Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/43

Rh formed and established the first representative legislature that ever sat in America. And this example of a domestic parliament, to regulate all the internal concerns of the country, was never lost sight of, but was ever afterwards cherished, throughout America, as the dearest birthright of freemen. So acceptable was it to the people, and so indispensable to the real prosperity of the colony, that the council in England were compelled, in 1621, to issue an ordinance, which gave it a complete and permanent sanction. In imitation of the constitution of the British Parliament, the legislative power was lodged—partly in the governor, who held the place of the sovereign; partly in a council of state named by the company; and partly in an assembly composed of representatives freely chosen by the people. Each branch of the legislature might decide by a majority of voices, and a negative was reserved to the governor. But no law was to be in force, though approved by all three of the branches of the legislature, until it was ratified by a general court of the company, and returned under its seal to the colony. The ordinance further required the general assembly, as also the council of state, "to imitate and follow the policy of the form of government, laws, customs, and manner of trial and other administration of justice, used in the realm of England, as near as may be."

Charles I. adopted the notions, and followed out in its full extent the colonial system, of his father. He declared the colony to be a part of the empire annexed to the crown, and immediately subordinate to its jurisdiction. During the greater part of his reign, Virginia knew no other law than the will of the sovereign or his delegated agents; and statutes were passed, and taxes imposed, without the slightest effort to convene a colonial assembly. It was not until the murmurs and complaints, which such a course of conduct was calculated to produce, had betrayed the inhabitants into acts of open resistance to the governor, and into a firm demand of redress from the crown against his oppressions, that the king was brought to more considerate measures. He did not at once yield to their discontents; but, pressed as he was by severe embarrassments at home, he was content to adopt a policy which would conciliate the colony and remove some of its just complaints. He accordingly soon afterwards appointed Sir William Berkeley governor, with powers and instructions which breathed a far more benign spirit. He was authorized to proclaim that, in all its concerns, civil as well as ecclesiastical, the colony should be governed according to the laws of England. He was directed to issue writs for electing representatives of the people, who, with the governor and council, should form a general assembly clothed with supreme legislative authority; and to establish courts of justice, whose proceedings should be guided by the forms of the parent country. The rights of Englishmen were thus in a great measure secured to the colonists; and, under the government of this excellent magistrate, with some short intervals of interruption, the colony flourished with a vigorous growth for almost forty years. The revolution of 1688 found it, if not in the practical possession of liberty, at least with forms of government well calculated silently to cherish its spirit.

The laws of Virginia, during its colonial state, do not exhibit as many marked deviations, in the general structure of its institutions and civil polity, from those of the parent country, as those in the northern colonies. The common law was recognized as the general basis of its jurisprudence: and the legislature, with some appearance of boast, stated, soon