In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States.
The participation of the people in their own government was the more significant, because the colonies actually had what England only seemed to have, - three departments of government.
In any event, colonization and the grant of lands were provincial matters.
The colonies had little occasion to feel or to resent direct royal prerogative.
In comparison with other men of their time, the Americans were distinguished by the possession of new political and social ideas, which were destined to be the foundation of the American commonwealth.
Washington's defeat in 1754 was followed by active military preparations on both sides.
On March 10, 1764, preliminary resolutions passed the House of Commons looking towards the Stamp Act.
The old charters of Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Carolinas had given title to strips of territory extending from the Atlantic westward to the Pacific.
One of the strongest and most persistent elements in national development has been that inheritance of political traditions and usages which the new settlers brought with them.
The residence of the Plymouth settlers in the Netherlands, and the later conquest of the Dutch colonies, had brought the Americans into contact with the singularly wise and free institutions of the Dutch.
The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government.
Everywhere among the English-speaking race criminal justice was rude, and punishments were barbarous; but the tendency was to do away with special privileges and legal exemptions.
The Stuart sovereigns of England steadily attempted to strengthen their power, and the resistance to that effort caused an immense growth of Parliamentary influence.
More emphasis was thus thrown upon the local governments than in England.
Each colony became accustomed to planting new settlements and to claiming new boundaries.
In each colony in 1750 were to be found two sets of governing organizations, - the local and the general.
In appearance the labor system of all the colonies was the same.
Besides paid white laborers, there was everywhere a class of white servants bound without wages for a term of years, and a more miserable class of Negro slaves.
Many attempts had been made by colonial legislatures to cut off or to tax the importation of slaves.
England and France were rivals, not only on the continent, but in the West Indies, in India, and in Europe.
