Volume 4, Chapter 26, Forming New Governments, New Hampshire
After Lexington and Concord, the separate provincial bodies faced two broad sets of decisions.
One was external, whether or not to push for American independence from Great Britain.
The other was internal, whether to keep the highly democratic nature of the new revolutionary
The problem of adopting a formal constitution was both internal and highly relevant to the question of American independence.
New England, in the forefront of American radical sentiment, pioneered the first self-made provincial constitution.
Massachusetts asked the Continental Congress's advice on what sort of governmental form to adopt, and on June 9, 1775, Congress simply told Massachusetts to aim at preserving the old pre-coercive act, Massachusetts Charter.
A few months later, in mid-October, New Hampshire asked for advice on a new government. The
powerful Governor Wentworth and other royally favored oligarchs had fled, and New Hampshire
was being ruled by a makeshift committee of safety and by local town committees. While
New Hampshire was asking for advice, the British burning of Falmouth, Maine on October 16 enraged
the Colonist and Congress Advised New Hampshire on November 3 to establish a new government
to operate for the duration of the conflict. This change of advice was the reflection of
a change in composition of the Congressional Committee answering the request. Arch-Conservatives,
Thomas Johnson, John Jay and James Wilson had been replaced by radicals John Adams,
Free holders from the ports of Dover and Portsmouth, who denounced the new constitution as a virtual
declaration of independence from Britain.
The Exeter Convention followed on the heels of November elections that had swept away
all freehold qualifications for voting and decreed that all resident taxpayers might vote.
This important step toward democracy was not gained without a struggle, however, as at
first the New Hampshire Provincial Congress had decided only to lower freehold qualifications
for voting from ownership of property valued at 50 pounds to ownership of property worth
20.
It was forced to reconsider and abandon freehold restrictions by strong public pressure.
Thus, New Hampshire became the first province to put into practice one of the leading suffrage
goals of the radical forces, voting rights for all taxpayers with no property restrictions,
and admission of all militiamen and soldiers into the ranks of eligible voters.
A somewhat more important step taken by the Provincial Congress was to reform representation
and in its lower house, the Assembly.
New Hampshire apportionment was plagued not only by the inherent obsolescence of democratic
representation, it had been further hobbled by the deliberate policy of the Crown and
the Royal Governor to repress the voice of the Western frontier towns.
Only thirty-six of the one hundred fifty-five towns in New Hampshire had been allowed to
and even among these larger towns, delegate allocation was way out of balance. Thus such of the larger westerly towns as Concord, Ispene and Londonderry had no representation. In calling the late 1775 elections, the Provincial Congress rearranged the representation, but amidst the corrections were numerous new inequities and overrepresentations.
The New New Hampshire Constitution was adopted by the Congress on January 5, making it the first Constitution enacted in and by an American colony.
The major political power in the colony was thenceforth to be wielded by the elected House of Representatives.
There was also to be an upper house or council which was to be elected in such proportions as to weight it in favor of the eastern seaboard towns.
The Constitution was vague, but implied no property qualifications for voting, although there were property requirements for election to the legislature.
The new Constitution fully satisfied few New Hampshire men.
It was attacked from the right by those who objected to any form of government that made reconciliation with Britain unlikely.
It was attacked from the left by those who complained of the patently insufficient degree of democracy.
Thus, sixteen far-western towns protested to the House, demanding better representation,
and the abolition of property qualifications for holding political office and the Council's veto on actions of the House of Representatives.
They also urged a Bill of Rights to guarantee the rights of the individual.
The powers of the upper house did have a sinister aspect since they resembled all too closely the powers of the old royal executive.
Thus, the town of Chesterfield, in extreme western New Hampshire, charged that the new
government threatened to settle down upon the dregs of monarchal and aristocratic tyranny
in imitation of their late British oppressor. Or, as the sixteen far-western towns trenchantly
put it, it is a thousand pities that when we are engaged in a bloody contest merely
to oppose arbitrary power without us, we should have occasion to contend against the same
within ourselves. We are determined not to spend our blood and treasure in defending
against the chains and fetters abroad in order to purchase the like kind of our own manufacturing.
The western towns repeatedly stress the revolutionary fact that they were at that point in a state
of Nature, and that by their natural right they should form a constitutional convention.
Leading the popular agitation in the West was Hanover, in extreme northwest Grafton
County, the seat of newly established Dartmouth College, the only institution of higher learning
in the province. Dartmouth had been founded in Grafton County, settled by New Light Congregation
Congregationalist from Revolutionary Eastern Connecticut. Fresh from separatist struggles
against established churches, the men from Connecticut were acutely alive to infringements
upon their liberties or rights. Dartmouth College and its president, the Reverend Eliezer
Willock, led the protest movement, which was popularly dubbed the College Party. In fact,
The protest of the far-western towns had been adopted at Dartmouth College Hall, and authorship
of the protest was attributed to the son-in-law of Wheelock, Dartmouth's professor, Bezalil
Woodward.
The town of Hanover and other far-western towns soon determined to make their protests
effective by refusing to send delegates to the legislature and by refusing to vote for
New Hampshire candidates for seats in such an abhorrent institution as the Council. Several of the towns pressed on and refused to pay taxes to New Hampshire altogether, preferring to conduct their affairs on their own.