Commonwealth of Massachusetts

“ Whenever human rights needed an advocate, the voice of Massachusetts resounded through the land. Whenever the cause education, enlightment, progress and virtue wanted a champion, Massachusetts pressed to the front. Everywhere within the vast bounderies of this great republic Massachusetts has planted colonies of her intelligence and learning. Whatever there can be in the past achievements to inspire a noble ambition, your State possesses it all. No people can have better reason to respect themselves than the people of this Commonwealth. ”

“ Those sentiments of liberty and patriotism have penetrated the hearts of the whole population of that Commonwealth. Sir, in that State, every man, no matter what blood runs in his veins, or what may be the color of his skin, stands up before the law the peer of the proudest that treads her soil. This is the sentiment of the people of Massachusetts. ”

“ It is my desire that each citizen of Massachusetts should have the equal protection of the laws and be supported to the extent of the power of the Commonwealth in his right to pursue a lawful occupation. ”

“ The history of the institution we here celebrate reaches back more than one third of the way to the landing of the Mayflower—back to the day of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, who saw Prescott, Pomeroy, Stark, and Warren at Bunker Hill, who followed Washington and his generals from Dochester Heights to Yorktown, and saw the old Bay Colony become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They had seen a nation in the making. They founded their government on the rights of the individual. ”

“ Not only has the great conception of New England been accepted as the fundamental principle of the Federal Union, but it has been adopted by every separate State; and more than this, during the one hundred and six years since the people of our Commonwealth wrote their Constitution, they have had as large a measure of liberty and safety under the law as men have ever known on earth. ”

“ In particular I should have desired to point out the great pride Massachusetts has in her war record and the abundant way she has shown her gratitude for her service men and women, surpassing every other State. All this is a record not of promises, but of achievement. It is one in which the voters of the Commonwealth may well take a deep satisfaction. It is there, it stands, it cannot be argued away. No deception can pervert it. It endures. ”

“ Our majorities in Massachusetts are large, but so are our responsibilities. From the historic character of the Commonwealth, from the position it has occupied in the warfare with Slavery, and from its fame as the home of ideas, we cannot afford to be sluggish or indifferent; nor can we break up into disjointed squads. ”

“ At the Restoration Massachusetts had grown arrogant from long impunity. She thought the time of reckoning would never come, and even in trivial matters seemed to take a pride in slighting Great Britain and in vaunting her independence. Laws were enacted in the name of the Commonwealth, the king’s name was not in the writs, nor were the royal arms upon the public buildings; even the oath of allegiance was rejected, though it was unobjectionable in form. She had grown to believe that were offence taken she had only to invent pretexts for delay, to have her fault forgotten in some new revolution. ”

“ Disobedience to it is disobedience to the people. They know that the property of the Commonwealth is their property. Destruction of it destroys their substance. The public security is their security. When that is gone they are in deadly peril. And knowing this the people have a determination to support the Government with a resolution that is unchanging.
It is my purpose to maintain the Government of Massachusetts as it was founded by her people, the protector of the rights of all but subservient to none. ”

“ No other State has taken any effective measure. The compensation of public employees has been increased. The entire public service of the Commonwealth has been reorganized in accordance with the constitutional amendment into twenty departments. In caring for her service men Massachusetts led all the States of the Nation in relief and in assistance, besides voting the stupendous sum of twenty million dollars, not as compensation, but as recognition of the gratitude due those who had represented us in the great war. The educational opportunities of the youth of the State have been improved. ”

“ Nothing can be imagined more ill-suited to serve as the organic law of a new commonwealth than this instrument. No provision was made for superior or probate courts, for a representative assembly, for the incorporation of counties and towns, for police or taxation. In short, hardly a step could be taken toward founding a territorial government based upon popular suffrage without working a forfeiture of the charter by abuse of the franchise. The colonists, it is true, afterward advanced very different theories of construction ”

“ It is a duty we owe alike to the living and the dead.
Fortunate is Massachusetts that she has among her sons two men so eminently trained for the task of our enlightenment, a senior Senator of the Commonwealth and the President of a university established in her Constitution. Wherever statesmen gather, wherever men love letters, this day's discussion will be read and pondered. Of these great men in learning, and experience, wise in the science and practice of government, the first to address you is a Senator distinguished at home and famous everywhere—Henry Cabot Lodge. ”

“ We are reaching and maintaining the position in this Commonwealth where the property class and the employed class are not separate, but identical. There is a relationship of interdependence which makes their interests the same in the long run. Most of us earn our livelihood through some form of employment. More and more of our people are in possession of some part of the wages of yesterday, and so are investors. This is the ideal economic condition.
The great aim of our Government is to protect the weak—to aid them to become strong. Massachusetts is an industrial State. ”

“ A bill of rights was promulgated; and under this, “though universal suffrage was not established, every man, whether citizen or alien, received the right of introducing any business into any public assembly, and of taking part in its deliberations. Then Massachusetts, by special law, offered free welcome and aid, at the public cost, to Christians of any nationality who might fly beyond the Atlantic ‘to escape from wars or famine, or the oppression of their persecutors.’ Thus the fugitive and the downtrodden were, by statute, made the guests of the commonwealth. ”

“ Legislature, which was Republican, issued an Address to the People of the Commonwealth (Boston, 1812, 80, 28 pages) ; also in Niles, II, 308, 309; in which they "say with assurance, that a deep and deadly design is formed against our happy Union." The House which was Federalist also issued An Address to the People of Massachusetts (n. t. p., 1812, 80, 14 pages) ”

“ And so it is that I carry with me from this state to that high and lonely office to which I now succeed more than fond memories of firm friendships. The enduring qualities of Massachusetts – the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant – will not be and could not be forgotten in this nation's executive mansion.
They are an indelible part of my life, my convictions, my view of the past, and my hopes for the future. ”

“ On them falls the task of administering local affairs and of supporting the National Government in peace and war. The success with which Massachusetts has met her local problems, the efficiency with which she has placed her resources of men and materials at the disposal of the Nation, has been unsurpassed. The efficient organization of the Commonwealth, which has proved itself in time of stress, must be maintained undiminished. On the States will largely fall the task of putting into effect the lessons of the war that are to make America more truly American. ”

“ The methods of vacating corporate charters in England were definite and in this case were strictly followed. Had Massachusetts been a corporation in fact as well as in law, it is doubtful if the question of illegality would ever have been [Pg 164] raised; but as this particular corporation was a Puritan commonwealth, the issue was so vital to its continuance as to lead to the charge of unjust and illegal oppression. On moral grounds a defence of the colony is always possible, though it is difficult to uphold the Massachusetts system. ”

“ While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course. ”

“ That federal convention have assembled together, and after a full investigation of the different concerns of the Union, have proposed a form of government, calculated to support, and transmit, inviolate, to the latest posterity, all the blessings of civil and religious liberty.
Citizens of Massachusetts! consider, O consider well, these important matters, and weigh them deliberately in the scale of reason! Consider at what a vast expense of toil, difficulty, treasure and blood, you have emancipated yourselves from the yoke of bondage, and established yourselves an independent people! ”

“ Maine and even Nova Scotia, lately won from the French, were for the meantime also joined to Massachusetts.
Massachusetts was now a great colony and received a new charter. But things were not the same. The colony was now a royal province, and the Governor was no longer appointed by the people, but by the King. This chafed the people greatly, for they felt that their old freedom was gone. So for a time the history of Massachusetts was hardly more than a dreary chronicle of quarrels and misunderstandings between Governor and people. ”

“ The Legislature and people of Massachusetts ever have been and now are firmly and sincerely attached to the union of the States, and there is no sacrifice they have not been, and are not now, willing to submit to, in order to preserve the same, according to its original purpose. ”

“ The nation is so accustomed to admire her glorious deeds for freedom, that with this expectation their eyes are turned upon her. Massachusetts can do nothing in secret; Massachusetts can do nothing for herself alone; every one of her acts involves a hundred-fold responsibility. What Massachusetts does is felt from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But Massachusetts need only be herself, in order to be great. ”

“ The gentleman from Alabama (Judge Hopkins) , has hinted to us that the Southern States may find it necessary to protect themselves against this action of Massachusetts, by legislation that shall touch her material interests. Threats of that kind, sir, have no terrors for Massachusetts. Her people will laugh to scorn all such idle threats, by whomsoever made. Massachusetts, with one million of intelligent people, with free schools, free churches, free labor, is competent to take care of her own material interests. ”

“ This is the Novum Organum of the Republican party. Nothing can be clearer than that these two instruments, if followed to their natural meaning, are in harmony with all the suggestions of justice and humanity; so that our duties as men are all reaffirmed by our duties as American citizens.
And, lastly, as citizens of Massachusetts our duties are identical, but reinforced by circumstances in her history; so that, if, as men, or as citizens of the United States, we hesitate, yet as citizens of Massachusetts we are not allowed to hesitate. ”

“ At the same time popular rights were secured by the provision that the council, though at the outset nominated by the Crown, was thereafter to be chosen by the General Coimt, consisting of the governor, council and house of representatives. The old religious oligarchy became a thing of the past. Henceforth Massachusetts was an ordinary Crown colony, enjoying constitutional rights neither greater nor less than those granted to any such community. ”

“ State Societies in the New England States, which has been already accomplished in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the operations of the New England Society during the past year have been very much confined to Massachusetts, and hereafter it will be only a State Society. ”

“ The leading emigrants to Massachusetts were of that brotherhood of men who, by force of social consideration as well as of the intelligence and resolute patriotism, molded the public opinion and action of England in the first half of the seventeenth century. While the large part stayed at home to found, as it proved, the short-lived English republic, and to introduce elements into the English Constitution which had to wait another half-century for their secure reception, another part devoted themselves at once to the erection of free institutions in this distant wilderness. ”

“ It is in this sense, that the preamble of the constitution of Massachusetts asserts, that "the body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; that it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good;" ”

“ Thus, after living for more than 12 months without any legal government, without law, and without any regular administration of justice, but what arose from the internal sense of moral obligation which is seldom a sufficient restraint on the people at large, the Massachusetts returned peaceably to the regular and necessary subordination of civil society reduced nearly to a state of nature with regard to all civil or authoritative ties, it is almost incredible that the principles of rectitude and common justice should have been so generally influential. ”