Abstract
This dissertation is a history of the Second Charter of
Massachusetts Bay. It compares the Second Charter with previous
colonial governments, and outlines the history of the institutions
created by the Second Charter. The contests in the early eighteenth
century (roughly 1690 to 1750) over the meaning of Second Charter
clauses, and over the limits of royal and provincial authority,
took on a constitutional character. Those debates tended to involve
competing analyses of the text of the Second Charter, and
challenges, both provincial and royal, to the language and intent
of the document. As a history of the second charter, it traces the
Second Charter's origins, significance, and ultimate eclipse at the
time of the Revolution. It argues that the Second Charter was a
true provincial constitution, and that the colonists as well as the
Crown viewed it as such. They behaved as though its strictures
were, if not sacrosanct, then at least possessed of a veneer of
inviolability. While the outlines of its language and intent could
be negotiated, contested, and occasionally circumnavigated, the
text of the Second Charter mapped the essential political geography
of the imperial relationship. Intended by the Crown to be an
outline of the limits of provincial power, it had become a document
that circumscribed royal authority as well. Through creative
interpretations of the text, both the Crown and the provincials had
transformed the document from a concession of royal power to a
constitution. When, in the Revolutionary crisis, England appeared
to be trampling on the constitutional understanding, the
provincials had reason to reconsider their position in the English
empire.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Commander in Chief 2. The Royal Governor and the
General Court 3. The Royal Disallowance 4. The Right of Appeal 5.
The Reservation Clause Conclusion: "Our Happy Constitution"
Appendix I: The First Charter of Massachusetts Bay, 1629 Appendix
II: The Second Charter of Massachusetts Bay, 1691 Appendix III:
Royal Governors of the Province of Massachusetts Bay Appendix IV:
Categories of Laws Disallowed, 1692-1750 Appendix V: Appeals from
Massachusetts Bibliography Bibliography
About this Dissertation
Rights statement
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