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Democracy vs. Aristocracy
The magistrates embodied a spirit of aristocracy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The deputies embodied a spirit of democracy. Two institutions protected the magistrates’ power, and made them the more powerful of the two bodies: the Standing Council, and the negative voice, so the deputies worked to dismantle those two institutions.
First, they went after the Standing Council, publishing a pamphlet to rally public support to their side. This failed when the ministers upheld the idea of the Standing Council.
Second, they went after the negative voice (veto power), and this battle again involved Robert Keayne. Keayne had been sued for killing an old woman named Goody Sherman’s sow, and when he’d won, he’d countersued for defamation. He’d won 20 pounds in court costs, and Sherman appealed to the General Court. The fight over the money resulted in the General Court’s split into a bicameral legislature.