Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/93

 CH. IV.] sell lands; and that therefore every town might choose persons as representatives, not exceeding two, who should have the full power and voices of all the freemen, except in the choice of officers and magistrates, wherein every freeman was to give his own vote. The system, thus proposed, was immediately established by common consent, although it is nowhere provided for in the charter. And thus was formed the second house of representatives (the first being in Virginia) in any of the colonies. At first, the whole of the magistrates (or assistants) and the representatives sat together, and acted as one body, in enacting all laws and orders. But at length in 1644 they separated into two distinct and independent bodies, each of which possessed a negative upon the acts of the other. This course of proceeding continued until the final dissolution of the charter.

§ 70. It may be well to state in this connexion, that the council established at Plymouth in a very short period after the grant of the Massachusetts charter (in 1635) finally surrendered their own patent back to the crown. They had made other grants of territory, which we shall hereafter have occasion to notice, which had greatly diminished the value, as well as importance of their charter. But the immediate cause of the surrender was the odious extent of the monopolies granted to them, which roused the attention of Parliament, and