THE FIRST PURELY REPUBLICAN FORM OF
GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA
BY WILLIAM M. PETTIT
The historical political controversy
that raged in the
years 1636-37 was over the demand of
Anne Hutchin-
son that women be accorded equal
political rights with
men, in Massachusetts. Sir Harry Vane
was elected
governor in 1636, being a
representative of the Hutch-
inson faction, but in 1637 he was
defeated by John Win-
throp. The General Court of
Massachusetts tried the
famous Hutchinson case, resulting in
the expulsion of
Anne Hutchinson and many of her faction
from the
colony.
The Rev. John Wheelwright,
brother-in-law of Anne
Hutchinson and her supporter, and
numerous other
adherents, were expelled from Boston in
Novem-
ber, 1637, and went to Exeter, where on
the 4th day of
july, 1639 thirty-five of the settlers
signed the famous
Exeter Combination, one hundred and
thirty-seven
years to the day before the Declaration
of Independence.
This compact combined the legislative,
executive and
judicial branches of government,
therefore the name,
"Combination."
In Taylor's History of the United
States, published
in 1849, the author, at pages 158, 159,
says:
"1638 was the beginning of the
towns of Exeter and Hamp-
ton. * * * Settlers mostly from Boston.
* * * As they judged their
settlement to be without the
jurisdiction of Massachusetts, they
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