1. The 102 settlers of the Plymouth Colony agreed to ‘combine ourselves into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and … frame such just and equal laws … as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience’ www.plimouth.org For a discussion of this and other cases pp.167, 173, 308 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973.
2. In 1632, Charles I granted George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, ownership and absolute authority over the inhabitants of the more than 10 million acres that became Maryland. However, his absolutist aspirations were no more successful than those of his royal patron. p.29, Eric Labaree, America’s Nation-Time 1607–1789, Norton, New York, 1972.
3. The bequest was, however, in stock, which subsequently proved worthless. David Madsen, The National University: Enduring Dream of the United States of America, Wayne State University, Detroit, 1967.
4. Sheldon Rothblatt and Martin Trow, ‘Government Policies and Higher Education: Britain and the United States 1630–1860’, in C. Crouch and A. Heath, eds, The Sociology of Social Reform, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992. The federal government was similarly reluctant to assert a central co-ordinating role over scientific research and remained so until World War II.
5. See A. Hunter Dupree, ‘Central Scientific Organization in the United States’, pp.261–77, in Norman Kaplan, ed., Science and Society, Rand McNally, Chicago, 1965.