Beacon Lights of History, Volume 11 | Page 8

that the inhabitants of
towns and villages should provide good and able Reformed
schoolmasters, so that when the English nonconformists dwelt in
Leyden in 1609 the school, according to Motley, had become the
common property of the people.
The next thing we note among the Colonists of New England is the
confederation of towns and their representation in the Legislature, or
the General Court. This was formed to settle questions of common
interest, to facilitate commerce, to establish a judicial system, to devise
means for protection against hostile Indians, to raise taxes to support
the common government. The Legislature, composed of delegates
chosen by the towns, exercised most of the rights of sovereignty,
especially in the direction of military affairs and the collection of
revenue.
The governors were chosen by the people in secret ballot, until the
liberal charter granted by Charles I. was revoked, and a royal governor
was placed over the four confederated Colonies of Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. This confederation was not a
federal union, but simply a league for mutual defence against the
Indians. Each Colony managed its own internal affairs, without
interference from England, until 1684.
Down to this time the Colonies had been too insignificant to attract
much notice in England, and hence were left to develop their
institutions in their own way, according to the circumstances which
controlled them, and the dangers with which they were surrounded.
One thing is clear: the infant Colonies governed themselves, and
elected their own magistrates, from the governor to the selectmen; and
this was true as well of the Middle and Southern as of the Eastern
Colonies. Even in Virginia quite as large a proportion of the people
took part in elections as in Massachusetts. It is difficult to find any

similar instance of uncontrolled self-government, either in Holland or
England at any period of their history. Either the king, or the
Parliament, or the lord of the manor, or the parish priest controlled
appointments or interfered with them, and even when the people
directly selected their magistrates, suffrage was not universal, as it
gradually came to be in the Colonies, with slight restrictions,--one of
the features of the development of American institutions.
Another thing we notice among the Colonies, which had no
inconsiderable influence on their growth, was the use of fire-arms
among all the people, to defend themselves from hostile Indians. Every
man had his musket and powder-flask; and there were several periods
when it was not safe even to go to church unarmed. Thus were the new
settlers inured to danger and self-defence, and bloody contests with
their savage foes. They grew up practically soldiers, and formed a firm
material for an effective militia, able to face regular troops and even
engage in effective operations, as seen afterwards in the conquest of
Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell, a Kittery merchant. But for the
universal use of fire-arms, either for war or game, it is doubtful if the
Colonies could have won their independence. And it is interesting to
notice that, while the free carrying of weapons, in these later days at
least, is apt to result in rough lawlessness, as in our frontier regions,
among the serious and law-abiding Colonists of those early times it was
not so. This was probably due both to their strict religious obligations
and to the presence of their wives and children.
The unrestricted selection of parish ministers by the people was no
slight cause of New England growth, and was also a peculiar custom or
institution not seen in the mother country, where appointment to
parishes was chiefly in the hands of the aristocracy or the crown. Either
the king, or the lord chancellor, or the universities, or the nobility, or
the county squires had the gift of the "livings," often bestowed on
ignorant or worldly or inefficient men, the younger sons of men of rank,
who made no mark, and were incapable of instruction or indifferent to
their duties. In New England the minister of the parish was elected by
the church members or congregation, and if he could not edify his
hearers by his sermons, or if his character did not command respect, his

occupation was gone, or his salary was not paid. In consequence the
ministers were generally gifted men, well educated, and in sympathy
with the people. Who can estimate the influence of such religious
teachers on everything that pertained to New England life and
growth,--on morals, on education, on religious and civil institutions!
Although we have traced the early characteristics of the New England
Colonists, especially because it was in New England first and chiefly
that the spirit of resistance to English oppression grew to a sentiment
for independence, it is not to be overlooked that the essential elements
of self-controlling manhood were