Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/818

UNITED STATES. of the immigrants were drawn from the Cavalier and Royalist classes, which were then out of power, and by this phase of migration Virginia and Maryland especially profited. Following the Restoration the increased power of the King in colonial politics was illustrated in the grant of the Carolinas to a body of proprietors, and of Pennsylvania to a single proprietor, while in the same period New York, acquired in 1664 by conquest from the Dutch, was organized as a royal province. The administration of New Jersey was given over to a body of proprietors, and the various settlements in Rhode Island were organized by charter into a colony. Throughout this period there was a steady development of uniformity in the provincial governments. At the basis of it all lay the principles of a democratic or representative government, which were brought to America by the earliest colonists. A representative and popular government was established in Virginia as early as 1619, before the founding of the New England colonies, in which democratic institutions existed from the outset. Coincident with this growth of uniformity, and this preparation for unity in organization as well as in action, appeared indications of divergence in theory as to the proper position of the provinces within the English State. On the one hand, in the instances where even the executive was chosen within the province and where no provision was made for the approval of provincial laws by the King, there appeared substantially independent local autonomy, the prevalence of which type would create a thoroughly decentralized system of government. On the other hand, in the instances where the Governor and all important executive and judicial officers were appointees of the Crown, where the governor's council was chosen by the Crown, and where all provincial laws were subject to the approval of the Crown, there was created a strongly centralized form of imperial government. Both of these types of provincial administration appeared in the colonial period, although they were irreconcilable, and as one form of government recognized privileges which the colonists would not relinquish and which the home Government would not recognize as rights, and as the other form included powers which the colonists claimed were improperly exercised by the King, it was inevitable that the attempt forcibly to harmonize the two systems should create such friction as to foreshadow revolution. Originally, the colonies were regarded as within the King's exclusive jurisdiction, and it was not until the Protectorate and the reign of Charles II. that they were considered as organic portions of the Empire, so as to be governed by Parliament: then (q.v.) were passed to give British ships a monopoly of commerce, certain articles produced in the colonies were required to be sent to England, and duties were levied on commodities sent from one colony to another. Protests were made against these assumptions; Massachusetts and other provinces asserted their rights of self-government and of exemption from Parliamentary control; and it was not until the English revolution of 1688 that settled and uniform relations with the several colonies were established, and the increased authority of Parliament, both within the realm and in the colonies, was fully recognized.

The effect of that revolution made more critical the underlying problem of the colonial situation, and gradually made conspicuous the issue whether in the colonies the legislative authority of Parliament was paramount. On the other hand, the revolution had a beneficent effect upon the colonies in terminating unrest and friction, which had characterized the administration of the later Stuarts. Even in Virginia the prevalent discontent had been given violent expression in (q.v.) in 1676, while in the Northern colonies the many contests over jurisdiction and rights and the arbitrary rule established by (q.v.), who had been appointed Governor of all the colonies north of latitude 41° N., developed a general disaffection among the people to the home Government and culminated in the seizure of Andros and the overthrow of his administration (1689).

In 1713, by the Treaty of Utrecht, England, which had been importing slaves from Africa into its American and West Indian colonies, obtained a monopoly of the slave trade to Spanish America for thirty-three years, and as a result of this arrangement slavery was extended in, and to some extent forced upon, all the American colonies. See.

During much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a general feeling of loyalty toward the mother country. The sons of the more wealthy colonists, especially in the South, were educated in England. English literature was widely read in the colonies; the colonies, though distinct, and differing in origin and character—Puritan in the East, largely Dutch Reformed in New York, Quaker in Pennsylvania, to a considerable extent Catholic in Maryland, and Anglican in Virginia—were yet united by language, blood, and institutions.

These influences toward harmony with the mother country served to obscure, to a considerable degree, the recurrent disputes over charter rights and trade privileges, which continued to prevail in the eighteenth century; and the tendency to union among the several colonies was strengthened by the outbreak of the (q.v.). This was the last in the series of conflicts (see ; ) which resulted from the respective territorial ambitions in North America of France and Great Britain, and left the latter in undisputed possession of Canada as well as of the territory lying between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. As a result of the termination of this long continued struggle with the French, which was followed by the Pontiac conspiracy of 1763 (see ), the colonies, which had naturally borne the brunt of the various conflicts in America, were relieved of much of their dependence upon the home Government, and were left freer than they had earlier been to look after what they conceived to be their rights and interests. On the other hand, the financial necessities resulting from that war led to measures bv the home Government which aroused the colonists, strengthened their feelings of unity among themselves, and lessened their attachment to the English administration. Under such circumstances, the basis of intercolonial
 * and ; also see