| Massachusetts Bay Colony was a prominent Protestant political commonwealth that the British colonists had ever established in the seventeenth-century explorations around the region of New England. For years the nature of the Puritan politic has been the bone of contention among scholars, each producing utterly different or even contradictory views. A group of historians represented by George Bancroft, all full of romantic passion of patriotism, made great efforts to eulogize the spirit of democracy and freedom in the United States. In their eyes, the seventeenth-century Puritan forefathers were the very founders of American tradition of democracy and freedom. However, another group led by Perry Miller assumed a wholly different approach, claiming that Puritan politic spirit was conservative and tending towards dictatorship. The author of this thesis adopts a middle approach, arguing that the commonwealth politic was basically theocratic in the"Puritan Age"though it was also acting as an incubator of embryonic democracy, which failed to develop into the genuine form of democracy in the modern sense of the word, shackled by the concept of their times. The tug-of-wars between theocracy and democracy were a series of historical drama that paved the way for later development of American tradition of liberty and freedom. The thesis explores in the theocratic hierarchy the contributive historical events and elements that gave rise to democracy—the once ecclesiastical dominance and the incurred democratic oppositions on the one hand; it also presents the idea that the town system and self-government was an important feature of New England democracy. Lastly, it delves deep into the struggle between theocracy and democracy in a historical perspective. Though neither gained the upper hand in the end, the struggles prepared the breeding ground for the inception and growth of democratic spirit in an essentially Puritan society. |
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