qualification for senators than for representatives, and generally their terms of service were longer.  In some states they were chosen by the people, in others by the lower house.  In Maryland they were chosen by a special college of electors, an arrangement which was copied in our federal government in the election of the president of the United States.  In most of the states there was a lieutenant-governor, as there had been in the colonial period, to serve in case of the governor’s death or incapacity; ordinarily the lieutenant-governor presided over the senate.

[Sidenote:  Likenesses and differences between British and American systems.] Thus our state governments came to be repetitions on a small scale of the king, lords, and commons of England.  The governor answered to the king, with his dignity very much curtailed by election for a short period.  The senate answered to the House of Lords except in being a representative and not a hereditary body.  It was supposed to represent more especially that part of the community which was possessed of most wealth and consideration; and in several states the senators were apportioned with some reference to the amount of taxes paid by different parts of the state.[10] When New York made its senate a supreme court of appeal, it was in deliberate imitation of the House of Lords.  On the other hand, the House of Representatives answered to the House of Commons as it used to be in the days when its power was really limited by that of the upper house and the king.  At the present day the English of Commons is a supreme body.  In case of a serious difference with the House of Lords, the upper house must yield, or else new peers will be created in sufficient number to reverse its vote; and the lords always yield before this point is reached.  So, too, though the veto power of the sovereign has never been explicitly abolished, it has not been exercised since 1707, and would not now be tolerated for a moment.  In America there is no such supreme body.  The bill passed by the lower house may be thrown out by the upper house, or if it passes both it may be vetoed by the governor; and unless the bill can again pass both houses by more than a simple majority, the veto will stand.  In most of the states a two-thirds vote in the affirmative is required.

[Footnote 10:  See my Critical Period of American History, p. 68.]

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1.  The dissolution of assemblies and parliaments:—­

a.  The governor’s power over the assembly in the colonies. b.  The king’s power over parliament in England. c.  The danger of dissolution in the time of the Stuarts. d.  The safety of dissolution in modern England. e.  The frequency of dissolution before the Revolution.

2.  Representation of the people in the provisional government of Massachusetts:—­

a.  The committees of correspondence. b.  Their function, with an illustration from the “tea-ships.” c.  The provincial congress. d.  The committee of safety. e.  The return to the two-chambered legislature of the charter.

3.  Executive powers in the provisional government of Massachusetts;—­