In everything, except their foreign trade, the liberty of the English colonists to manage their own affairs their own way is complete.It is in every respect equal to that of their fellow-citizens at home, and is secured in the same manner, by an assembly of the representatives of the people, who claim the sole right of imposing taxes for the support of the colony government.
The authority of this assembly overawes the executive power, and neither the meanest nor the most obnoxious colonist, as long as he obeys the law, has anything to fear from the resentment, either of the governor or of any other civil or military officer in the province.The colony assemblies though, like the House of Commons in England, are not always a very equal representation of the people, yet they approach more nearly to that character; and as the executive power either has not the means to corrupt them, or, on account of the support which it receives from the mother country, is not under the necessity of doing so, they are perhaps in general more influenced by the inclinations of their constituents.The councils which, in the colony legislatures, correspond to the House of Lords in Great Britain, are not composed of an hereditary nobility.In some of the colonies, as in three of the governments of New England, those councils are not appointed by the king, but chosen by the representatives of the people.In none of the English colonies is there any hereditary nobility.In all of them, indeed, as in all other free countries, the descendant of an old colony family is more respected than an upstart of equal merit and fortune; but he is only more respected, and he has no privileges by which he can be troublesome to his neighbours.Before the commencement of the present disturbances, the colony assemblies had not only the legislative but a part of the executive power.In Connecticut and Rhode Island, they elected the governor.In the other colonies they appointed the revenue officers who collected the taxes imposed by those respective assemblies, to whom those officers were immediately responsible.There is more equality, therefore, among the English colonists than among the inhabitants of the mother country.Their manners are more republican, and their governments, those of three of the provinces of New England in particular, have hitherto been more republican too.
The absolute governments of Spain, Portugal, and France, on the contrary, take place in their colonies; and the discretionary powers which such governments commonly delegate to all their inferior officers are, on account of the great distance, naturally exercised there with more than ordinary violence.Under all absolute governments there is more liberty in the capital than in any other part of the country.The sovereign himself can never have either interest or inclination to pervert the order of justice, or to oppress the great body of the people.In the capital his presence overawes more or less all his inferior officers, who in the remoter provinces, from whence the complaints of the people are less likely to reach him, can exercise their tyranny with much more safety.But the European colonies in America are more remote than the most distant provinces of the greatest empires which had ever been known before.The government of the English colonies is perhaps the only one which, since the world began, could give perfect security to the inhabitants of so very distant a province.The administration of the French colonies, however, has always been conducted with more gentleness and moderation than that of the Spanish and Portugese.This superiority of conduct is suitable both to the character of the French nation, and to what forms the character of every nation, the nature of their government, which though arbitrary and violent in comparison with that of Great Britain, is legal and free in comparison with those of Spain and Portugal.
It is in the progress of the North American colonies, however, that the superiority of the English policy chiefly appears.The progress of the sugar colonies of France has been at least equal, perhaps superior, to that of the greater part of those of England, and yet the sugar colonies of England enjoy a free government nearly of the same kind with that which takes place in her colonies of North America.But the sugar colonies of France are not discouraged, like those of England, from refining their own sugar; and, what is of still greater importance, the genius of their government naturally introduces a better management of their negro slaves.