Let us consider our colonial period first; and it must be remembered that we were a part of the British Empire for a longer period than we have been independent. The way in which those supposedly godly persons, the leaders of the Massachusetts theocracy, began at once by breaking the law of England will help us to an understanding of the whole colonial situation. The Massachusetts Company, a business corporation in the eyes of the English Government, applied[Pg 104] for a charter of incorporation and received it. It provided for what we should call voting stockholders and a board of directors to be elected by them. Nothing more was intended in the grant by the Government. Some of the leaders in the company conceived the brilliant idea of secretly carrying the actual charter to America and using it as though it were the constitution of a practically self-governing State. This was done, but the foundation of the strongest of the Puritan colonies was thus tainted with illegality and chicanery from the start. Not only that, but in the beginning even the terms of the charter were not complied with and the government was usurped by the leaders, the government thus being made doubly illegal. The reasons for these acts included the distance of America from England and the desire of the leading colonists to govern themselves without interference from the home country. With local variations the story of the colonial struggle for administrative (rather than political) independence explains much of our later legal history. Speaking generally, we may say that the standard form of colonial governments came to be that of a governor appointed by the crown, of an upper house appointed by the governor or elected subject to his veto power, and a lower, popularly elected assembly. In some cases the upper house had judicial functions, and many judges, such as those in the admiralty courts, were appointed by the Crown. The colonists were settled on the edge of a vastly rich, virgin continent which fairly cried aloud to be profitably exploited. Imperial legislation was considered to be, and frequently was, a hampering influence. In this complex we may find the beginning of the disease of lawlessness. [Pg 105]