Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/121

 give no little trouble to the local governing classes when the strong hand of Great Britain was shaken off.

As the economic structure of colonial America rose firmly on its foundations there were also erected institutions of self-government which served the ruling orders well in the management of their affairs and in the conflicts with the mother country. For centuries, the upper classes of England had shared in the levying of taxes and the making of laws and, with perfect ease, parliamentary practices were transplanted to the New World. Soon after its inception, every colony could boast of a popular assembly elected by voters who possessed the established property qualifications. Virginia was little more than a decade old when, under the auspices of the London Company, a House of Burgesses chosen by the planters was called into being. Within four years of its first expedition, the Massachusetts Bay Company substituted a representative body for the general meeting of the corporation's members. Knowing full well that they could not attract settlers to their domains if they withheld all political privileges, the proprietors, such as Lord Baltimore and William Penn, early complied with the requirements of their charters by inviting colonists to join in the government of their respective enterprises.

In each colony the representative assembly, by whatever process instituted, was elected by the property owners. The qualifications imposed on voters were often modified but in every change the power of property, in accordance with English traditions, was expressly recognized. In the South, where agriculture was the great economic interest, land was the basis of the suffrage; Virginia, for example, required the elector in town or country to be a freeholder, an owner of land—a farm or a town lot of a stated size. Where agriculture and trade divided the honors, politics reflected the fact; in Massachusetts, for instance, the suffrage was con-