In electing members to the House of Commons in England certain ancient counties and boroughs were entitled to representation, each sending two members, regardless of the number of people within its territory. For a century and a half before the American Revolution only four new members were added to the fixed number in Parliament. Meanwhile, great cities had grown up which had no representation, though certain boroughs, once very properly represented, had become uninhabited, and the lord who owned the ground elected the members to Parliament, taking them, not from the district represented, but from any part of the kingdom. The franchise was usually possessed either by the owners of the favored pieces of land or in the boroughs chiefly by persons who inherited certain rights which marked them as freemen. A man had as many votes as there were constituencies in which he possessed the qualifications. In the colonial assemblies there was a more distinct territorial basis for representation, and changes of population brought changes of representation. New towns sent new members to the provincial assembly, and held the right to be of great value. All adult men--even negroes in New England--owning a certain small amount of property could vote for these members. In the South only the landholders voted, but the supply of land was not limited, as in England, and it was easily acquired. Finally, the voter and the representative voted for must, as a rule, be residents of the same district. From the first the colonial political ideals were affected by new conditions. When they established representative government they had no historic places sanctified by tradition to be the sole breeding-places of members of Parliament.