The whole executive power
remained in the hands of the Governor or his nominees. No one yet
conceived it possible that the Assembly should control the
Executive Council. The elective Assembly was compelled to share
even the lawmaking power with an upper house, the Legislative
Council. Not only were the members of this upper house appointed
by the Crown for life, but the King was empowered to bestow
hereditary titles upon them with a view to making the Council in
the fullness of time a copy of the House of Lords. A blow was
struck even at that traditional prerogative of the popular house,
the control of the purse. Carleton had urged that in every
township a sixth of the land should be reserved to enable His
Majesty "to reward such of His provincial Servants as may merit
the Royal favour" and "to create and strengthen an Aristocracy,
of which the best use may be made on this Continent, where all
Governments are feeble and the general condition of things tends
to a wild Democracy." Grenville saw further possibilities in this
suggestion. It would give the Crown a revenue which would make it
independent of the Assembly, "a measure, which, if it had been
adopted when the Old Colonies were first settled, would have
retained them to this hour in obedience and Loyalty." Nor was
this all. From the same source an endowment might be obtained for
a state church which would be a bulwark of order and
conservatism.
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