Such was the free ( ?) Government of Massachusetts Bay, eulogized by New England historians during half a century, until abolished by judicial and royal authority.

What would be thought at this day of a Government, the eligibility to public office and the elective franchise under which should be based on membership in a particular Church?
II.

But, secondly, this Government must be regarded as equally unjust and odious when we consider not merely the sectarian basis of its assumptions and acts against the Sovereign on the one hand, and the rights of citizens of Massachusetts and of neighbouring colonies on the other, but the small proportion of the population enfranchised in comparison with the population which was disfranchised.

Even at the beginning it was not professed that the proportion of Congregational Church members to the whole population was more than one to three; in after years it was alleged, at most, not to have been more than one to six.
This, however, is of little importance in comparison with the question, what was the proportion of electors to non-electors in the colony?
On this point I take as my authority the latest and most able apologist and defender of the Massachusetts Government, Dr.Palfrey.He says: "Counting the lists of persons admitted to the franchise in Massachusetts, and making what I judge to be reasonable allowance for persons deceased, I come to the conclusion that the number of freemen in Massachusetts in 1670 may have been between 1,000 and 1,200, or one freeman to every four or five adult males."[202] The whole population of the colony at this time is not definitely stated, but there was one elector to every "four or five" of the adult "_males_." This eleven hundred men, because they were Congregationalists, influenced and controlled by their ministers, elected from themselves all the legislators and rulers of Massachusetts Bay Colony in civil, judicial, and military matters, who bearded the King and Parliament, persecuted all who dissented from them in religious worship, encroached upon the property and rights of neighbouring colonies, levied and imposed all the burdens of the State upon four-fifths of their fellow (male) colonists who had no voice in the legislation or administration of the Government.

Yet this sectarian Government is called by New England historians a free Government; and these eleven hundred electors--electors not because they have property, but because they are Congregationalists--are called "the people of Massachusetts," while four-fifths of the male population and more than four-fifths of the property are utterly ignored, except to pay the taxes or bear the other burdens of the State, but without a single elective voice, or a single free press to state their grievances or express their wishes, much less to advocate their rights and those of the King and Parliament.
III.