courts in person and they were allowed to be represented by deputies. As
it was impossible for all freemen when the colony became more populated,
to attend the courts of election, the deputies were at length permitted
to carry the votes of their townsmen to Boston.

The governor, as well as the other officers in Massachusetts, were first
chosen by show of hands, but about 1634 it was provided that the names
should be written on papers, the papers to be open or only once folded,
so that they might be the sooner perused. Afterward the voting was by
corn and beans, a grain of Indian corn signifying election, and a black
bean the contrary. The offence of ballot-box stuffing seems to have
existed, or at least was provided against even among the early Puritans,
for it was enacted that any freeman putting more than one grain should be
fined ten pounds--a large sum of money in those days.

The Massachusetts colonial government has been called a theocracy. As a
matter of fact it was an oligarchy, the political power residing in but a
small proportion of even the church-going freemen. This is shown in the
remonstrance addressed to the colony by the royal commission appointed
under King Charles II. to investigate the governments of the New England
colonies. Said the Commissioners to Massachusetts:

"You haue so tentered the king's qualliffications as in making him only
who paieth ten shillings to a single rate to be of competent estate, that
when the king shall be enformed, as the trueth is, that not one church
member in an hundred payes so much & yt in a toune of an hundred
inhabitants, scarse three such men are to be found, wee feare that the
king will rather finde himself deluded than satisfied by your late act."

During the rule of Dudley and Andros the whole legislative power of
Massachusetts was lodged in a council, appointed by the crown through its
governor, and popular election in the New England colonies was limited to
the choice of selectmen at a single meeting held annually in each town,
on the third Monday in May.

The ultimate result of the revolution of 1688 in England was to unite
Massachusetts and New Plymouth under the Charter of 1691. By virtue of
this instrument, "the Great and General Court of Assembly" was to consist
of "the Governor and Council or Assistants for the time being, and such
Freeholders of our said Province or Territory as shall be from time to
time elected or deputed by the Major parte of the