These
representative assemblies arose spontaneously because the founders of
the American colonies were Englishmen used from time immemorial to tax
themselves and govern themselves. As they had been wont to vote for
representatives in England, instead of leaving things to be controlled
by the king, so now they voted for representatives in Maryland or New
York, instead of leaving things to be controlled by the governor. The
spontaneousness of all this is quaintly and forcibly expressed by the
great Tory historian Hutchinson, who tells us that in the year 1619 a
house of burgesses _broke out_ in Virginia! as if it had been the
mumps, or original sin, or any of those things that people cannot help
having.
[Sidenote: The governor's council was a kind of upper house.]
This representative assembly was the lower house in the colonial
legislatures. The governor always had a council to advise with him and
assist him in his executive duties, in imitation of the king's privy
council in England. But in nearly all the colonies this council took
part in the work of legislation, and thus sat as an upper house, with
more or less power of reviewing and amending the acts of the assembly.
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