Massachusetts Legislature

“ Counties and towns had to be practically incorporated, taxes were levied upon inhabitants, and in 1634 all pretence of a General Court of freemen was dropped, and the towns chose delegates to represent them, though the legislature was not divided into two branches until ten years later. When the government had become fully organized supreme power was vested in the General Court, a legislature composed of two houses; the assistants, or magistrates, as they were called, and the deputies. The governor, deputy governor, and assistants were elected by a general vote ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has long been recognized as impossible for a private member to carry through the House of Commons a measure of any consequence, and a colonial ministry arrests the progress of a successful bill by intimating that the subject of it can only be legislated upon by the Government.
The free involution of a legislature from below is naturally more rapid than its reluctant devolution from above. The swift development of the Massachusetts Company into the Massachusetts Legislature has been ably traced by Professor Fiske, who is a sociologist as well as a historian. ”

“ The duties of a public servant are not always conspicuous. Much of his time is absorbed in cares which, if not obscure, are little calculated to attract public attention. Massachusetts justly expects that no such interests shall be neglected. But, by solemn resolutions of her Legislature, by the votes of her people, and by the voice of her history, Massachusetts especially enjoins upon her representatives to see, that, at all hazards, and whatever else may suffer, Freedom shall prevail. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Several of the officers of state are also appointed by the legislature. And the members of the judiciary department are appointed by the executive department. The constitution of Massachusetts has observed a sufficient though less pointed caution, in expressing this fundamental article of liberty. It declares “that the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them. ”

“ Certain general principles, however, must be taken for granted. It is certainly the province of the state, by its legislature, to adopt such policy as to it seems best. There are constitutional limitations, of course, but these allow a very comprehensive range of judgment. And within that range the Massachusetts statute can be justified. Legislation cannot be judged by theoretical standards. It must be tested by the concrete conditions which induced it; and this test was applied by the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in passing on the validity of the statute under review. ”

“ The election occurs annually, on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. The General Court or Legislature meets on the first Wednesday in January and such other times as the members judge necessary, or when called by the Governor. Money bills must originate in the Lower House. The power of impeachment rests with the House, the trial of impeachment with the Senate. A two-thirds vote of each House overrides the Governor's veto. The capital of the State is Boston.
Executive. The Governor and other principal executive officers are elected annually by the people. ”

“ A woman, as well as a man, can petition the Legislature. Every bill is referred to a committee; it is given a public hearing, is reported upon and action taken, one way or another; not one bill is pigeon-holed. The Massachusetts system of legislative procedure is not surpassed anywhere in the United States, and there are competent boards and officers who carry out the various laws. Many of the things the suffragists agitate about and think they need the franchise to bring to pass, they would find are already being administered at the present time if they would only look into the facts. ”

“ Better wrong yourselves than wrong others.
Let me confess that I was tempted to this proposition by the conviction that I was carrying out the cherished idea of Massachusetts embodied in her own Constitution. According to a recent Amendment, the representation in both branches of the Legislature is founded on “legal voters,” and not on population. Here are the words.
“A census of the legal voters of each city and town on the first day of May shall be taken and returned into the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.... ”

“ A legislative body ... is extremely improper for such decisions. The polity of the English government seldom admits of the exercise of this executive and judiciary power by the legislature, and I know of nothing special in the government of this province, to give countenance to it. ”

“ Though the executive and the legislature were a direct inheritance, needing but little change, a deep line was drawn between the three departments, and the theory of the coordinate judiciary was first brought to its maturity within the jurisdiction where it had been born. To attain this cherished object was the chief labor of the delegates, for to the supreme court was to be intrusted the dangerous task of grappling with the representative chambers and enforcing the popular charter. ”

“ The committee was appointed by the town of Charlestown, and, under the laws of Massachusetts, they had no right to lay out streets; that power being in the selectmen, or persons acting under their authority, subject to the ratification of the inhabitants in town meeting.
The proceedings of the committee could not take away the rights of soil in any one, and the limitation of their power was the inducement to apply to the legislature for the act to confirm their proceedings. ”

“ The precedent seems to have been set by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, which was made up of delegates from the districts as well as from the towns. It was a revolutionary step taken outside of the law. On March 23, 1786, this anomalous condition of affairs was settled by an act of the Legislature, which declared all districts, incorporated before January 1, 1777, to be towns for all intents and purposes. ”

“ 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) ”

“ In the first place, we may note that the governor of a territory is not elected by the people, but is appointed by the president, and is removable by him, as the Massachusetts charter of 1691 provided that her governor should be removable by the king. In territories, as in the colonies, laws passed by the bicameral legislature are subject, not only to veto by the governor, but also to disallowance by the higher sovereign power. The review of colonial legislation, to which our forefathers objected so strongly when colonists, we adopted ourselves 449when we, in turn became a “mother-country” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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;" ”

“ As late as 1757, the general court of Massachusetts admitted the constitutional authority of parliament in the following words:—"The authority of all acts of parliament, which concern the colonies, and extend to them, is ever acknowledged in all the courts of law, and made the rule of all judicial proceedings in the province. There is not a member of the general court, and we know no inhabitant within the bounds of the government, that ever questioned this authority." ”

“ Massachusetts has had several such. Our revised statutes are a monument of the labor of one of these commissions. But were they legislators? Was their proposed code of any validity until enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives? Just as much as the acts of sheriff, auditor, or commissioners of the different kinds, were acts of judicial power, and no more. Are the selectmen of our towns legislators, because they decide, in the first instance, who are elected as members of our House of Representatives? ”

“ The people of Massachusetts were never an office-seeking people. There is no State in the Union whose representatives at the seat of Government have less trouble in that way, or that gives less trouble to the Executive Departments or to the President. ”

“ They are not organized under any statute; and they derive no power, benefit or privilege from any statute. The Massachusetts statutes, however, recognize their existence and impose upon them, as 'associations,' certain obligations and liabilities. ”

“ This interval between the abolition of the old constitution and the formation of a new one, lasted longer in Massachusetts than in the other States, and there the effects are most visible. But perhaps it is impossible to frame a constitution of government, in the closet, which will suit the people; for it is frequent to find one, the most perfect in theory, the most objectionable in practice. ”

“ Surely its abandonment here would be a small thing to them, while its continuance is a great thing to us. It is a great thing to us, because we are held responsible for it by the whole civilized world. This District is the common possession of the nation. Congress has power of exclusive legislation over it. Congress, therefore, is responsible for its institutions, as a man is responsible for the condition of his house, and the customs of his family. The general government is not responsible for the local institutions of Massachusetts or of Mississippi. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A board should be composed of the best persons, not necessarily party-colored; if there be any force in the argument for bi-partisan commissions, it should apply ten times as much to the judges, but there is no provision in any State of the Union or in the National government for bi-partisan courts of law. Massachusetts, alone, so far as the writer is informed, of all the States, by a certain tradition respects this principle. Very few Massachusetts governors replace a Democratic judge by a Republican, or vice versa. ”