:) :) :) :)

The following is from the link below:

"The representative system of government, as we have assumed all along in our narrative, was common to all the colonies, though it was not introduced in Georgia before 1752. It began in Virginia with the first meeting of the burgesses in 1619; it was introduced in Massachusetts in 1634, in Plymouth and Maryland in 1639. The system of representative government was allowed, but not required, by the early charters. But after it had sprung up spontaneously in various colonies, it was recognized and ratified by the later charters, as in those of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the second charter of Massachusetts, though it was not mentioned in the New York grant. The franchise came to be restricted by some property qualifications in all the colonies, in most by their own act, as by Virginia in 1670, or by charter, as in Massachusetts, 1691.5 In no colony was universal suffrage to be found."


COLONIAL GOVERNMENT (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/colonial/book/chap10_5.html)