year, except in South Carolina, where they served for two years. In the
New England states they represented the townships, in other states the
counties. In all the states except Pennsylvania a property qualification
was required of them.

[Sidenote: Origin of the senates.]

In addition to this House of Representatives all the legislatures except
those of Pennsylvania and Georgia contained a second or upper house
known as the Senate. The origin of the senate is to be found in the
governor's council of colonial times, just as the House of Lords is
descended from the Witenagemot or council of great barons summoned by
the Old-English kings. The Americans had been used to having the acts of
their popular assemblies reviewed by a council, and so they retained
this revisory body as an upper house. A higher property qualification
was required than for membership of the lower house, and, except in New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, and South Carolina, the term of service was
longer. In Maryland senators sat for five years, in Virginia and New
York for four years, elsewhere for two years. In some states they were
chosen by the people, in others by the lower house. In Maryland they
were chosen by a college of electors, thus affording a precedent for the
method of electing the chief magistrate of the union under the Federal
Constitution.

[Sidenote: Governors viewed with suspicion.]

Governors were unpopular in those days. There was too much flavour of
royalty and high prerogative about them. Except in the two republics of
Rhode Island and Connecticut, American political history during the
eighteenth century was chiefly the record of interminable squabbles
between governors and legislatures, down to the moment when the detested
agents of royalty were clapped into jail, or took refuge behind the
bulwarks of a British seventy-four. Accordingly the new constitutions
were very chary of the powers to be exercised by the governor. In
Pennsylvania and Delaware, in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the
governor was at first replaced by an executive council, and the
president of this council was first magistrate and titular ruler of the
state. His dignity was imposing enough, but his authority was merely
that of a chairman. The other states had governors chosen by the
legislatures, except in New York where the governor was elected by the
people. No one was eligible to the office of governor who did not
possess a specified amount of property.