The Declaration: He has forbidden his governors to pass Laws

The United States of America turns 250-years-old this year. Our nation's founding is matched to the July 4, 1776, issuance of the Declaration of Independence, a 1,331-word letter signed by 56 representatives who pledged their sacred honor to keep the United States free and independent. We all know the preamble: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

The Declaration's real meat, however, lies with its 27 Grievances, a listing of every issue the representatives had with English rule. It's not all about taxation. The 27 Grievances outline the obstruction of American self-governance, the revocation of our legislatures, the corruption of our judiciary, the crown's attacks on citizens. With 26 editions between Jan. 1 and the Fourth of July, I have started a program that features one of the grievances each week. The second grievance:

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

The first time I read this, I panicked a bit. It seemed so similar to the first grievance: "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." What is the difference between these complaints? They both are about the king's veto of colonial laws. Why can't I find a book that explains this for me?

The Declaration: He has refused his assent to lawsThe first complaint against the crown was not for being oppressive or taxing, but for taking power away from colonial legislators through veto power.Inland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloin

The difference appears to lie in a wrongful assumption of powers. The first grievance criticized the King for vetoing laws that would benefit the colonies, while this grievance criticizes the King for stepping in and taking power from the governors.

The 1691 Charter of the Province of Massachusetts Bay gave the royal governor sole veto power (all errors in the original document): "the Governor of our said Province or Territory of the Massachusetts Bay in New England for the time being shall have the Negative voice and that without his consent or Approbation signified and declared in Writeing no such Orders Laws Statutes Ordinances Elections or other Acts of Government whatsoever soe to be made passed or done by the said Generall Assembly or in Councill shall be of any Force effect or validity anythimg."

That didn't stop the English government from exercising their own veto powers. In 1914, the historian and Yale professor Charles McLean published the only information I could find on this topic, calling this type of review a royal disallowance.

McLean wrote that this type of veto power was exercised against all colonial laws regarding divorce, a Massachusetts law allowing married women to sue, and a New Jersey law regarding a debtor's right to sue. The colonies were not allowed to pass these laws because the King's review council believed the colonies never had the power to regulate marriage and lawsuits, McLean wrote. Other laws were disallowed because they were contrary to Parliament, or affected trade. Each colony had at least one law reviewed by the time they declared independence, but Massachussets had 59.

"The disallowance was neither unconstitutional nor designedly oppressive, but the British authorities and the colonists in America did not always see the colonial situation eye to eye in the same light. The colonists were fashioning their own constitutional order, but in so doing they were performing acts of legislation and government that were undoubtedly illegal and revolutionary, when construed not in terms of the democracy that was to be, but from the standpoint of English law and custom by which they were legally bound and of the English commercial system of which they were legally a part."