Assignment 1: Charter of Privileges Granted by William Penn
What did the first article guarantee for the inhabitants of the province? What did it accomplish?
The first article guaranteed to the inhabitants of the province the freedom of faith, freedom to choose whichever denomination, one preferred as well as entitled representatives of any such denomination to be equally eligible for occupying offices, both executive and legislative. However, the very wording of the Charter is a little bit tricky in relation to religion, because having in mind the condition of believing in the Only Almighty God that was stipulated by Penn in the Charter one can conclude that diversification among Christians was admitted. This means that representatives of different branches of Christianity were made equal in any sense, but what had representatives of Islam or, say, Buddhism to say? That is not even to mention polytheistic beliefs of the indigenous population. All these groups were excluded.
What touches upon the need to write and to mention religion first, the reasons, I think, are deeply rooted in the history of colonialism. British colonialist were puritans, whereas other European colonialists were Catholics or belonged to other protestant denominations, like the French could be both Catholics or protestant. This was the major bone of discord between colonialists, because religion meant a lot in those societies. Making everyone equal ensured the elimination of the biggest pretext for conflict.
What were the requirements to serve for in a public office?
Specific articles that spoke about public office and being elected thereto included articles two and three. These articles respectively regulated the electing process as well as the functioning of a representative organ – an Assembly of the Province/Territory – and electing Sheriffs and Coroners, who, in comparison to the former, were to constitute an executive branch of power. The principal prerequisite for being eligible for both electing and being elected was being a free man.
We can see, however, that the roles of the outlined organs were narrower than ones similar organs have now. For instance, an Assembly was entitled mainly to represent the population, to make appointments as well as to prepare (but not adopt!) legislature. These functions may have been so limited in order not to give the colonies which still were under the tight grip of the metropolis too much liberty. Today such organs have ampler functions including adoption of legislature, budgetary matters, impeachments etcetera. The situation with sheriffs and coroners is even trickier – there is no list of their function included in the document. The generic knowledge of history, however, lets me presume that their function were limited to overlooking public order and law abidance.
What was the importance of the eighth article?
Notwithstanding the manner in which a person may have deceased – either by his natural death or by an accident or even by a suicide – all the same his property had to be given to his wife, children and other relatives. A thing that I presume may have caused a necessity to outline such a rule were religious regulations that claimed that a suicide did not deserve his belongings, or “his estate, real and personal” to be transferred to anyone’s possession. This is because Christianity condemns suicides and considers suicide to be one of the paramount sins. Therefore, the outlined regulation shows that the province of Pennsylvania was meant to become a secular territory in which civil authorities operated differently than religious ones. This must have been one of the precursors of the end of dogmatism and the dawn of liberalism in America back in those days.
At the first glance, there is nothing that can be said explicitly about the role of women in society at that time, but it can be judged from specific wording that women did not participate actively in the political life of the province. The main argument in favor of this is the wording “freemen” outlining those who can elect and be elected. This means that women were treated like householders rather than political units in a society.
There is also an implicit reference to a racial issue because the same wording “freemen” implies that those who were not free – meaning slaves who were the blacks – could not participate in the political life of the Province.
