Council for New England

“ This done, the home government set to work to organize the royal domain which should be known as New England, or the Dominion of New England, and its plan for this provided for the annulment of the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and the inclusion in the Dominion of these colonies, and New Hampshire, Maine, New York and the Jerseys, thereby restoring to New England all the territory, with the exception of Pennsylvania, that was included in the grant to the New England Council in 1620. ”

“ Democracies were the natural growth of the new world. As to Massachusetts, it was at first intended that the colony should be governed by a council in London. But in a little while the people had the whole power in their own hands, and chose annually the governor, the councilors, and the representatives. The people of Old England had never enjoyed anything like the liberties and privileges which the settlers of New England now possessed. ”

“ They took definite shape after the Restoration in the creation of a council for trade and a council for foreign plantations, in the passage of the acts of trade, in the conquest of New Netherland and the organization within it of three English provinces, in the settlement of the Carolinas, in a resolute attempt to remedy grievances and adjust disputes in New England. These events and their consequences give greater importance to the next three or four decades than to any later period until the colonial revolt. ”

“ If the Council were, in reality, a body of representatives of various sections and parties, it would necessarily contain a large number of irreconcilables, who would constantly be outvoted, as the Crown could not be expected to appoint a majority from the opposition. Had the Governor, as was the case in many of the royal colonies, possessed the executive power, and an elected assembly the legislative, then the struggle between them would have taken the course with which the student of colonial history is so familiar. ”

“ Three such commissions were set on foot by the Council of Plantations: that appointed to bring to an end the dispute with the French at St. Christopher; that appointed to treat with the Dutch regarding the English subjects at Surinam; and that designed for New England, which was to be openly commissioned to settle boundary disputes, but to be secretly instructed to inform the Council of the condition of the New England colonies, "and whether they were of such power as to be able to resist his Majesty and declare for themselves as independent of the Crown." ”

“ The patentees were to provide the capital and colonists, and to have control of the trade, which was to be carried on by means of “magazines,” or joint stock; but the King, through the provision of a royal council appointed by himself, retained in his own hands the government of the entire province from 34° to 45°. Two local councils, one for each company’s territory, were appointed by the royal council, with power to govern the affairs of each colony under the king’s instructions. ”

“ The people of New England perfectly understand the distinction between the Constitution and the Administration. They are as sincerely attached to the former as any section of the United States. They may be put under the ban of the empire, but they have no intention of abandoning the Union. And we have the pleasure explicitly to declare our full concurrence with your Honour, "that such suggestions are not less a libel upon the great body of the New England people, than on their patriotism." ”

“ No one can doubt that the New England States, if they were a separate community, would have an education, a political capacity, and an intelligence such as the numerical majority of no people, equally numerous, has ever possessed. In a State of this sort, where all the community is fit to choose a sufficient legislature, it is possible, it is almost easy, to create that legislature. If the New England States possessed a Cabinet government as a separate nation, they would be as renowned in the world for political sagacity as they now are for diffused happiness. ”

“ The tariff wars, the constant bickering over boundaries, and the lack of unity in military affairs, which latter might easily prove fatal when opposed by a unified, centralized power like France, all seemed to point to a consolidation of the colonies as being a distinct step forward. New England, at least, formed a geographical unit, with a population fairly homogeneous in character; and a general government might be expected to work with not more friction than had been developed from the absorption of New Hampshire and Maine by Massachusetts. ”

“ Among the proposals made by Say, Brook, and the others to Massachusetts, as conditions of their emigrating to New England, it was stipulated that there should be two ranks in the commonwealth—gentlemen and freeholders; that the power of making and repealing laws should belong to both ranks, but that the governor should always be chosen from the higher. To these and-the other proposals the authorities in the colony wholly agreed, but with the proviso that the church-membership qualification for the franchise must be retained. ”

“ In whatever is within the proper sphere of the constitutional power of this government, we look upon the States as one. We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, to find boundaries, beyond which public improvements do not benefit us. We who come here, as agents and representatives of these narrow-minded and selfish men of New England, consider ourselves as bound to regard with an equal eye the good of the whole, in whatever is within our powers of legislation. ”

“ Most of us are likely to know something about the rather low estimation, at most toleration, in which during the Revolutionary period many of the members of Congress from New England were held by fellow-members of Congress from other portions of the country. They were the most difficult to bring into harmony with others, the slowest to see anything that did not directly enhance the interests of New England; they were more constantly in opposition to great movements that meant much for the future of the colonies themselves and the government of the United States afterward than any others. ”

“ If the colonists preferred, as they undoubtedly did, an administration formed from their own citizens rather than from strangers, then the question before them was similar to that put by General Lee to those irreconcilables in Virginia, in 1867, who refused to vote for the Constitutional Convention. “The question is,” wrote the general, “shall the members of the convention be selected from the best available men in the State or from the worst? Shall the machinery of the State government be arranged and set in motion by the former or by the latter?” ”

“ Not only has the great conception of New England been accepted as the fundamental principle of the Federal Union, but it has been adopted by every separate State; and more than this, during the one hundred and six years since the people of our Commonwealth wrote their Constitution, they have had as large a measure of liberty and safety under the law as men have ever known on earth. ”

“ Sir, I put the question to the west itself. Let gentlemen who have sat here ten years, come forth and declare by what aids, and by whose votes, they have succeeded in measures deemed of essential importance to their part of the country. To all men of sense and candor in or out of congress, who have any knowledge upon the subject, New England may appeal for refutation of the reproach now attempted to be cast upon her, in this respect. ”

“ The New England States, after the war of Independence, were the defenders and advocates of a federal and central power. An entirely new political organization was gradually formed, resting equally on such pillars as independent townships and independent States, and these represented by delegates in a national centre. ”

“ Although the representatives have no immediate agency in treaties, yet, from their influence in the government, they will direct every thing. They will be a considerable check on the Senate and President. Those from small states will be particularly attentive, to prevent a sacrifice of territory.
The people of New England have lately purchased great quantities of lands in the western country. Great numbers of them have moved thither. Every one has left his friends, relations, and acquaintances, behind him. ”

“ As was inevitable, that colony largely dominated its councils, and the attitude that the commissioners adopted upon questions of civil and religious polity was, in the main, that of Massachusetts rather than that of Plymouth or Connecticut. In all that concerned the liberty of the individual, the weight of their authority was, as a rule, thrown upon the side of reaction, rather than of progress. ”

“ Gentlemen, if this congress do not adopt this army, before ten moons have set, New England will have a congress of her own, which will adopt it, and she will undertake the struggle alone—with a strong arm and a clear conscience. ”

“ There was an apprehension that the affairs of the general government were mismanaged, and, to many, it appeared that a crisis was forming, which, unless seasonably provided against, would involve the country in ruin. That apprehension particularly prevailed throughout New England. Indeed, Massachusetts proposed that measures should be taken for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United States to revise the constitution, and more effectually to secure the support and attachment of all the people, by placing all upon the basis of fair representation. ”

“ Indeed, it may even be questioned, if a single powerful, unscrupulous, and aggressive state had come to occupy the whole of New England, and possibly the Hudson Valley, whether the United States, as a federal nation in its present form, would have come into existence at all. When one considers the possibilities involved in a wholly different balance of power among the colonies in the following century, the early career of Massachusetts and the checks it encountered take on a larger interest. ”

“ After the fall of the Massachusetts charter, and the dismissal of Cranfield, there were seven jurisdictions in New England, some with settled governments and some without: Connecticut, the King’s Province, Rhode Island, Plymouth, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. To provide seven complete sets of administrative machinery for the seventy thousand persons included in these seven districts naturally seemed to the government in England to be not only a waste of money and energy, but likely to interfere with the best interests of the colonists themselves. ”

“ But the real problem of the day was not a domestic one for the several colonies, profound as were the results to ensue from the development of the local New England political institutions. The real problem was, how to bring these local institutions into working relations with the still necessary sovereign power at the centre of the system. The colonists might offer legal objections or armed resistance, in the way of criticism, but so long as they offered no help in devising a workable solution of the problem, the obligation to do so devolved upon England alone. ”

“ Meanwhile, Gorges was plying the English authorities with letters advising that a governor, “neither papistically nor scizmatically affected,” be appointed for New England, modestly suggesting that he himself was an eminently proper person for the office, and urging that the Massachusetts charter be repealed. ”

“ The love of education, the resolve that it should be general, the love of home with all the pure and sacred influences that cluster about it, are elements in the New England character that have a saving force which is incalculable in this great nation in which we live. Your civil institutions have been free, high and clean. From the old town-meeting days till now, New England has believed in and practised the Free Election and the Fair Count. ”

“ The royal officials, disliked as their presence might be by the irreconcilables, actually and symbolically brought the colony into relations with the larger life of the empire. In her thought, her commerce, and her political relations, New England’s largest colony was at last forced out of that position of defiant isolation which her former leaders had chosen for her, and made to participate, so far as her provincial position allowed, in the main currents of the world’s activities. The new charter definitely marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. ”

“ It is a subtle but very real distinction between state and nation that permits not a divided but a complex loyalty, and the profound meaning which lies in the interplay of state and federal power is reflected in the consciousness of Americans as they bear themselves toward one or the other authority.
Now New England, though not an entity in politics, has so distinct a character that each of the states included in that name is representative of an order which is far more than a geographical division. ”

“ For twenty years, since the Restoration, that government had been endeavoring, by every means in its power, to settle the New England question in a way that would be satisfactory to all the colonists, regardless of creed, and would, at the same time, permit the maintenance of the trade-system upon which the Empire was based. Had Massachusetts at any time been willing to give up her illicit profits, she could very possibly have saved her charter. ”