Their Magistrates and Officials

Their Magistrates and Officials combines narrative, institutional study and biographical approaches to revise our understanding the mechanisms of colonial, imperial, and proprietary government in 18th century Maryland. From the restoration of the colony to the Calverts in 1715, until the Revolution in 1775, governors and their councilors played the dominant role in governance, both formal and informal. They faced a variety of practical and constitutional issues, having to balance local, proprietary and imperial interests. The personality of the governor proved as important as any legalities in dealing with economic, military, and political challenges. Several consistent issues recurred throughout the century - control over fees, the applicability of English statutes to Maryland, regulation of the tobacco trade, supervision of government officials and the clergy, and the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. The fundamental conflict between Enlightenment ideas and the absolutist Charter of Maryland complicated the political scene, which was already a web of conflicting personal ambitions and personalities. Only a talented and personally popular governor could navigate the political maze to address the economic, military and political issues. Reliance on raw authority yielded mixed results at best. Proprietary and even imperial government appears weak at best. This view of personal and constitutional politics conflicts with earlier interpretations of parties, the rise of the Lower House, and the role of the governors in Maryland politics prior to the Revolution, going so far as to repave the apparent road to that event. Eventually, external factors made it impossible for the proprietary government to continue, even with the most talented leadership, as the colony joined the rebellion against the Crown and the proprietor.