Colonists Preference Of A Mixed Government

From the Stamp Act of 1765 until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, colonists from thirteen small colonies fought for independence from British Parliament and its authority they imposed upon the colonists. This change for a political revolution to remove British control of absolute sovereignty led to the establishment of a nation that become the United States of America. Tensions were already in place between the colonists and the British, and grew even more when British Parliament placed taxes upon the colonists, creating laws that controlled colonial liberties. Colonial protests and rejection began with the Boston Tea Party in 1773, followed by Coercive Acts, and in response, colonists created their own alternative government known as the First

However, many states like Virginia, believed that British mixed government was the best remedy for the states, where the king has arbitrary despotism along with absolute power from the monarchy and aristocracy. Parliament makes the law while the monarch executes them. This idea of government potentially limits the power of the king with some form of law rather than becoming a “tyrannical state.” The colonists’ preference of a mixed government is fundamentally evident in Adams’s Thoughts on Government, where Adams proposes the larger idea for an “unrestrained democracy.” A mixed republic government would allow for a “free and independent exercise of judgment” thus, preventing the government from having absolute power. Adams continues to state that the legislative power must be more complex; as in if one power is wholly in one assembly and the executive in another, the two powers can simultaneously oppose one another until the strongest branch of power wins. Upon this argument, Adams addresses the idea that each state must have a “district assembly” who stands as a “mediator” between the people and the government. The idea of mixed government was in order to provide a sense of stability through the success of a republic where offices of state are elected upon “virtue” and not of hierarchical inheritance. Unfortunately, such limits of power are

The first state under a mixed government was Virginia. Virginia believed that government was to have a two-bodied legislature with separation of powers; however, representation of the lower house and voting would still be under the Crown, still allowing the king power. The House of Delegates and the Senate were created under the two legislative branches, known as the General Assembly of Virginia and are voted in by counties and districts. All laws originate in the House of Delegates, and with the advice of a Council of State exercise the executive powers of government according to the laws of Commonwealth and not by the laws of British Parliament. Virginia’s Constitution formed a mixed government, where the central characteristics of a republic’s executive power is divided between a “governor” (monarchy, an unchecked power), the Senate, who represents the state (aristocracy, a closed power), and the House of Representatives (democracy, which demonstrates anarchy). Following Adams argument that each state should have a free and independent exercise of judgment and power, in A Perfect Model of the English Constitution, Carter Braxton states that in order for a government to fully function, it should be divided into the simple forms of Despotism, Monarchy, Aristocracy, and