Representative government.
The government of Massachusetts colony, in its popular branch, was purely democratic until 1634. The freemen, dissatisfied by the passage of obnoxious laws by the magistrates and clergy, sent a delegation, composed of two representatives from each town, to request a sight of the charter. Its inspection satisfied them that to the freemen, and not to the magistrates, belonged the legislative power. They asked the governor's opinion. He replied that the freemen were now too many (not over 300) to meet as a legislature, and also gave an opinion that the “commons” were not yet furnished with a body of men fit to make laws. He proposed that a certain number of freemen should be appointed yearly, not to make laws, but to prefer grievances to the Court of Assistants, whose consent might also be required to all assessments of money or grants of lands. They insisted upon less restricted power; and when the General Court, composed of freemen, met, that body claimed for itself all the powers which the charter clearly granted them. The magistrates were compelled to yield; and it was arranged that while all the freemen should assemble annually for the choice of officers, they should be represented by delegates elected by the people in the other three sessions of the court to “deal on their behalf in the public affairs of the commonwealth,” and for that purpose “to have devised to them the full voice and power of all the said freemen.” By this political revolution representative government was first established in Massachusetts. The first representative legislature, composed of three delegates from each of the eight principal plantations, met with the magistrates in May, 1634. This was the second government of the kind established in America. See Massachusetts.The germs of representative government were planted in New Netherland when, in 1641, Governor Kieft summoned all the masters and heads of families to meet at Fort Amsterdam to bear with him the responsibility of making an unrighteous war on the Indians. When they met, Kieft submitted the question whether a murder lately committed by an Indian on a Hollander, for a murder committed by a Hollander on an Indian many years before, ought not to be avenged; and, in case the Indians would not give up the murderer, whether it would not be just to destroy the whole village to which he belonged? The people chose twelve of their number to represent them. These were Jacques Bertyn, Maryn Adriaensen, Jan Jansen Dam, Hendrick Jansen, David Pietersen de Vries, Jacob Stoffelsen, Abram Molenaar, Frederick Lubbertsen, Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, Gerrit Dircksen, George Rapelje, and Abraham Planck —all Hollanders. The action of the twelve was contrary to Kieft's wishes, and he afterwards dissolved the first representative assembly and forbade the assembling of another. An appalling crisis in 1643 caused Kieft to call for popular counsellors, and the people chose eight men to represent them. This second representative assembly consisted of Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, Jan Jansen Dam, Barent Dircksen, Abraham Pietersen, Isaac Allerton (a Puritan who came over in the Mayflower, and was then a merchant in New Amsterdam), Thomas Hall (another Englishman), Gerrit Wolfertsen, and Cornelius Meylyn, the patroon of Staten Island.
On the arrival of Stuyvesant as governor of New Netherland, he organized a council of nine men, who in a degree represented the people. A circumstance now favored the growth of republicanism in the colony. The finances were in such a low state that taxation was absolutely necessary. The principle that “taxation without representation is tyranny” had prevailed in Holland since 1477. Stuyvesant was compelled to respect it, for he feared the States-General; so he called a convention of citizens (1647), and directed them to choose eighteen of their best men from whom he might select nine as representatives of the tax-payers. He hedged this representative assembly as tightly as [399] possible with restrictions. The first nine were to choose their successors, so that he need not go to the people again. They nourished the prolific seed of democracy then planted. Stuyvesant tried to stifle its growth; persecution promoted it. Settlers from New England were now many among the Dutch, and imbibed their republican sentiments. Finally, late in the autumn of 1653, nineteen delegates, who represented eight villages or communities, assembled at the City Hall in New Amsterdam, without the governor's consent, to take measures for the public good. They demanded that “no new laws shall be enacted but with the consent of the people, that none shall be appointed to office but with the approbation of the people, and that obscure and obsolete laws shall never be revived.”
Stuyvesant, angered by what he called their impertinence, ordered them to disperse on pain of punishment, saying: “We derive our authority from God and the Company, not from a few ignorant subjects.” The deputies paid very little attention to the wishes or commands of the irate governor, who was an honest despot. When they adjourned they invited the governor to a collation, but he would not sanction their proceedings by his presence. They bluntly told him there would be another convention soon, and he might prevent it if he could. He stormed, but prudently yielded to the demands of the people for another convention, and issued a call. The delegates met (Dec. 10, 1653) in New Amsterdam. Of the eight districts represented, four were Dutch and four English. Of the nineteen delegates, ten were Dutch and nine English. Baxter, English secretary of the colony, led the English delegates. He drew up a remonstrance against the tyrannous rule of the governor. Stuyvesant met the severe document with his usual pluck, denouncing it and the Assembly, every member of which signed it; and until the end of his administration (1664) he was at “swords' points” with the representatives of the people, who more and more acquired legislative functions under Dutch and English rule until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the Assembly was the most powerful branch of the colonial government.
