Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/53

 POLITICS IN HOPKINTON.

��45

��annual town meetings should be held on the first Monday of March. Acting un- der this provision the first board of se- lectmen were chosen the same year. They were Capt. Matthew Stanly, Jona- than Straw and Serg. Isaac Chandler. The incorporation of the town gave a new impulse to internal affairs, and improve- ments progressed rapidly.

The struggle for colonial independence occasioned the entertainment of provis- ions for the maintenance of independent civil government. The people of this town recognized this necessity of civil government as well as others. At a town meeting held on July 18. 1774. Capt. Jonathan Straw was chosen delegate to the convention held at Exeter on the 21st of the same month to succeed the pre- vious assembly dispersed by Governor John Wentworth. This convention chose Nathaniel Folsom and John Sullivan delegates to the Provincial Congress at Philadelphia. On the 9th of January, 1775, Joshua Bayley was chosen dele- gate from Hopkinton to a second conven- tion at Exeter, to appoint delegates to a second Congress to be held on the 10th of May. John Sullivan and John Lang- don were appointed to the approaching Congress. On the day that Joshua Bayley was chosen delegate to Exeter the town of Hopkinton voted " to accept what the grand Congress has resolved." On the 11th of December, 1775, Capt. Stephen Harriman was chosen representative to Exeter for one year.

The success of the struggle for inde- pendence secured to the inhabitants of this town and all others the possession of their lands in fee simple, and the con- sciousness of an existence of free gov- ernmental privileges. However.it opened the door to an earnestness and intensity of political controversy that many had not expected to experience. The task of es- tablishing a permanent civil government awakened a discussion between the doc- trines of the concentration and distribu- tion of governmental agencies which have plagued legislators throughout a long historic past, and probably will continue to plague them for a long time to come. On the 13th of January, 1778, the town

��voted to accept of the articles of confed- eration, but on the 22d of the July fol- lowing the people, as states the town clerk, " Tryed a Vote for Receiving the Plan of Government— none for, But 106 against it." On the 30th day of May, 1781, Joshua Bayley was chosen a com- mittee to attend an assembly* at Concord for the purpose of forming a plan of State government; yet on the 21st of January, and again on the 11th of No- vember, of the following year, the town voted not to accept the plan of govern- ment as it then stood. On the 4th of March of this year, Capt. (Jonathan) Straw. Benjamin Wiggin and Isaac Bay- ley were chosen a committee to petition the General Court for a repeal of the oath of fidelity. On the 23d of Decem- ber it was voted to accept the plan of gov- ernment " with the amendment made by the committee, there being 100 votes." The substance of this matter related to the powers and privileges of the Govern or of the State ; a compromise was effect- ed by the recommendation of the con- vention that the Governor be elected by the people, which plan was adopted.

Under the new condition of affairs, Meshech Weare, of Hampton Falls, was elected Presidentf of the State of New Hampshire. The vote of the town of Hopkinton that year stood fifty-six for Josiah Bartlett, of Kingston, and two for Timothy Walker, of Concord, and none for Weare. On the following year John Langdon of Portsmouth received eighty-nine votes and Timothy Walker one.

The unanimous character of the votes cast in Hopkinton for chief executive of the State for many years subsequently to the independence of the American colo- nies attests the little progress that had been made in national politics. When at length the people became conscious of the great struggle between Federalism and Republicanism, the sympathies of this town gravitated steadily toward the

��*This assembly, or convention, held nine ses- sions and was in existence two years.

��tThe chief executive of the State was not called governor vntil 1792, when a new consti- tution came in force.

�� �