Governorship

“ From the date of our charter to the time of the Stamp Act, and indeed since that time, (notwithstanding the misrepresentations of our charter constitution, as too popular and republican,) the council of this province have been generally on the side of the governor and the prerogative. For the truth of this, I appeal to our whole history and experience. The art and power of governors, and especially the negative, have been a stronger motive on the one hand, than the annual election of the two houses on the other. ”

“ The governor, who is also commander-in-chief of the militia, holds office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States, or until appointment of a successor. He has the usual right of pardoning territorial offenses, and of reprieving offenders against the federal government. He approves all laws passed by the Legislative Assembly before they can take effect; he commissions all officers appointed under the laws, and takes care that the laws are faithfully executed. ”

“ In every case in which the Lieutvaant-Governor shall be unable to preside over the Senate, the Senators shall elect one of their own number President of their body, and the powers, duties and emoluments of the office of Governor shall devolve upon him whenever the Lieutenant- Governor shall, for any reason, be prevented from discharging the duties of such office as above provided, and he shall continue as acting Governor until the disabilities are removed, or a new Governor or Lieutenant-Governor shall be elected and qualified. ”

“ It means not merely a broad basis for the general government in the people, that the people are the reason and remote source of governing power, but that they are themselves the governors. Every man who enters a New England town-house and casts his vote knows that that expression of his will is a force which reaches, or may reach, the Legislature of his State, the governor in his chair, the National Congress, and the President in the White House at Washington. ”

“ The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall appoint in the district shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity, and of office; the governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As soon as legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and house assembled in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary government. ”

“ I can assure your Lordship that there has been much criticism concerning what past governors have permitted, and I do not know how in the end they are to fare with God; for a governor, from the very character of his office, is under obligation to prevent, within his jurisdiction, evils which can be remedied. God will know how to call to account those who have permitted these abuses, and will free your Lordship from these difficulties before they have entangled you. ”

“ Section 4 In case of a vacancy in the gubernatorial office, occasioned by death, resignation, or any other cause, the council shall have power to elect a governor, as his successor, who shall not, however, be a member of their own body. ”

“ They shall annually choose a President, who shall preside in Council in the absence of the Governor, and who, in case of his office becoming vacant by death or otherwise, shall have authority to exercise all his functions, till a new appointment be made, as he shall also in any interval during which the Governor shall declare himself unable to attend to the duties of his office. ”

“ From the granting of the charter until 1747, the Governor and Deputy Governor were chosen and declared to be chosen, as well as the Assistants, if they had more votes for the office than any other person, but now some active men that were given to change fomented an opinion that the Governor nor Deputy Governor were not chosen unless they had more votes then all that were scattered among other persons. ”

“ For sympathy and intellectual companionship they looked only to their friends. But these friends were bound by no such tie as held women to their masters; sooner or later they drifted away to frontier campaigns, remote governorships, or country retirement. It would not be an exaggeration to say that half the poems in the Chinese language are poems of parting or separation.
Readers of these translations may imagine that the culture represented by Po Chü-i extended over the whole vast confines of China. This would, I think, be an error. Culture is essentially a metropolitan product. ”

“ The governor was the head of the executive department,—sometimes a native of the colony, as Hutchinson of Massachusetts, and Clinton of New York. But he was often sent from over seas, as Cornbury of New York, and Dunmore of Virginia. In Connecticut and Rhode Island the legislatures chose the governor; but they fell in with the prevailing practice by frequently re- electing men for a succession of years. The governor's chief power was that of appointment, although the assemblies strove to deprive him of it by electing treasurers and other executive officers. ”

“ Cut off by the mutiny from any but the most tedious and uncertain communication with his only superior, the governor-general, he was virtually supreme in his province, and did not hesitate to assume the responsibility of action. He lavished money, he contracted loans, he moved troops, he enrolled levies, he put men to death, and he saved men alive. ”

“ But, however many instruments the governor might use, there was such a complete unity of responsibility that, in dealing with the administration of a province, we are treating of the powers of a single man. ”

“ Dependence of the Governor on the official party.A body of holders of office thus constituted, without reference to the people or their representatives, must in fact, from the very nature of colonial government, acquire the entire direction of the affairs of the Province. A Governor, arriving in a colony in which he almost invariably has had no previous acquaintance with the state of parties, or the character of individuals, is compelled to throw himself almost entirely upon those whom he finds placed in the position of his official advisers. ”

“ Under the first charter, the people had been the source of all power. Winthrop, Endicott, Bradstreet, and the rest of them, had been governors by the choice of the people, without any interference of the king. But henceforth the governor was to hold his station solely by the king's appointment, and during his pleasure; and the same was the case with the lieutenant-governor, and some other high officers. The people, however, were still allowed to choose representatives; and the governor's council was chosen by the general court. ”

“ Such was the government found by Mr. Papineau in 1818. A Governor sent out from England to be the instrument of a body of officials, appointed by the crown for life, and responsible to nobody, affiliated with a Legislative Council or Upper Hose of Parliament, appointed in the same manner, composed in part of the same officials who ruled the Province, regarding the popular branch as of little more consequence than a mob meeting on the market-place to pass resolutions. ”

“ Article XX The governor, with the advice of the executive council, shall have power to call the house of assembly together, upon any emergency, before the time which they stand adjourned to.
Article XXI The governor, with the advice of the executive council, shall fill up all intermediate vacancies that shall happen in office till the next general election; and all commissions, civil and military, shall be issued by the governor, under his hand and the great seal of the State. ”

“ The executive powers shall be exercised by a Governor, who shall be chosen by joint ballot of both houses of assembly, and when chosen shall remain in office five years, and be ineligible a second time. During his term he shall hold no other office or emolument under this state, or any other state or power whatsoever. By executive powers, we mean no reference to those powers exercised under our former government by the crown as of its prerogative, nor that these shall be the standard of what may or may not be deemed the rightful powers of the governor. ”

“ A governor-general holds the superior administrative and executive authority, and is assisted by a council of five members, partly of a legislative and partly of an advisory character, but with no share in the executive work of the government. ”

“ We do, therefore, most respectfully but earnestly entreat you to reconsider your avowed intention, and to continue to the expiration of your term of office as governor to safeguard and protect the interests of the people of this great commonwealth, to whose honor and welfare we know you are sincerely devoted. ”

“ The acting governor reforms everything but his appetite. He taps the exchequer and every meal must be a banquet at the peril of the cook’s tenure of office. His reign is brief but glorious, and business is dispatched in a hurry with the view of the early return of the slippered and skirted governor. ”

“ Once on a time, indeed, the governor was a deer-hunter, in the forest, and lived far away from the haunts of men, and he is proud of the fact. He is a strenuous seceder, and has done high-handed things in his way—simple apparently, honest probably, fierce certainly—and he lives, while he is governor, on his salary of four thousand dollars a year, in the house provided for him by the state. ”