Hening, ii. 315, 316.

2 Ibid. ii. 310.

3 Culpepper, in Chalmers, 355.

4 Hening, i. 517.

5 Ibid. ii. 43.

6 Ibid. ii. 211, 212.

206

CHAP.

XIV.

LEGISLATION OF A ROYALIST LEGISLATURE.

The wages of the burgesses were paid by the respective counties; and their constituents possessed influence to determine both the number of burgesses to be elected and the rate of their emoluments. This method of influence was taken away by a law, which, wisely but for its coincidence with other measures, fixed both the number and the charge of the burgesses. But the rate of wages was for that age enormously burdensome, far greater than is tolerated in the wealthiest states in these days of opulence; and it was fixed by an assembly for its own members, who had usurped, as it were, a perpetuity of office. The taxes for this purpose were paid with great reluctance,1 and, as they amounted to about two hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco for the daily emoluments of each member, became for a new country an intolerable grievance. Discontent was increased by the favoritism which exempted the councillors from the levies.2

The freedom of elections was further impaired by "frequent false returns" made by the sheriffs.3 Against these the people had no sufficient redress; for the sheriffs were responsible neither to them nor to officers of their appointment. And how could a more pregnant cause of discontent exist in a country, where the elective franchise was cherished as the dearest civil privilege?

How dear that franchise was held by the people of Virginia, is distinctly told in their records. No direct taxes were levied in those days except on polls; lands

1 Virginia's Cure, p. 2. Hening, 11. 20, 23, 106, 309, 325. Bland, in Burk, ii. 248. Lord Baltimore, for his quit-rents, received tobacco at two pence a pound. It was not worth so much on the average, yet

in those days of poverty the burgess received probably about nine dollars a day.

2 Compare Hening, ii. 84, with 359, 392.

3 Hening, ii. 356.

XIV.

escaped taxation. The method, less arbitrary in Vir- CHAF ginia, where property consisted chiefly in a claim to the labor of servants and slaves, than in a commercial country, or where labor is free, was yet oppressive to the less wealthy classes. The burgesses, themselves 1663 Sept. great landholders, resisted the reform which Berkeley 27. had urged,' and connected the burden of the tax with the privileges of citizenship. If land should be taxed, none but landholders should elect the legislature; and then, it was added, "the other freemen, who are the more in number, may repine to be bound to those laws, they have no representations to assent to the making of. And we are so well acquainted with the temper of the people, that we have reason to believe they had rather pay their tax, than lose that privilege." 2

Thus was the jealous love for liberty remembered, when it furnished an excuse for continuing an unjust method of taxation. But the system of universal suffrage could not permanently find favor with an assembly which had given to itself an indefinite existence, and which labored to reproduce in the New World the inequalities of English legislation. It was discovered that "the usual way of chusing burgesses by the votes of all freemen," produced "tumults and disturbance." The instinct of aristocratic bigotry denied that the electors would make "choyce of persons fitly qualified for so greate a trust." The restrictions, adopted by the monarchical government of England, were cited as a fit precedent for English colonies; and it was enacted that "none Oct.

1 Hening, i. 204. "A levy upon lands and not upon heads."

2 Richmond Records, No. 2. 1660 to 1664, p. 175.

1670.

208

LEGISLATION OF A ROYALIST LEGISLATURE.

CHAP. but freeholders and housekeepers shall hereafter have XIV. a voice in the election of any burgesses."1

1670 Oct.

Thus was a majority of the people of Virginia disfranchised by the act of their own representatives. So true it is, that, in representative governments, unless power be limited, and responsibility steadily maintained, the choice of representatives becomes the establishment of a tyranny.

The great result of modern civilization is the diffusion of intelligence among the masses, and a consequent increase of their political consideration. The result is observable every where. In the field, the fate of battles depends on infantry, and no longer on the cavalry. Influence has passed away from walled towns and fortresses to the busy scenes of commercial industry, and to the abodes of rustic independence; an active press has increased, and is steadily increasing, the number of reflecting minds that demand a reason for conduct, and exercise themselves in efforts to solve the problem of existence and human destiny. Every where the power of the people has increased; it is the undisputed induction from the history of every nation of European origin. The restoration of Charles II. was, therefore, to Virginia a political revolution, opposed to the principles of popular liberty and the progress of humanity. An assembly continuing for an indefinite period at the pleasure of the governor, and decreeing to its members extravagant and burdensome emoluments; a royal governor, whose salary was established by a permanent system of taxation; a constituency restricted and diminished; religious liberty taken away

1 Hening, ii. 280.

XIV.

almost as soon as it had been won; arbitrary taxation CHAP. in the counties by irresponsible magistrates; a hostility to popular education, and to the press;-these were the changes which, in about ten years, were effected in a province that had begun to enjoy the benefits of a virtual independence, and a gradually ameliorating legislation.

The English parliament had crippled the industry of the planters of Virginia; the colonial assembly had diminished the franchises and impaired the powers of its people; Charles II. was equally careless of the rights and property of its tens of thousands of inhabit

Just after the execution of Charles I., during 1649 the extreme anxiety and despair of the royalists, a patent for the Northern Neck, that is, for the country between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, had been granted to a company of Cavaliers, as a refuge for their partisans. About nine years after the restoration, this patent was surrendered, that a new 1669. May. one might be issued to Lord Culpepper, who had succeeded in acquiring the shares of all the associates. The grant was extremely oppressive, for it included plantations which had long been cultivated.' But the prodigality of the king was not exhausted. To Lord Culpepper, one of the most cunning and most covetous men in England, at the time a member of the commission for trade and plantations, and to Henry, earl of Arlington, the best bred person at the royal court, allied to the monarch as father-in-law to the king's son by Lady Castlemaine, ever in debt exceedingly, and passionately fond of things rich, polite, and prince- 1673. ly, the lavish sovereign of England gave away "all 25.

Beverley, 65. Chalmers, 330. 2 Hartwell, Blair, and Chilton, 31. 27

VOL. II.

3 Evelyn, ii. 342.
4 Ibid. 372, 431.

Feb.

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