ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 137 
who knew what they wanted and intended to have it. 
They had selected the New Town for a seat of govern- 
ment, since it was somewhat less exposed to destruc- 
tion from a British fleet than Boston; and these men 
were doing things well calculated to arouse the ire of 
King Charles. They felt themselves quite competent 
to sit in the New Town and make laws which should 
be binding upon all the neighbouring settlements. But 
they soon received a reminder that such was not the 
way in which freeborn Englishmen like to be treated. 
In 1631 the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants 
decided that on its western side the New Town was too 
much exposed to attacks from Indians. Accordingly, 
it was voted that a palisade should be built extending 
about half a mile inland from Charles River, and a tax 
was assessed upon the towns to meet the expense of 
this fortification. The men of Watertown flatly re- 
fused to pay their share of this tax because they were 
not represented in the body which imposed it. These 
proceedings were followed by a great primary assembly 
of all the settlers competent to vote and it was decided 
that hereafter each town should send representatives 
to a general assembly, the assent of which should be 
necessary to all the acts of the governor and his coun- 
cil. Thus was inaugurated the second free republican 
government of America, the first having been inaugu- 
rated in Virginia thirteen years before, and both having 
been copied from the county government of England 
in the old English county court.’ 
1“ The experiment of federalism is not a newone. The Greeks applied 
to it their supple and inventive genius with many interesting results, but 
they failed because the only kind of popular government they knew was 
the town-meeting; and of course you cannot bring together forty or fifty 
town-meetings from different points of the compass to some common centre 
