Organizational Matters in Serving the King and People: Legislators of Massachusetts General Court, 1691-1780

Not all representatives arrived for the first day of the legislative year, but a majority usually did. Because the annual town elections were ordinarily held in early May and the legislative year began on the last Wednesday of the month, the time for travel after election was very short. The unpredictability of election results in some towns contributed to the delay in preparations for the trip and lodging in the capital. The hardships in traveling from Maine and western Massachusetts towns increased time on the road by nearly a week. Some representatives even missed the entire first session and appeared in the late summer when travel was easier. The House Journals are thus sprinkled with the names of representatives arriving late and taking their oaths of office separately or in groups.

Elections in the township were contested, or not, depending on the issues and the candidates. Little is known about these local elections to describe the general impact of any political dispute. Some town records occasionally reveal bitterness and anxiety, and the protesters of election irregularities frequently took their grievances to the House of Representatives, which would often order an investigation. Many towns treated the elections as outside events and sometimes failed to mention them in the town proceedings. Other than Boston, only Dorchester regularly gave the votes of the men who were elected. James Blake and Noah Clap, the Dorchester town clerks from 1725 into the Revolution, often recorded the votes cast, but not often the votes of the opposition. From 1738 to 1750, the successful candidate for representative was usually Thomas Wiswall. The clerk usually recorded his victory as “the major part of the vote.”1 In 1750, Wiswall received 45 of the 88 votes cast. As selectman he regularly had a strong vote, but not the best, and he was never asked to preside as moderator at the annual March town meeting.

In the annual elections, voters filled all town positions, leaving those of representative and county officers until May. Depending on the town, the popular response in March varied dramatically. Most elections were routine, and the same candidates were returned to office year after year. Only death seemed to be their opponent. Then again, in a wave of excitement, the voters could throw almost everyone out of office. The meeting undoubtedly became a shouting match of accusations. Whatever the tone of the meeting, as the men of the town nominated and elected their candidates, they certainly weighed the merits of the person who would serve as representative. Perhaps the election difficulties stemmed from the person’s obscurity, other responsibilities, or age. Because the trip and residence in Boston involved much hardship, people were hardly anxious to assume the burden. For many towns, no one was available to undertake the responsibility, and for some, the expense of representation seemed too burdensome. Townsmen, then, registered their unwillingness to send anyone to Boston and risked the possibility of a fine.

In 1765, the year of the Stamp Act upheaval, 45 towns did not send any representatives, and a few chose a neighboring townsman to look after their businesses. About 116 representatives took the oath for the first session, and 21 towns were penalized for not sending any representation with fines ranging from £6 to £10. The amazing neglect of representation by Littleton, Uxbridge, Grafton, Holliston, and Walpole is matched by the complete absence of anyone from Lincoln County in Maine.2 In comparison, in 1736, 105 representatives attended the first House session, but at least 50 towns sent no one during the year and seven towns were fined. In both years, the Council membership remained relatively stable; most of the 28 members attended faithfully to their duties.

The turnover rate in the House, however, was approximately one-third for these years. The records show not only a change in membership, but in activity. A large number apparently took the customary oaths and were available for roll calls or floor business, but did little or nothing in handling day-to-day business.

On the last Wednesday of May 1765, the representatives assembled early, took the oaths of office required by the Charter and Parliament, and certified their loyalty to the king and the Protestant succession. The writs of election were examined to see if all procedures were followed, and the House turned to some organizational matters. The unanimous choice of Samuel White (1710- 1769) as speaker was reported officially to the governor for approbation.

The choice of speaker had become nearly routine since 1726 when Parliament provided, by amending the Charter, for the governor to approve the nomination of speaker by the House. White’s record was similar to that of most other representatives who had held that important post, certainly since the late 1720s. He was a lawyer, justice of the peace, experienced legislator, and hesitant in expressing his opinions. After serving only three years as speaker, both House and Governor were pleased to elevate him in 1766 to the Council, probably because of ill health, and continue him there until his death in 1769. His successor as speaker was James Otis, Jr., who was totally unsuitable for the task and was immediately disapproved by the governor. The House then nominated Thomas Cushing (1725-1788), who easily won approval as White’s replacement. A cautious man of charm and wit, Cushing was annually reelected and reconfirmed until the Revolution swept away the royal establishment.3

Speakers like White and Cushing had a central role in the House. Their dignity and prestige could moderate proceedings, and their choice of legislators for the enormous number of committees could ensure an orderly flow of business. Although they chose most of the committees, they did not appoint them all. The houses could, and often did, make their own decisions on committee personnel.

For 1765, the House again elected Roland Cotton (1701-1778) as clerk. He had served as clerk in nearly every legislature since 1739. Sometimes he was also a legislator, but as he became older, he exchanged his country residences for Boston and concentrated on his duties as clerk. In 1766, Cotton lost his position to Samuel Adams, who was interested in the salary and power of the position as much as Cotton. Cotton had used his clerkship to gain military honor, the post of justice of the peace, and a modest salary. Perhaps his marriage in 1760 to Deborah Mason of Boston indicated that a wife gave him social advantages that bachelorhood had denied him.

The organizational business of the legislature on its first day included selecting the new Council. The formula worked out by former legislatures in following the Charter of 1691 was to vote first for 18 councilors by the combined votes of the old Council and the new House of Representatives. Both houses appointed a committee to count the votes, which in 1765 were put “into several hats” and a majority of votes elected each of the Councilors. Other ballots for men to represent the old area of New Plymouth, the District of Maine, the territory of Sagadahock and Nova Scotia, and the province at large completed the 28 councilor offices. The 1765 election was routine with the replacement of only two councilors (Timothy Ruggles and Thomas Hancock) because of retirement and death. Their successors, Israel Williams and John Chandler, could easily have pleased Governor Bernard who routinely approved the list of nominees.4 In 1766, however, there was a bloodbath reflecting the emotion caused by the Stamp Act, the rising anger of the people, and the desire of politicians to embarrass British leadership. The General Court thus refused to reelect eight province leaders like Thomas Hutchinson, Peter Oliver, and Andrew Oliver, and the angry governor then plunged into the fight by using his veto against the newly nominated councilors and by refusing to let the legislature fill those vacancies to the lawful number.5 The crossing of swords dramatically changed Massachusetts politics.

Ordinarily the election of the Council was followed by a religious sermon from a well-known minister. In 1765, Andrew Eliot was not only thanked for his willingness to speak, but asked to serve for the year as chaplain of the legislature. The minister of the new North Church was careful in expressing his opinions in that address, but on the matter of representative government he was plainspoken. He advised his audience that “All power has its foundation in compact and mutual consent, or else it proceeds from fraud or violence. Where the latter takes place, the dominion which men claim is no better than usurpation; and they, who by these methods raise themselves above their brethren, are so far from having a right to govern, that they ought to be punished as public disturbers and the enemies of mankind.”6

With the governor present, Eliot said that America had long governed itself and that the imposition of parliamentary taxation after seven generations of semi-independence was serious and would be resented even more as the colonies’ population and wealth grew to equal the Mother Country’s. Governor Bernard listened patiently to the cleric’s address, undoubtedly thinking of the one he would deliver the next day at the formal opening of the legislature. Twenty-four hours later the gathered members of the two houses heard his rather short address in the council chamber. His general remarks referred to the urgent need to improve the economy and pay off the provincial debt, but then he touched on the relations of England to the Colonies:

In an Empire, extended and diversified as that of Great Britain, there must
be a supreme Legislature, to which all other powers must be subordinate. It
is our Happiness that our supreme Legislature . . . is the Sanctuary of Liberty and Justice; and that the Prince, who presides over it, realizes the idea of a Patriot King. Surely then we should submit our Opinions to the Determination of so august a Body; and acquiesce in a perfect Confidence, that the Rights of the Members of the British Empire will ever be safe in the Hands of the Conservators of the Liberty of the whole.7

Later in the day, the governor’s speech was read and considered in the House of Representatives, which apparently reviewed some of his recommendations. Three committees were selected to look into the matters of trade that he had outlined. Other legislative issues, however, seemed more pressing, and the work of these committees was lost in the flow of business. In the 1765- 1766 legislature, 227 pieces of committee action were actually passed and signed by the governor. Perhaps 100 or more committees handled petitions on local problems, and their reports received approval by both houses and the governor.8

Most legislative business in the House was processed by committees specifically appointed to investigate each problem. House committees by tradition were usually composed of three members, and for serious enough matters the Council might appoint its own members to hold joint hearings. In that case, the committee could be five or six members. The size of committees, however, ranged from one to 32 and depended on the issue’s importance, perhaps the issue’s regional character, relations with the governor, and ceremonial tasks. The House usually conducted most of its proceedings in committees, with floor business frequently confined to approving or rejecting these reports. Committees were likely to visit towns to gather data, accompany the governor on inspections of forts and frontier areas, and sometimes negotiate with Indian tribes. The legislature allowed almost any provincial problem to have a hearing. Problems were rarely screened, and similar issues during a war crisis were frequently heard by a standing committee. There were not very many of these committees, however, from 1691 to 1780.

The first action of the 1765 legislature was to pass a resolution setting up a joint committee. It named two councilors and three representatives and assigned them to supervise repairs on CastleWilliam in the harbor.9 A few weeks later, a storm ripped part of the fortification to pieces. Governor Bernard then sent a special message on the destruction, and the House responded with another committee to assess the damage and report back immediately on what needed to be done. The House then resolved that any necessary repairs be “done with Stone . . . and in the best and cheapest manner” possible, and its original committee was thus informed.10

Other issues arose over the governor’s desire to increase the military establishment at the Castle and over the governor’s appropriation of money through the Council without proper agreement of the entire legislature. A delegation of 29 representatives was sent up to the Council to protest the illegal expenditure: “we therefore in Duty to ourselves, our Constituents, and to Posterity, declare the said Procedure to be a high infraction of the Rights of this House, with whom the originating and granting on the Freeholders and Inhabitants of this Province is indubitably and constitutionally lodged.”11 No other action followed except the allowance of funds for the garrison and its increase in number. The laws appear in the business of the 1766 legislature, but the 1765 budget undoubtedly had sufficient funds for the repairs.

For something as simple as repairing the harbor fortress other current issues share the blame in delaying a decision. The heated Stamp Act controversy tended to slow and aggravate most business, and the vast amount of routine legislation in the hopper kept many legislators very busy. For 1765, the delay was more or less normal. The legislature usually acted like a mediation board in many cases, and 1765 was not an exception. The town of Bellingham, for example, was involved in a dispute over an irregular annual election. The legislature heard the petition of some inhabitants and referred it to the town for an official answer by June 12. The resulting information convinced the House and Council to form a joint committee of investigation, consisting of councilman Timothy Paine and representatives Thomas Clap and Ebenezer Nicholas. By June 20, the Council had voted favorably on the committee report, but the House was apparently too occupied to make any decision. The matter remained pending until early January 1766 when the House accepted the bill, and the governor signed it into law. The law declared Bellingham’s selectmen and assessors, who were chosen in March 1765, legally elected, but it ousted all other officials who were elected later. New elections were then held to provide for orderly government.12

In the 1754 elections for representatives, an inordinate number of voters protested their town’s decisions in petitions to the House. It was asked to choose one representative among rivals for the combined area of Sunderland, New Salem, and Montague. It was told that the election at Easton was defective. It was also advised that some Swansea townsmen wanted their representative, John Anthony, ousted. Stoughton’s petitioners asked that John Shepard be denied his seat because of long-standing charges against his handling of Indian trade as a guardian. In his case, the House apparently seated him, but then selected a committee to delve into the specific charges of corruption against him. While this public hearing into the grievances of the Punkapoug Indians was conducted, Shepard was excluded from House business.

The supervision of Indian affairs was a sensitive issue that most legislators tried to avoid. In some towns, to complete the sale of Indian lands required a special enactment of the legislature. Land claims in Maine were a repeated source of anxiety. In the 1727 legislature, for example, the houses got bogged down over the membership of a joint committee to study land claims and the rights of Indians. The House of Representatives wanted all persons who sat on the committee to be free of any personal interest in those lands.13 Indian trade was, generally, regulated through the use of guardians whom the House annually chose and whose accounts it annually audited.

In 1753, the Punkapoug Indians lodged a series of complaints against their guardians,Colonel Samuel Miller of Milton and Major John Shepard of Stoughton. Another guardian, Captain Thomas Wiswall of Dorchester, had recently died, but auditors opened his books. In response to the Punkapougs’ complaint the legislature appointed a joint committee of investigation. The collected evidence brought a serious charge of corruption against the guardians before the entire membership of the House and Council. Chaired by Joseph Pynchon of Springfield, the committee proceeded with its report despite much heated debate over the evidence. In November 1754, the House voted to oust Shepard and fine him and Colonel Miller, but it passed Captain Wiswall’s books. “Major Shepard,” the report read, “for his great unfaithfulness and Breach of Trust as Guardian to the Punkapoug Indians, the Illegality and Barbarity of his Proceedings as a Justice of the Peace against some of them; ought by this court to [pay] ... the Sum of Eighty Pounds immediately ... into the Province Treasury; and be rendered incapable for the future to sustain the Trust of Guardian to said Indians, or any Trust or Post of Honour under the Government.”14

Colonel Miller offered an apology, admitting his “Indolence and Negligence in said Trust.” A confession and “humbling himself there for” brought a pardon and a light fine. Shepard’s public life ended with his expulsion from the House. Though he lived until 1781, he served in no other office of trust under the crown and died at age 92 with very little estate. Colonel Miller, however, continued his career and served two additional terms in the House and remained active in Milton affairs until his death in 1761. The family was moderately wealthy and well connected with pro-British elements in the government. Miller’s son became a refugee in the Revolution. Nothing personal happened, of course, to Captain Wiswall, and his estate was not penalized. In life, he may have been the victim of bad association. Corrupt men like Major Shepard were few in number, and fewer were the times that the legislature inquired into the ethics of its members. Most legislative business was directed instead to the basket full of petitions that were annually received, and the basket was full in 1765.

The legislature received hundreds of petitions from ordinary citizens with grievances. And each year it mitigated the effects of unintentionally harsh laws in the case of probate decisions or aided towns in easing the burden of heavy taxation. The function of the legislature in 1765 was again that of a board of equalization, or a court of last resort, and justice found its way to victims of the political system through petitions and special legislation.

In adjudicating probate matters, the legislature generally relaxed court decisions for petitioners and made settlements possible. The estate of William Parsons, for example, was encumbered with more debts than could be settled by the sale of personal property. The heirs wanted permission, therefore, to sell land to pay these debts and provide a good deed to the purchasers. The petition was received in June 1765, heard by a sympathetic committee, and passed by the houses. The governor signed the bill in November. One of the heirs was a minor, however, who needed immediate money for costs of living and education. The House stepped in a second time to allow a partial sale of his inheritance, but when that proved to be impractical, it modified the law again to permit him to sell all of his inheritance and invest only a portion for future needs.15

Some years the legislature heard many probate petitions and seemed to be as important as the Probate Court in adjudicating cases. But the legislature acted in almost the same way in civil matters. Petitioners were given permission to sue; petitioners applying late for licenses were granted additional time; and petitioners from towns often had their payments of tax assessments delayed, reduced, or modified to meet new conditions.

The legislature frequently from one year to another continued the hearings of problems that defied easy solutions. Sometimes the same committee membership was available; other times new legislators restudied the matter. In the 1740s and 1750s, many returning soldiers from the frontier wars needed help, and the annual legislatures employed standing committees to process the petitions as they were received. For petitioners, the issue was serious because they were sick or wounded soldiers, or had lost their muskets, or their families were destitute, or their wages were delayed needlessly by paymasters. Although such matters were often routine for the legislature, which was grappling with matters of recruiting, taxation, and provisioning,thestandingcommitteeworked efficiently to help these unfortunate people and provided some measure of relief.

Of all the issues that any yearly legislature had to handle, taxation was ultimately the most engaging and serious. Taxes were usually raised by assessing the towns, but excise taxes, licenses, fees, duties, and receipts from land sales satisfied the rest of the burden. A major part of the tax bill was levied on Boston and the neighboring towns, where the larger population and greater commerce made taxes easier to bear. In the 1765 legislature, Colonel Thomas Clap of Scituate was chairman of a committee of six members who considered the tax problem and recommended a levy of £50,000.16 After a debate, the House changed most members of the committee and then ordered it to draft a bill. Colonel John Worthington of Springfield was the new chairman, and only Samuel Dexter of the original committee remained. In the meantime, a grant of £1,300 for the governor’s salary was voted, and the accounts of the county treasurers and Indian guardians were reviewed as well as those of
the colonial agent, Jaspar Mauduit, in London, and those of the provincial treasurer for 1764-1765.17 The governor, in following the deliberations, requested compensation for the Superior Court Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson who was burdened by unusual expenditures. Months later he received a token sum of £40, “in Consideration of his faithful Discharge of, an important Trust.”

The House passed the tax bill on June 17 and sent it to the Council. Colonels Oliver Partridge and Thomas Clap and three others urged its passage there. Two other bills authorized the treasury to pay off the colony’s debts and redeem some bonds. By June 20, all the bills had passed the Council and were ready for the governor’s signature.18 It is difficult to estimate how many legislators were involved in this lawmaking, but surely 25 representatives sat on the various committees.

Once the major tax bill was signed, lotteries were approved to raise money for long-delayed repairs on Faneuil Hall and to build a new student hall at Harvard College.19 Immediate funding of the major taxes apparently was anticipated by the printing of bonds. Some bonds of earlier years were canceled and burned before the new securities were issued. The towns now realized the burden of their obligations, and some reacted with petitions to the legislature. Stoughton had been separated from Stoughtonham and wanted to know how their respective obligations should be determined. The House quickly replied that approximately one-third of the £362 should be paid by Stoughtonham. For purposes of equitable taxation, the town of Stockbridge wanted the English part of the town separated from the Indian.20 The final tax bills of the year were a series of excise duties on wheat, shipping, distilled spirits and wine, and citrus fruit. Excise collectors were then selected for the counties by a vote of the entire legislative membership.

The legislature easily processed the various tax bills in 1765 despite the growing bitterness over the Stamp Act, which brought forth statements of rights and grievances. Legislative activity in the public record seemed to be calm, perhaps because Samuel Adams took the oath of office only in late September and served on only a few committees. Nonetheless, James Otis, Jr., was easily one of the most energetic House members, as was Thomas Cushing of Boston, who was a member of a significant number of committees. He was chairman of the large committee that protested the Stamp Act, and he served on many of the tax bill committees. But both he and Otis seemed reluctant to disturb the flow of business. In the Stamp Act controversy, only Brigadier Timothy Ruggles was censured for his behavior in the Congress at New York, where he did not sign any of the official documents of protest and left the proceedings prematurely. Speaker White’s almost apologetic language softened the censure: “I do Reprimand you accordingly. Sir, It gives me very sensible Pain that a Gentleman who has been heretofore in such high Estimation in this House, should fall under their publick Censure.”21 Even so, Ruggles served on committees in the 1765-1766 legislature and continued in the House for four additional terms. In the Revolution, he escaped as a Tory and lived in Nova Scotia as a British subject.

Budgets had more difficult times in earlier legislatures when issues of the governor’s salary, paper money, and disputes between the Houses complicated legislative business. In 1741, the immediate dispute was over the establishment of the land and silver banks that Parliament had outlawed. The merchant conservatives and Governor Jonathan Belcher were on one side, while majorities in the Council and House of Representatives favored the land bank. Politics had been heated in the 1740 legislature, but the explosion occurred in 1741. No compromise seemed possible when the governor rejected the speaker and negatived 13 of the councilors. In great anger, he then dissolved the legislature, which was a desperate act, only two days after the opening of the session, to emphasize further his displeasure.22 In anticipating the heat of legislative politics, the British government had already recalled the governor who had served for nearly 11 years and had appointed William Shirley, a local lawyer, prosecutor in the Admiralty Court, and politician from England. New electionswerealreadyordered,however,byretiringGovernorBelcherwhomet the new legislature on July 8 and announced the English appointment of his successor. He did not hesitate, however, to disapprove of the chosen speaker and force a selection of another person.23

The second legislature for 1741 moved slowly while anticipating the arrival of the new governor’s commission and the inauguration of the new order. In the meantime, Governor Belcher asked for a salary that would meet the dignity of his station and a committee of the House recommended it. The whole House, however showed its anger by denying the retiring governor any compensation. Three months later, it approved a bill giving Belcher £182 instead of the £2,000 the committee originally suggested.

Although his presence as new governor immediately became apparent in the legislative record, Shirley had little real power to solve most of the pending problems. He was full of plans and strategy, however, was conciliatory, and confronted the legislature with a series of recommendations. The principal issue was the raising of money to pay current government expenses. Paper currency was usually issued for the budgeted amount and then redeemed as the towns paid taxes in kind and service. Unfortunately few controls were in place to ensure the withdrawal of the paper currency, and when the paper was not redeemed, the value of past emissions depreciated quickly, losing at least a third in value. Although Shirley asked for a new budget, he wanted it to be financed in a form that would resist the inflation of an unsupported paper currency.24 The House responded with two committees: one to provide money and the other to consider the paper currency. Both had seven representatives and shared a few members. Another committee alerted the towns to update their list of taxable individuals. Still other committees were ordered to prepare a table of fees for governmental services and to ascertain the value of the current paper currency and to look for a substitute. Finally, the legislature passed an expense allowance of £2,000 for the governor to defray the costs of his move to the governor’s house and to pay for equipage. In accepting the grant, Shirley was careful not to label the allowance as salary in anticipation of additional money and informed the legislature of his opinion.25 With this burst of energy, the legislature adjourned until September 16, letting House and Council committees draw up the budget. Such men as John Choate, Robert Hale, Edward Bromfield, and Samuel Watts were visible doing the work of these committees.

When the legislature returned, the committees’ tasks were nearly completed. By mid-October, the governor had a £36,000 supply bill and a £650 salary grant. However, he swiftly disapproved both measures because they were financed by unsecured paper currency. The more important of the two was the supply bill, which left the colony without operating funds. The bill, he said, plainly did not follow his British instructions against approving a paper currency without guarantees against depreciation. His veto message describes the pressures under which he acted:

I am not ignorant, Gentlemen, of the Streights which the Province is in for want of a new Supply [bill] . . . , it’s defenceless Condition, the ruinous State of our Fortifications, the Arrears due to the Officers and Soldiers in our Garrisons, and all our publick Officers, and our want of warlike Stores, and of the Scarcity of our Paper Medium.26

After receiving his message, the legislature took a 40-day recess and left the governor and a new committee to draw another budget bill during the recess. The committee contained a few of the same members as the earlier committee, except Robert Hale of Beverly replaced Speaker John Hobson as chairman. When the legislature reconvened, it was poorly attended despite the urgency of funds. Representatives angrily fined its 35 members 5 shillings for every day of absence. With the penalty flag flying, some members hurried back to debate the supply bill, which was molded into a form that eventually pleased the governor despite much debate and a conference committee of the houses. Shirley’s January 15 address was conciliatory, but his victory was now obscured by other business, particularly negotiations on his salary. The legislature had voted a salary of £650 in paper currency, which he claimed was far less than what the British government expected. He wanted a continuous salary in sterling, a guaranteed sum that would be unchanged during his tenure in office.27 The House was not at all surprised by his request for the larger, continuous salary and wished to drop the issue. It had already battled governors Burnet and Belcher a decade earlier and had nothing more to say. To emphasize their position, only one-third of the membership was there to hear his speech. He recognized the inevitable and gave the legislature a recess of two months until March 17, maybe in the hope of a victory from a full House.

Soon after the legislature reconvened, he again raised the issue of the continuous salary. A committee was immediately charged with studying the issue, and it came up with a salary grant of £900 paper currency. The House responded in debate with a new bill for £1,000 paper currency “of the last Emission,” which was probably equal to the sum he requested but was not to be continuous for the years of his service.28 The legislature was, nonetheless, gracious in its response and Shirley was equally gracious in his answer. The House again responded graciously after it took two votes—one a unanimous rejection of a continuous salary and the other by a negative majority for a compromise. So what was left to the governor was another gracious response. The House then rejected the issue for the 1741-1742 legislative year with two additional negative votes to emphasize its opposition to any kind of continuous salary. Those statements should have ended the dispute, but Shirley chose to test the matter in the new legislature, probably to please his British superiors.29

The period 1741-1742 was difficult for both legislators and governor. The budget was completed late in January and had apparently not provided enough appropriated money to pay the accumulated expenses of several past years. Outstanding paper money was scarce or too depreciated to be circulated. In addition, colonial leaders were trying to solve the financial crisis brought by Parliament’s suppression of the land and silver banks. Their credit notes had to be redeemed and liability for any losses spread to all shareholders. Other issues crowded the legislative agenda: the appointment of a colonial agent, the setting of fees for provincial services, the smooth running of the courts, and, of course, the governor’s salary. Shirley seemed to be standing ready to direct legislative activity—certainly to use the threat of his veto to sharpen bills and secure appointments. The legislature’s proceedings were often vague, not all committees were listed, and some business apparently was handled by the whole House. Possibly the resident House membership at times was too small to permit the usual divisions into committees.

In the 1741-1742 deliberations, the House had many opportunities to express its sense of importance as a defender of constitutional liberties.30 Much of what it expressed had been said before and would be said again, but the basic theme was that the governor had great power and could dissolve the legislature at will. Giving the governor financial independence could destroy the proper balance of the divisions of government. The argument depends, however, on the part of government that makes it. The governor wanted a salary less dependent on the whim of the legislature and less liable to the market value of the paper currency. The legislature tried to avoid the point that instructions from the home government would destroy legislative independence, but the argument was nonetheless evident in their addresses to the governor.31 Neither the governor nor legislature were willing to press the constitutional argument to its limits. Both were gracious in language and firm in positions, but both were looking for a compromise. Shirley abandoned the fight in the 1742-1743 legislature, when he received a fairly good annual salary of £1,300.

Decades later, in the early 1770s, Governor Thomas Hutchinson and leaders of the House of Representatives exchanged heated responses over British payment of salaries and accused each other of exaggerating and aggravating constitutional differences. The salary issue was then expanded to include most members of the royal administration and the question of British versus Massachusetts payment of the salaries.32 It involved issues of legislative control and dependency on Britain. It separated many executive and judicial officials from local control and violated the spirit of the 1691 Charter. Hutchinson was long a political figure, entering the House in 1737, and knew politics as a student better than any legislator. He was undoubtedly intelligent, but he was caught up in British policy as governor, unable to compromise, and convinced himself that a firm position was necessary to rule the colony.33 Among his opposition were men like Samuel Adams, who were not also inclined to compromise, newspaper writers, pamphleteers, and participants in a House gallery, which gave Bostonians at least a window onto the floor of the lower house. The bitter dispute nearly destroyed orderly government in Massachusetts when Chief Justice Peter Oliver was impeached for taking the British salary and Hutchinson struggled to save his administration. These legislative arguments over salary payments were unsolved when the Revolution swept all before it.

Neither the Council nor House of Representatives usually exhibited much oratory in such deliberations. Most business was processed in committees and reported on the House floor. Some chairmen spoke from their seats when reporting the committee decisions; others stood together as delegations and faced the representatives in making their reports. Apparently the House had no established seating arrangement. Probably there were no back benchers, or people regularly sitting as supporters or opponents of the leadership. There was no clique of leaders or committee people who could be called on from session to session, except those from the towns surrounding the hub who were obviously important.

The House was not organized into parties and was not a modern political assembly. Representatives were driven by their interests as seaboard merchants, frontiersmen, and farmers. Inflation, hard money, defense, and western land sales involved them in larger interests, but most legislators were locally concerned with problems of the town and their own ambitions for recognition. Most may have come to Boston to do one or two political jobs such as seeking to adjust the taxation rate, improve the town bridge, or rebuild frontier defenses. They were not primarily legislators; they did not usually sit in the benches anxiously waiting to vote or speak on some issue. There were, however, groupings of legislators. Representatives from the Cape, Maine, the Connecticut Valley, and the Berkshires consulted each other. Unfortunately few votes were posted in the legislature over the years to test these groupings.The secrecy of the proceedings was observed even up until the Revolution so that active groups were not always discernible.

Opposition to the governor could be a rallying point. Legislation during 1741-1743 finally brought solid votes against a continuous salary, but a few people would compromise. Large groups were not anxious, however, to offend governor or crown. Shirley’s annual salary grew after nearly each conflict, and in 1742-1743, a group of men working in the committees apparently supported him.34 In time, Shirley’s efforts to attract legislative support were remarkable but depended on luck and his skills as a politician. The reverse may be said of Governor Belcher’s support, which deteriorated over the years.35 He got involved in the politics of the land and silver banks in 1740 and purged the Council, the justices of the peace, and the militia command of those who disagreed with him. Hatred toward him was eventually so intense that the House of Representatives denied him salary for part of his last year as governor. Other governors like Joseph Dudley, Samuel Shute, and Francis Bernard had bitter moments in their relations with the legislature. In general, almost all governors became victims of local dissatisfaction with British policy. In frustration, colonials singled out the governor as the visible representative of Britain in the colonies and blamed him for their problems.

Boston itself was often an object of resentment. The merchants were frequently creditors for country shopkeepers. They had a different style of living and hard money for some luxuries, and a few belonged to liberal congregations or to the Church of England. The political power of Boston was expressed in the committees and, of course, in the experience of its legislators. Suffolk County would eventually be split into two counties to satisfy the towns that wanted to lessen Boston’s power.36

From time to time, figures in the legislature, and sometimes from outside, had personal ambitions or policies that could influence the House and create an opposition group. At the time of the promulgation of the Charter of 1691, Increase Mather was able to influence the choice of William Phips as governor and the makeup of the first Council. His absentee relation with Harvard College was a continuing source of politics as his enemies insisted that he maintain residence in Cambridge.37 They forced Increase from the presidency in 1701, but he and his son, Cotton, involved the new governor, Joseph Dudley, in their interests. Both Mathers lived into the 1720s and were powerful spokesmen for their form of Congregationalism. In time, the Brattle family, the Stoddards, and the Dudleys shared power with the Mathers. More importantly, their critics had other interests that won greater popular support—interests in trade, land sales, and war against Quebec.

At about the same time, the Cookes, the Elishas, father and son, were opponents of the Mathers, the governors, and the clerical influence in politics. Elisha, Sr., did not like the Charter of 1691 and blamed Increase Mather for its imposition on the colony. The Charter did provide much new power for Britain in directing local policy, particularly in establishing the office of the governor. Cooke opposed Governor William Phips’s entry into local affairs and with friends helped reshape the 1693 Council.38 His prominence and talent in 1694 won him a seat on the Council, kept him there until 1702, and attracted the attention of succeeding governors, especially the Earl of Bellomont, who even placed him on the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature.

The succession of governors in 1702 brought the powerful New Englander Joseph Dudley into office. Cooke’s sworn enemy of several decades, the revengeful governor then in power chose Cooke as an object of harassment.39 Their rivalry had been intense in the revolutionary struggle of the 1680s when Dudley was imprisoned for his support of the despicable Edmund Andros whom Cooke and other councilors had helped overthrow as governor general. In nearly every election during his governorship until 1715, Dudley negativated Cooke as a potential councilor, thus containing his clever opponent during his long tenure in office. Upon approaching retirement, Dudley confirmed Cooke, who was ill and served only a few weeks on the Council until his death in the fall of 1715. Hutchinson in his famous history of Massachusetts Bay describes Cooke’s return to the Council in 1715:

Mr. Dudley met the Assembly, at the election in May, but made no speech, though he had never failed of doing it before. The Council and House chose his great adversary Mr. Cooke, whom he had so often negatived, into the Council, and either from indifference or a spirit of forgiveness before his political departure, he now approved of him. . . . [Cooke] was esteemed as a physician, but most remarkable in his political character, having more than forty years together been employed in places of public trust, always firm and steady to his principles.40

His son Elisha Cooke, Jr., was already active in the House of Representatives when he died and became a councilor in 1717, 1724-1727, and 1728-1729. The younger Cooke led an opposition to Shute, Burnet, and Belcher, an opposition that embraced almost every conceivable issue of the day like currency, continuing salary for the governor, control of the speakership, and land policy in Maine. Jonathan Belcher, in his youth, joined Cooke in many acts of protest, but as governor he plainly found Cooke a threat to peace and his power base. Belcher kept Cooke from taking seats on the Council and court bench and generally isolated him from political support. Cooke’s health was declining in the 1730s, however, so that he could unleash less and less of the venom of his earlier attacks on Shute.41

In the 1750s, James Allen of Boston provided some impressive opposition to Governor Shirley, and both James Otis, Jr., and Samuel Adams in the 1760s were vigorous opponents of Governor Bernard and the British government. Fortunately for Shirley, Allen died prematurely in early 1755, probably from hypertension, and his associates never found a substitute of such daring and courage to succeed him.42 In the early 1760s, both Otises, Jr. and Sr., Oxenbridge Thatcher, and many others certainly were creators of an anti-administration party. They found popular issues of naval seizures, appointments, and British policies that embarrassed Governor Bernard at every turn and reduced the effectiveness of his position. The opposition of James Otis, Jr., however, was often indecisive because he was torn by competing ambitions. He hated the governor, to be sure, but his immediate family had their eyes on political patronage and marriage alliances that often required good relations with the rapacious Bernard and his money-grabbing colleagues.43 When Thatcher died unexpectedly in 1765, Otis was left for a time without the strong emotional support he needed. But Samuel Adams, Thatcher’s talented successor, was a decisive leader, once he got settled into his position as representative and clerk of the House, and chose his issues, enemies, and friends. His opposition to the governor eventually became irresistible. A majority of the House rallied to most causes he supported, while associates of the governor were nearly incapable of combating his tactics.44 Otis always remained a symbol of opposition to the governor, but his mental powers grew weaker as he experienced periods of insanity. Other powerful men like James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, and John Erving, Sr., had joined Adams in the opposition.

In concluding, observe that the positions of power and prestige enjoyed by the legislature and the governor in pre-Revolutionary times depended on cooperation. Because they relied on each other to perform their functions, a working relationship was absolutely necessary. Rough treatment of the governor by the legislature could bring retaliation through his appointment power and his vetoes. But if he were harsh and abrasive, he could suffer from the legislature in turn, with less salary, bitter addresses, and delayed budgets, which might disturb the ministry in Whitehall. The rivalry of their positions, however, should not be interpreted as evidence that Massachusetts lawmakers lived in great contention with the governors. Lawmaking arose out of disputes and issues, and compromises eventually were found. Legislators often came to Boston to obtain relief from local problems, the rigidities of the legal system, and the insecurity of the frontier. They were elected as representatives of a loyal citizenry. Many also had plans for patronage. The governor had to respect their personal interests as he served his superiors in the British administration, and he tried. A peaceful, obedient colony, he realized, was much better than an antagonistic, bitter one with a pack of quarreling legislators.

NOTES

1. Town records of Dorchester, film, Boston Public Library.

2. Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts (Boston, 1919-1990),
42: 4, 16.

3. Unlike White’s, Thomas Cushing’s career was only beginning in 1766. He was relatively young (1725-1788) and would be active and influential in the Revolution.

4. Hancock had died in 1764, and Ruggles had refused the trust some weeks after the legislative year had begun.

5. Journals of the House of Representatives, 43: part 1, 10. Bernard disapproved of six elected councilors, which was extraordinary in itself, but the legislature had already purged the body of the pro-British element.

6. Andrew Eliot, Sermon Preached Before his Excellency Francis Bernard (Boston, 1765), 17-18. See also Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates (Boston, 1958), 10 (1736-1740), 128-161.

7. Journals of the House of Representatives, 42: 11.

8.The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay..., 18 (Boston, 1912): 107-108.

9. Journals of the House of Representatives, 42: 13-14. The committee was elected
by the whole legislature, with Thomas Hubbard, chairman.

10. Ibid., 87-89. The speaker, Samuel White, chaired this committee of three members. Only Edward Sheaffe of Hubbard’s committee was asked to serve.

11. Ibid., 170. Thomas Cushing chaired this impressive committee. He was also a member of Hubbard’s committee.

12. Ibid., 15, 55-56, 225-226. Bellingham sent no representative in 1765-1766. Election chaos in the town probably made sending a representative impractical.

13. Journals of the House of Representatives, 7: 279.

14. Journals of the House of Representatives, 21: 114-115, 118.

15. The Acts and Resolves . . . of the Massachusetts Bay, 18: 67, 269.

16. Journals of the House of Representatives, 42: 19, 23.

17. Ibid., 20, 39, 45.

18. Ibid., 65, 69, 77, 79.

19. Ibid., 74, 85, 91.

20. Ibid., 154, 288.

21. Ibid., 271-272.

22. Journals of the House of Representatives, 19: 5, 8, 9. Belcher was extremely harsh in his message of dissolution and allowed no compromise to be considered with the land bank shareholders and sympathizers.

23. Ibid., 16. The speaker disapproved was John Choate of Ipswich who became a major figure in the 1741-1742 legislature.

24. Ibid., 66, 67, 68.

25. Ibid., 81.

26. Ibid., 109.

27. Ibid., 185-188.

28. Ibid., 211, 230.

29. Ibid., 246.

30. Ibid., 230-232.

31. Ibid., 248-249.

32. Journals of the House of Representatives, 49: 229-242.

33. See especially Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1974).

34. John Choate, Robert Hale, Otis Little, Roland Cotton, John Chandler, Thomas Clap, and Ezekiel Cheever were supporting more or less consistently the governor’s policies.

35. The land bank scheme brought Belcher into direct conflict with legislators, and the fierce opposition from them was at least one reason for his eventual downfall. Belcher’s inability to compromise undoubtedly was a serious weakness.

36. Norfolk County was established in 1793.

37. John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University . . . (Cambridge, Mass., 1873): Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 1: 424-425.

38. Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 1: 522; Perry Miller, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 175, 184.

39. Ibid.; Everett Kimball, The Public Life of Joseph Dudley (New York, 1911), 89.

40.Lawrence Shaw Mayo, ed., The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay By Thomas Hutchinson, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), 2: 158-159, 158 note.

41. Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 4 (1933): 349-356.

42. John A. Schutz, William Shirley: King’s Governor of Massachusetts (Chapel Hill, N.C.,1961), 124-125, 171-173.

43. John J. Waters and John A. Schutz, “Patterns of Massachusetts Colonial Politics: The Writs of Assistance and the Rivalry Between the Otis and Hutchinson Families,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 24 (1967): 562-567.

44. Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 10 (1958): 430-431.