Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/279

 a mere deceptive form, a dead letter, for they either established or recognized those powerful institutions, which impelled the colonists to defend their liberties and to control power by dividing it; such as the laying of taxes by vote, the election of the principal public bodies, trial by jury, and the right to meet and deliberate upon affairs of general interest. Thus the history of these colonies is nothing else than the practical and sedulous development of the spirit of liberty, expanding under the protecting influence of the laws and traditions of the country. Such, indeed, was the history of England itself. . . . In the infancy of the English colonies, three different powers are found, side by side, with their liberties, .and consecrated by the same charters,—the crown, the proprietary founders, whether companies or individuals, and the mother country. The crown, by virtue of the monarchical principle, and with its traditions, derived from the Church and the Empire. The proprietary founders, to whom the territory had been granted, by virtue of the feudal principle which attaches a considerable portion of sovereignty to the proprietorship of the soil. The mother country, by virtue of the colonial principle, which, at all periods and among all nations, by a natural connection between facts and opinions, has given to the mother country a great influence over the population proceeding from its bosom.

"From the very commencement, as well in the course of events as in the charters, there was great confusion among these various powers, by turns exalted or depressed, united or divided, sometimes protecting, one against another, the colonists and their franchises, and sometimes assailing them in concert. In the course of these confused changes, all sorts of pretexts were assumed, and facts of all kinds cited, in justification and support either of their acts or their pretensions.

"In the middle of the seventeenth century, when the monarchical principle was overthrown in England, in the person of Charles the First, one might be led to suppose, for a moment, that the colonies would take advantage of this to free themselves entirely from its control. In point of fact, some of them, Massachusetts especially, settled by stern Puritans, showed themselves disposed, if not to break every tie which bound them to the mother country, at least to govern themselves, alone, and by their own laws. But the Long Parliament, by force of the colonial principle, and in virtue of the rights of the crown which it inherited, maintained, with moderation, the supremacy of Great Britain. Cromwell, succeeding to the power of the Long Parliament, exercised it in a more striking manner, and, by a judicious and resolute principle of protection, prevented or repressed, in the colonies, both Royalist and Puritan, every faint aspiration for independence. This was to him an easy task. The colonies, at this period, were feeble and divided. Virginia, in 1640, did not contain more than three or four thousand inhabitants, and in 1660 hardly thirty thousand. Maryland had at most only twelve thousand. In these two provinces, the royalist party had