These rights of a legislature are familiar enough
now to all. Very few people realize, however, what a struggle and
what sacrifices were required to attain them.
The rest of New Jersey colonial history is made up chiefly of
struggles over these two questions--the rights of the proprietors
and their quitrents as against the people, and the rights of the
new assembly as against the Crown. There were thus three parties,
the governor and his adherents, the proprietors and their
friends, and the assembly and the people. The proprietors had the
best of the change, for they lost only their troublesome
political power and retained their property. They never, however,
received such financial returns from the property as the sons of
William Penn enjoyed from Pennsylvania. But the union of the
Jerseys seriously curtailed the rights enjoyed by the people
under the old government, and all possibility of a Quaker
government in West Jersey was ended. It was this experience in
the Jerseys, no doubt, that caused William Penn to require so
many safeguards in selling his political rights in Pennsylvania
to the Crown that the sale was, fortunately for the colony, never
completed.
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