Province of Massachusetts Bay - Provincial Charter

Provincial Charter

The new charter differed from the old one in several important ways: one of the principal changes, inaugurated over Mather's objection, was to change the test requirements for attaining voting eligibility from religious to financial. Although the effect of this change has been subject to debate among historians, there is significant consensus that it greatly enlarged the number of men eligible to vote. The new rules required prospective voters to own £40 worth of property, or real estate that yielded at least £2 per year in rent, and has been estimated to have thus included three quarters of the then adult male population as eligible.

The second major change was that senior officials of the government, including governor, lieutenant governor, and judges, were appointed by the crown instead of being elected. The legislative assembly, or General Court, continued to be elected, however, and was responsible for choosing members of the Governor's Council. The governor had veto power over laws passed by the General Court, as well as over appointments to the council. These rules differed in important ways from the royal charters enjoyed by other provinces. The most important were that the General Court now possessed the powers of appropriation, and that the council was locally chosen and not appointed by either the governor or the Crown. These significantly weakened the governor's power, something that came to be of importance later in provincial history.

The province's territory was also greatly expanded beyond that originally claimed by the predecessor Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. In addition to their territories, which included present-day mainland Massachusetts, western Maine, and portions of all of the neighboring modern states, the territory was expanded to include Acadia or Nova Scotia (then encompassing modern Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and eastern Maine), as well as what was then known as Dukes County in the Province of New York, consisting of the islands of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands.