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America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
legal customs of Great Britain, the absence of an hereditary aristocracy
being one of the few conspicuous departures from the British model.
In all of the colonies, whether royal, proprietary, or corporate, the colonial governments exhibited the same general pattern. In each colony
there was eventually a governor and a bicameral legislature, as in England
there was a king and a two-house Parliament. In all of the colonies except
Rhode Island and Connecticut, the governor was appointed rather than
elected. The upper chamber of the legislature consisted of the Governor’s
Council, whose members, except in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Connecticut, were also appointed; and in the lower chamber the members were elected by the people. As in England, executive, legislative,
and judicial functions were somewhat mixed, mainly because the Governor a