Constitution of Massachusetts

“ 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;" ”

“ Congress has made no provision that governs the liability in this case and therefore has left it to the law of the State where the wrong is done. If there were no statute the common law of Massachusetts would supplement the Constitution as it would supplement the statutes of the State. But the common law of Massachusetts is not superior to its statutes and may be modified by them at the pleasure of the State, at least until in some substantial sense it impairs substantive constitutional rights, which it has not attempted to do. ”

“ The statutes of Massachusetts could not originally have contemplated suits by the United States, not because they were in substance enacted before the federal constitution was adopted, on which I lay no stress; but because it was not within the legitimate exercise of the powers of the State legislature. It is not to be presumed, that a State legislature mean to transcend their constitutional powers ”

“ Inhabitants of Massachusetts! be constantly on the watch—It requires almost the eyes of an Argus to penetrate into all the schemes of those designing wretches, who are waiting to see you reject the federal system of government, and involve yourselves in all the horrours of anarchy, then to riot with pleasure on your miseries. Disappoint their expectations—adopt the proposed plan of federal government—it will secure to you every blessing which a free and enlightened people can expect to enjoy. ”

“ It is not intended to protect men in office, only as they are agents of the people. Its object is to afford legal security to public offices and trusts created for the safety and happiness of the people, and therefore the security derived from it is for the benefit of the people, and is their right.
This construction of the Constitution, and of the existing law of the land, as well as the act complained of, the legislature of Massachusetts most deliberately and firmly believe, results from a just and full view of the several parts of the Constitution ”

“ Massachusetts adopted in 1780 a constitution and bill of rights, asserting, as the Declaration had done, that all men are born free and have an equal and inalienable right to defend their lives and liberties, to acquire property and to seek and obtain freedom and happiness. A test case was made up to decide the status of a slave, and the Supreme Court ruled that under this clause slavery no longer existed in Massachusetts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Saxon times, land held by grant or by charter from the public lands.
Body of Liberties.
The first constitution of Massachusetts, prepared by Nathaniel Ward. It provided that all public officials should be chosen annually by the freemen of the plantation. Each town also elected deputies to a general assembly, to serve for one year. Each town had the right to make{35} its own by bye-laws. It further provided for the annual election of judges, and for equal justice to all, including foreigners, while severe penalties were enacted for witchcraft and blasphemy. ”

“ It is said we owe money: no matter if we do; our safety lies in not paying it—pay only the interest. Don't let us go too fast. Shall not Massachusetts be a mediator? It is thy wish she may be one of the four dissenting states; then we shall be on our old ground, and shall not act unconstitutionally. Some people cry, It will be a great charge; but it will be a greater charge, and be more dangerous, to make a new one. Let us amend the old Confederation. ”

“ After turning over the debates in the Massachusetts convention, one can scarcely escape the conclusion that the victory in eloquence, logic, and pure argumentation lay on the side of the Federalists; and it would not be worth while to consider at all the charges that improper influence was brought to bear on the delegates, were it not for the fact that they were made at the time and have lasted in the literature on the ratification in Massachusetts. ”

“ The Constitution and statutes and judicial decisions of the commonwealth of Massachusetts are the authentic forms through which the sense of justice of the people of that commonwealth expresses itself in law. We are not to supersede them on the ground that they deny the essentials of a trial because opinions may differ as to their policy or fairness. ”

“ In 1778 he was sent to France to supersede Silas Deane; but his stay was brief, the treaty between that country and the United States having been concluded just before his departure from Boston. During his attendance upon the Continental Congress he continued to be an active counselor of the leaders in Massachusetts, although he declined the office of chief justice of the State. He was an active member of the committee of three which drafted the first constitution of Massachusetts. ”

“ The propriety of these precautions depends on so many circumstances better known to the government of Massachusetts than to Congress, that it would be premature in Congress to be governed by a disapprobation.
Thirdly. That every state ought to bear in mind the consequences of popular commotions, if not thoroughly subdued, on the tranquillity of the Union, and the possibility of being itself the scene of them. Every state ought, therefore, to submit with cheerfulness to such indulgences to others as itself may, in a little time, be in need of. ”

“ In the midst of the Revolution, and led by the men who had carried on the profound discussions which preceded it,—discussions in which the natural rights of mankind and the civil rights of British subjects were examined and displayed as they had never been before,—the people of Massachusetts had framed a State constitution, filled with the most impressive maxims and the most solemn securities with which public liberty has ever been invested. ”

“ The people in Massachusetts are satisfied with two hundred: many others suppose either number unnecessarily large. There is no point on which men's opinions vary more materially. If the matter be doubtful,—and much may be rationally said on both sides,—gentlemen ought not to be very strenuous on such points. The Convention who decided this question took all these different opinions into consideration, and were directed by a kind of necessity of mutual accommodation, and by reasons of expediency ”

“ Everywhere, I believe, for half a century, it has been repudiated by the people. Does anybody contemplate such a qualification to the elective franchise, in the case of black people or white?
“And, next, reading and writing, or reading as a qualification, is demanded; and an appeal is made to the example of Massachusetts. I wish gentlemen who now appeal to Massachusetts would often appeal to her in other matters where I can more conscientiously approve her policy. But it is a different proposition in Massachusetts as a practical measure. ”

“ They appertain to the State sovereignty as exclusively as powers exclusively delegated appertain to the general government.
The license acts of Massachusetts do not purport to be a regulation of commerce. They are essentially police laws. Enactments similar in principle are common to all the States. Since the adoption of its constitution they have existed in Massachusetts. A great moral reform, which enlisted the judgments and excited the sympathies of the public, has given notoriety to this course of legislation, and extended it, lately, beyond its former limit. ”

“ For the third purpose, of securing the states, there ought then to be a third branch, representing the states as such, and guarding, by equal votes, their rights and dignities. He would not pretend to be as thoroughly acquainted with his immediate constituents as his colleagues , but it was his firm belief that Massachusetts would never be prevailed on to yield to an equality of votes. ”

“ The anger excited by the Bill was not confined to Boston; a feeling of indignation pervaded all the colonies. Their sympathy was soon increased by Massachusetts government Bill. fear for their own liberties; for a second Bill was introduced, abrogating the old charter of Massachusetts. Its popular constitution was to be destroyed, and the colony was to become in the strictest sense a Crown colony; the council was to be named by the Crown instead of by the people; and the judges, magistrates and sheriffs were to be nominated and removed by the governor without consulting the council. ”

“ The British supremacy closed with the evacuation of Boston, and the colony then became an independent state; yet in that singularly homogeneous community, which had always been taught to regard their royal patents as the bulwark of their liberties, no one seems to have seriously thought it possible to dispense with a written instrument to serve as the basis of the social organization. Accordingly, in 1779, the legislature called a convention to draft a Constitution ”

“ In Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York the new Constitution encountered a most formidable opposition, which rendered [Pg 191] its adoption by these States for a time extremely doubtful. In their conventions were men on both sides who had been members of the national convention, associated with others of distinguished abilities. In Massachusetts there were several adverse influences which would probably have defeated the ratification in that State had it not been accompanied by certain proposed amendments to be submitted by Congress to the several States for ratification. ”

“ After dinner toasts were drunk under the fire of six guns to each toast, in honor of those states which had adopted the Constitution—Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts. The eleventh toast was, “New York, may it soon become an additional pillar to the new roof.” It was confidently felt that the discussion and adoption of the new Constitution by their eastern neighbors would exert a strong influence in its favor, and that the conduct of Massachusetts would insure its ratification, not only in this state but in every other state of the Union. ”

“ Since the peace, there have been various causes for not furnishing the necessary quotas to the general government. In some of the flourishing states, the requisitions have been attended to; in others, their non-compliance is to be attributed more to the inability of the people than to their unwillingness to advance the general interests. Massachusetts attempted to correct the nature of things by extracting more from the people than they were able to part with What did it produce? ”

“ It was a very able body of men. With the exception of the Convention that framed the Constitution in the beginning, and the Convention which revised it in 1820, after the separation from Maine, I doubt whether so able a body of men ever assembled in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or, with very few exceptions indeed, in the entire country. ”

“ The particularism of the time is revealed in the belief that a man's first allegiance was to his State; to construct a constitution for Massachusetts was thought to be a greater service than to draft the Articles of Confederation; to be Governor of Virginia a higher honor than to be President of Congress. The political wisdom of the decade is therefore chiefly embodied in the first state constitutions and the legislation of the new State Governments. ”

“ In the exposition of its own charter, Massachusetts contended that its limits included the whole territory of New Hampshire; and, being at that time comparatively strong and active, she succeeded in establishing her jurisdiction over it, and maintained it with unabated vigilance forty years. ”

“ Speeches of Franklin in the Federal Convention, and Wilson in the Pa. Convention; 4 “Letters of Brutus,” and a series of personal letters relating to the proceedings in Massachusetts, mostly taken from Spark’s Writings of Washington.
It is a most valuable volume for the history of the struggle over ratification in Massachusetts, but it is a little strange that the editors should pass over the essays on the Constitution from Massachusetts pens and select the letters of “An American” and of “Brutus”—the first a Pennsylvania series, by Tench Coxe, and the second by a New York writer. ”

“ Editors, as our situation is but little understood, and the minds of the people much agitated, we feel a desire to lay before them some of the causes of the late excitement. We have long been under guardians, placed in authority over us, without our having any voice in the selection, and, as we believe, not constitutional. Will the good people of Massachusetts revert back to the days of their fathers, when they were under the galling yoke of the mother country? when they petitioned the government for a redress of grievances, but in vain? ”