The Government of Massachusetts consists of Magistrates and Freemen：in the one is the Aut[horit]ye，the other the Libertye of the Com[mon] W[ealth] either hath power to Acte，both alone，and both together，yet by a distinct power，the one of Libertye，the other of Aut[horit]ye：the Freemen Act of them selves in Electing their magistrates and Officers：the magistrates Acte alone in all occurrences out Court：and both Acte together in the Generall Court：yet all limited by certain Rules，both in the greater and smaller affaires：as the Government is Regular in a mixt Aristocratie，and no waye Arbitrary.

-John Winthrop，Arbitrary Government （1644）

This theory [of bicameralism]，which was unknown to the republics of antiquity，—which was introduced into the world almost by accident，like so many other great truths，—and misunderstood by several modern nations，is at length become an axiom in the political science of the present age.

-Alexis de Tocqeville，Democracy in America （1840）

The development of bicameralism in native American legislatures may be taken as a token of the increasing sophistication of procedures and of a sense of actual difference of purpose between elected assemblymen and appointed councilors.

-J. R. Pole，The Seventeenth Century：The Sources of Legislative Power （1969）

In 1625，the Bermuda Assembly charged one Christopher Parker，a burgess from Southampton，with “sedition” in consequence of “his endevour to divide the Generall Assembly into an Upper and a Lower House.” Parker was tried next year and jailed for seventeen weeks，and finally forgiven only after he signed an apology.^[1]This incident is but one of many similar occurrences throughout English America during the same period of time. All these r