ple. The representation was sometimes, as to many, theoretical rather than actual of classes rather than of the body of the people; but the principle that individual property could not be taken for the public use, except by the vote of a body more or less fully representative of the tax-payer, had triumphed and the invasions of it by the king were becoming less frequent and more perilous.

There was a long period of English history that was characterized by successful aggressions on the part of the crown upon the rights of the people and the powers of the courts and of parliament. Hume, speaking of the reign of James I (1603-16), says:

"The great, complaisance, too, of parliaments, during so long a period, had extremely degraded and obscured those assemblies; and as all instances of opposition to prerogative must have been drawn from a remote age, they were unknown to a great many, and had the less authority even with those who were acquainted with them. These examples, besides, of liberty had commonly, in ancient times, been accompanied with such circumstances of violence, convulsion, civil war and disorder that they presented but a disagreeable idea to the inquisitive part of the people, and afforded small inducement to renew such dismal scenes. By a great many, therefore, monarchy, simple and unmixed, was conceived to be the government of England; and those

popular assemblies were supposed to form only the ornament of the fabric, without being in any degree essential to its being and existence."

And, in a note it is said: "I have not met with any English writer in that age who speaks of England as a limited monarchy, but as an absolute one, where the people have many privileges."

This may be accepted as the view of the king and as an approximately true description of things as they were; but the great charters never ceased to be a part of the English constitution-they were dormant, but unrevoked. Kings had trampled them under foot; but in so doing had only bedded the seeds of liberty in a prepared soil.

The revolution of 1640, resulting in the execution of Charles I, and in the establishment of the commonwealth under Cromwell, the restoration, the renewal of the struggle under Charles II, and James II-the deposition of the latter by a parliament assembled without the king's writ, the choice by the same parliament of William and Mary, their settlement upon the throne under a compact in the nature of a bill of rights, the increasing power of the house of commons, the substitution of annual, for life grants of revenue to the crown, making an annual parliament necessary-all these great episodes in English history and in human progress were enacted before the interested vision of the English colonists in America, and were

highly instructive and suggestive. Out of these struggles, and out of the reformation, had come a literature of liberty. The dignity and the equality of men-the state for man, and not man for the state-the universal fatherhood of God; and its corollary, the universal brotherhood of man, liberty of conscience and of speech-all these great themes had found impassioned expression. What wonder that the colonists began very early to ask if the king may not lay a charge upon Englishmen at home by an order in council, but only by the free votes of a representative assembly, why should he do so upon Englishmen who have, for the glory of God and of England, braved the perils of the sea and of the savage?—and that further and more searching question, by what right does a parliament in which we have no representation assume sovereign legislative power over us?

The earlier charters appear to have been framed without any adequate conception of the commercial and political importance which the colonies were to attain; and for a time the king was lax in his supervision, and not careful to maintain prerogatives that seemed to involve burdens rather than benefits to the crown treasury.

In my next lecture I will ask your attention to some of these earliest American constitutions.

THE COLONIAL CHARTERS

SECOND LECTURE

Delivered at Stanford University, March 12, 1894

It is my purpose to-day to notice some general aspects of the charters under which the American settlements were made, and to outline the development in the colonies of those unwritten constitutions which came by use to be treated-though not so accepted by the English crown-as expressing the fundamental civil rights of the inhabitants.

The colonists, in their contentions with the crown, demanded all the rights given by their charters, but they never accepted the charters as containing full bills of rights. If a specification could not be found in the charter of the colony it was sought in the Magna Charta; and, if not found there, in later English precedents; and, when all these gave out, in God's great charter of original and inalienable rights.

The earlier charters were chiefly land grantsrather conveyances than civil constitutions. The

theory of the English law upon which they proceeded was that all newly-discovered lands were the property of the king and might be granted by him to corporations or individuals upon agreed terms and charges. Some of these American grants were to companies or corporations, upon which succession and certain governing powers of a corporate nature were conferred. The corporations were subject to what was known as the visitorial power of the king, and the grants or charters to forfeiture by judicial decree, for cause.

The English parliament, at the beginning, had no participation in these matters. The charters were not submitted to it for its approval; and the only relation between the colonists and the kingdom was through the king. This fact should be kept in mind; for it will appear that when, at a later period, the English parliament asserted a sovereign legislative supremacy over the colonies the claim was denied, and the denial was grounded by some upon the theory that the colonies were royal possessions-having the same king with the Englishbut not a part of the realm of England.

The introductory words of the Massachusetts charter, of 1620, were: "James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith &c. *

of our

especiall Grace, mere motion, and certain knowledge, by the advice of the Lords and others of our Privy