Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/199

 CH. XVII.] in the organization of the colonial governments. In Connecticut and Rhode-Island the governor had no negative upon the laws; in Pennsylvania the council had no negative, but was merely advisory to the executive; in Massachusetts, the council was chosen by the legislature, and not by the crown; but the governor had a negative on the choice.

§ 172. (3.) In all the colonics, the lands within their limits were by the very terms of their original grants and charters to be holden of the crown in free and common soccage, and not in capite or by knights service. They were all holden either, as of the manor of East Greenwich in Kent, or of the manor of Hampton Court in Middlesex, or of the castle of Windsor in Berkshire. All the slavish and military part of the ancient feudal tenures were thus effectually prevented from taking root in the American soil; and the colonists escaped from the oppressive burdens, which for a long time affected the parent country, and were not abolished until after the restoration of Charles the Second. Our tenures thus acquired a universal simplicity; and it is believed, that none but freehold tenures in soccage ever were in use among us. No traces are to be found of copy hold, or gavel kind, or burgage tenures. In short, for most purposes, our lands may be deemed to be perfectly allodial, or held of no superior at all; though many of the distinctions of the feudal law have necessarily insinuated themselves into the modes of acquiring, transferring, and transmitting real estates. One of the most remarkable circumstances in our colonial history is the almost