Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Boston, which could send four. This meant that as the colony grew and new
towns were created, the Assembly became more and more heavily dominated
by the rural towns. Furthermore, each representative had to be a resident of
the particular town. Indeed, the small towns regarded themselves as overrepresented:
the smallest towns were not compelled to send representatives if
they didn't want to, and the next smaller towns were repeatedly trying to
extend this cost-saving privilege to themselves. Thus the cost and trouble of
sending representatives were usually deemed greater than the advantages to be
gained. Often towns accepted fines by the lower house rather than to bother
sending representatives. Undoubtedly this lackadaisical attitude reflected the
relative unimportance of government in the daily lives of the people.
The land-bank controversy, however, spurred the Massachusetts towns to
sending more of their full complement to the legislature. Alarmed that the
Assembly could use its increasing numbers to overwhelm the Council, Governor
William Shirley vetoed the division of old towns into new, and urged
that in the future no new districts have power of representation This restriction
on representation from new population centers was adopted by the British
government and enforced in Massachusetts for almost two decades. Since
the lower house already far outnumbered the Council and chose each new
Council annually and jointly with the old, the Massachusetts Assembly was
therefore already in effective control of the Council. The new policy thus
provided an irritant to colonial relations without affecting the basic dominance
of the Massachusetts lower house.
By the early 1760s the Crown was progressively forced to modify the ban
on representation of new towns. The close of the French and Indian War led
to a rapid population expansion in Maine, and the new Maine towns clamored
for representation. The Lords of Trade finally agreed and consented, to
representation from new towns in Massachusetts proper, although they still
balked at representation from newly divided towns. Finally, in 1767, the
Crown gave up completely and abandoned its futile attempt to check the
power of the Assembly by restricting its representation.
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