There are 33 towns and six cities within the State. The governor, secretary of state and 'other State officers are elected for two years. The governor may exercise the power of veto and can pardon criminals, with the advice and con sent of the senate. The members of the legis lature, known officially as the general assembly, are elected for two years. In the upper house, called the senate, there is one senator for each city and town. The lieutenant-governor pre sides over this body. The lower house, or house of representatives, shall never exceed 100 members and no town or city shall have more than one-fourth of the whole number of mem bers. Members of the general assembly are paid for actual attendance, with a maximum limit of 60 days. The house alone has the power to impeach, and the senate tries cases of impeachment.
The judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the general assembly may from time to time establish. Pre liminary examination of persons charged with serious crimes and trials for minor offenses are held in the District Courts, the justices of which are chosen by the general assembly. The jus tices of the Supreme Court are elected by the general assembly in grand committee and oon tinne in office until their positions are declared vacant by a resolution of the general assembly. In practice this has meant election for life, or until retirement by voluntary resignation. The presidential suffrage was extended to women in April 1917.
History.— The colony originally consisted, as the name indicates, of more than one com munity of independent origin, but to Roger Williams, the founder of Providence Planta tions, history accords the distinction of having established the commonwealth. Providence Plantations was founded in 1636 by Roger Wil liams, who fled with several companions from Puritan persecution. He was of Welsh origin, and of respectable family, and his arrival in Massachusetts, 5 Feb. 1631, is recorded as ethe coming of a godly minister.* Williams soon showed that he had no sympathy with the Massachusetts principle of controlling through the civil government the consciences of men, and he frankly avowed his views in this regard. He thus incurred the censure of the Puritan magistrates and it was at first resolved to expel him from the colonial bounds, and when it was learned that he proposed to found another colony, it was determined to send him back to England. Williams received timely warning of
this intention and he fled into the wilderness with several companions, and at the opening of spring in 1636 he began to plant on the east side of the Seekonk River. He had five coin panions, William Harris, John Smith, Francis Wickes, Thomas Angell and Joshua Verin. Here he was allowed to rest, being notified by Plymouth Colony that the place was within their jurisdiction. Some time between the end of April and the latter part of June 1636 he proceeded around what is now at Point and up Providence River, landing at the site of the future town, and here he selected a dwelling place for himself and his associates. His ob ject, as set forth by himself, was ethe settling of the plantation, and especially for the receiv ing of such as were troubled elsewhere about the worship of God? The settlement of Rhode Island was at first a separate colony, but it also owed its origin to the example and advice of Roger Williams. John Clark and others of Boston went to Provi dence in 1638 in search of an asylum where they might enjoy liberty of conscience. Roger Williams advised them to purchase from the Indians the large island on the east side of Narragansett Bay called by the Dutch eRoode Eylandt.p This was done, and the adventurers, 18 in number, incorporated themselves as a body politic and elected William Coddington their chief magistrate. A third settlement was formed at Warwick in 1643 by a party of whom John Greene and Samuel Gorton were leaders.
Roger Williams perceived that the union of the weak settlements and the protection of the home government were necessary for their pro tection from the hostile and comparatively pow erful Puritans, and in 1643 he went to England and brought back in the following year a char ter which united the settlements of Providence and Rhode Island under one the name of the colony being Rhode Island Providence Plantations. The new government went into operation in 1647, when the freemen of the several plantations met at Portsmouth, 19 May, and adopted laws for carrying on the civil government. This charter was confirmed by Cromwell in 1655, and in 1663 Charles II granted the celebrated charter which remained for 180 years the supreme law of Rhode Island, both as colony and State, and gave place to a State constitution in 1843 only after the civil convulsion known as the Dorr Rebellion gave notice that the people were determined _upon a change.