The Massachusetts Government Act (14 Geo. 3 c. 45) was passed by the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

, receiving

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...

on 20 May 1774. The act effectively abrogated the 1691 charter of the

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of ...

and gave its royally-appointed governor wide-ranging powers. The colonists said that it altered, by parliamentary fiat, the basic structure of colonial government, vehemently opposed it, and would not let it operate. The act was a major step on the way to the start of the American Revolution in 1775.

Background

The Act is one of the ''

Intolerable Acts The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measur ...

'' (also known as ''Repressive Acts'' and ''Coercive Acts''), which were designed to suppress dissent and restore order in Massachusetts. In the wake of the

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...

, the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

launched a legislative offensive against Massachusetts to control its errant behavior. British officials believed that their inability to control Massachusetts was partly rooted in the highly-independent nature of its local government. On May 2, 1774,

Lord North Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...

, speaking as the head of the ministry, called on Parliament to adopt the Act on the ground that the whole colony was "in a distempered state of disturbance and opposition to the laws of the mother country."

The Massachusetts Government Act abrogated the colony's charter and provided for a greater amount of royal control. Massachusetts had been unique among the colonies in its ability to elect members of its executive council. The act took away that right and instead gave the king the sole power to appoint and dismiss the council. Additionally, many civil offices that had been chosen by election were now to be appointed by the royal governor.

Town meetings Town meeting is a form of local government in which most or all of the members of a community are eligible to legislate policy and budgets for local government. It is a town- or city-level meeting in which decisions are made, in contrast with ...

were forbidden without consent of the governor. As Lord North explained to Parliament, the purpose of the act was "to take the executive power from the hands of the democratic part of government."

Governor

Power was centralized in the hands of the royal governor, and historic rights to self-government were abrogated. The Act provided that local officials were no longer to be elected: : hegovernor, to nominate and appoint... and also to remove, without the consent of the council, all judges of the inferior courts of common pleas, commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, the attorney general, provosts, marshals, justices of the peace, and other officers... and nominate and appoint the sheriffs without the consent of the council. Most important was the provision regarding town meetings, the key instrument of local rule: : whereas a great abuse has been made of the power of calling such meetings, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been misled to treat upon matters of the most general concern, and to pass many dangerous and unwarrantable resolves: for remedy whereof, be it enacted... no meeting shall be called... without the leave of the governor, part from one annual election meeting

Implementation

When Governor

Thomas Gage General Thomas Gage (10 March 1718/192 April 1787) was a British Army general officer and colonial official best known for his many years of service in North America, including his role as British commander-in-chief in the early days of t ...

invoked the act in October 1774 to dissolve the provincial assembly, its

Patriot A patriot is a person with the quality of patriotism. Patriot may also refer to: Political and military groups United States * Patriot (American Revolution), those who supported the cause of independence in the American Revolution * Patriot m ...

leaders responded by setting up an alternative government that actually controlled everything outside Boston. They argued that the new act had nullified the contract between the king and the people, who ignored Gage's order for new elections and set up the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. It acted as the province's (from 1776 the state's) government until the 1780 adoption of the

Massachusetts State Constitution The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the fundamental governing document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 individual state governments that make up the United States of America. As a member of the Massachuset ...

. The governor had control only in Boston, where his soldiers were based.Sosin, 1963 Parliament repealed the act in 1778 as part of attempts to reach a diplomatic end to the ongoing

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

Notes

External links

complete text of Act
* http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/laws/intolerable.htm {{UK legislation Legal history of Massachusetts 1774 in Massachusetts Massachusetts in the American Revolution Laws leading to the American Revolution Great Britain Acts of Parliament 1774 Pre-statehood history of Massachusetts

Background

Contents

Governor

Implementation

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links