Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/91

 CH. IV.] the overthrow of the charter, under the famous quo warranto proceedings in 1684, manifest a disposition on the part of the colonists to yield nothing, which could be retained; and on the part of the crown to force them into absolute subjection.

§ 67. The government of the colony immediately after the removal of the charter was changed in many important features; but its fundamental grants of territory, powers, and privileges were eagerly maintained in their original validity. It is true, as Dr. Robertson has observed, that as soon as the Massachusetts emigrants had landed on these shores, they considered themselves for many purposes as a voluntary association, possessing the natural rights of men to adopt that mode of government, which was most agreeable to themselves, and to enact such laws, as were conducive to their own welfare. They did not, indeed, surrender up their charter, or cease to recognise its obligatory force. But they extended their acts far beyond its expression of powers; and while they boldly claimed protection from it against the royal demands and prerogatives, they nevertheless did not feel, that it furnished any limit upon the freest exercise of legislative, executive, or judicial functions. They did not view it, as creating an English corporation under the narrow construction of the common law; but as affording the means of founding a broad political government, subject to the crown of England, but yet enjoying many exclusive privileges.