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Had it not been for seeds of discontent already sown in Massachusetts,
the English hold upon the Connecticut valley might perhaps have been
for a few years confined to these two military outposts at Windsor and
Saybrook. But there were people in Massachusetts who did not look with
favour upon the aristocratic and theocratic features in its polity. The
provision that none but church-members should vote or hold office was
by no means unanimously approved. We see it in the course of another
generation putting altogether too much temporal power into the hands of
the clergy, and we can trace the growth of the opposition to it until in
the reign of Charles II. it becomes a dangerous source of weakness to
Massachusetts. At the outset the opposition seems to have been strongest
in Dorchester, Newtown, and Watertown. When the Board of Assistants
undertook to secure for themselves permanency of tenure, together with
the power of choosing the governor and making the laws, these three
towns sent deputies to Boston to inspect the charter and see if it
authorized any such stretch of power. They were foremost in insisting
that representatives chosen by the towns must have a share in the
general government. Men who held such opinions were naturally unwilling
to increase the political weight of the clergy, who, during these early
disputes and indeed until the downfall of the charter, were inclined to
take aristocratic views and to sympathize with the Board of Assistants.
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