It was in practice wholly subservient to the governor, since its members were appointable and removable by the home government in England, subject singly to his recommendation. By the entire absence of a ki government of the day," executive power was concentrated in the hands of the governor, who, unless a man of exceptionally virtuous and moderate character (which seldom happened), was therefore under strong temptation to regard himself as a ruler to whom uncommon individual authority

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belonged in the natural order of things. But this condition operated powerfully to make of the assembly not merely a counterpoise in the government, but an irreconcilable antagonistic force. As there was no established ministry responsible to the assembly and capable of reversal by it on the merits of administrative acts and policies, the assembly was not a highly organized and nicely related department in a carefully adjusted scheme of government, but stood with great formality on an independent footing. The result was that, instead of being a co-operative factor in the business of managing the province, it held itself in an attitude of confirmed reserve toward the executive It was a substantial repetition of the feud between the parliament and the king, with the difference that, while that unhappy feud in the mother country endured for only a brief comparative period, its simulacrum in New York covered the entire time of the existence of the province. To the New York assembly, as to the British house of commons, was reserved the exclusive right to originate money bills, which, moreover, were1 unamendable by the council. This power was early appreciated by the people as their great safeguard against effectual tyranny, and in the case of every governor of unacceptable behavior they enforced it with unsparing rigidity.