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Sioussat's The English Statutes in Maryland, 1903
Volume 195, Page 24   View pdf image (33K)
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24 The English Statutes in Maryland. [488
complete discussion of this part of the subject exists, we shall
on this occasion mention only two or three such happenings
which are peculiarly fitted to help us understand the more
limited field that we have chosen.
In 1651 the Colony of Virginia surrendered to the Com-
missioners of the Puritan Government in England. The first
article of capitulation declares :
It is agreed and const'd that the plantation of Virginia, and all
the inhabitants thereof, shall be and remain in due obedience and
subjection to the Commonwealth of England according to the
law? there established, and that this submission and subscription
be acknowledged a voluntary act not forced nor constrained by a
conqiuest upon the country, And that they shall have and enjoy such
freedomes and priviledges as belong to the free borne people of
England, and that the former government by tile commissions and
instructions he void and null."'
Here seems to be a conscious recognition of the " conquest "
idea so emphasized in the decision just quoted. In Mary-
land itself, however, we. have a still clearer example when, in
1684. in a debate between the Houses of the Assembly over the
rigm of the Speaker to issue warrants for election to vacan-
cies, the Proprietor's argument, in support of his own prerog-
ative, that " the King had power to dispose of his conquests
as he pleased,' roused the ire of the Lower House, which
asserted the rights of its members as based on their English
origin. This was " their birthright by the words of the Char-
ter." The word " conquest " had a sinister meaning which
they resented, and they hoped that the words were the result,
not of the Proprietor's own will, but of strange if not evil
counsel. The Upper House at once explained that it had no
idea of likening the freemen of the Province to a .conquered
people." The discussion indicates that in Maryland, before
the revolution of 1689, this legal theory- was known and its
application of this principle to Maryland denied.
The narrower question of the extension of the English stat-
" Hening: Statutes at Large I., p. 363-4. Cited in part in Snow:
The Administration of Dependencies, p. 115, and as a whole in
Hart: American History Told by Contemporaries I., pp. 235-6.
"Sparks. Causes of the Maryland Rev. of 1689, p. 82 Md. Arch.
III. Ass. Pro. pp. 124-125.

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Sioussat's The English Statutes in Maryland, 1903
Volume 195, Page 24   View pdf image (33K)
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