NEW ENGLAND 
 
 HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1880. 
 
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OLD STATE HOUSE, EEECTED 1748. 
 
 IN THIS BUILDING THE GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS WAS ORGANIZED 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 DAY OF OCTOBER, 1780. 
 
NEW ENGLAND 
 
 HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1880, 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION ON THE TWENTY- 
 
 FIFTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1780, TOGETHER WITH THE 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AT THE STATE HOUSE AND AT 
 
 THE CITY HALL ON THE SAME DAY. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 THE SOCIETY'S HOUSE, 18 SOMERSET STREET. 
 
 M. DCCC. LXXX. 
 

 
PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 At the regular monthly meetmg of the Society on the 
 6th of October, the subject of commemorating the cen- 
 tennial anniversary of the organization of the government 
 of Massachusetts under the constitution was brought for 
 ward by Mr. William W. Wheildon, and on motion of the 
 Rev. Mr. Slafter was referred to the Board of Directors 
 with full authority to take such measures as they should 
 think expedient. 
 
 At a special meeting of the Board of Directors, held on 
 the 8th of October, on motion of the Hon. Thomas C. 
 Amory, the following resolution was passed : — 
 
 Whereas, The centennial commemoration of the organization of 
 the government under the Constitution of Massachusetts has been re- 
 ferred to this Board by the Society, 
 
 Resolved, That, in our judgment, some observance of the 25th of 
 the present month would be appropriate in memory of this important 
 event, which took place on the twenty-fifth day of October, 1780. 
 
 A committee, consisting of the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, 
 Mr. William W. Wheildon, and the Hon. Nathaniel F. 
 Safford, was appointed to present this resolution to his 
 Excellency John D. Long, Governor of Massachusetts, 
 with such considerations as they may think proper in its 
 behalf. 
 
6 
 
 It was voted, on motion of Mr. John Ward Dean, that 
 a special meeting of the Society be held on the twentj'^- 
 fifth day of October, 1880, to commemorate the one hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the organization of the government 
 of Massachusetts under the constitution of 1780, and that 
 Messrs. Wheildon, Amory, and Safford, be requested to 
 read papers before the Society on that occasion. 
 
 At a subsequent meeting of the Directors, Mr. Wheildon 
 reported for the committee that the governor would issue 
 a proclamation, institute a brief commemorative service, 
 have flags displayed on the State House, and a salute of 
 a hundred guns on the Common ; and that the Mayor of 
 Boston would order the Old State House, in which the 
 government was organized in 1780, to be properly deco- 
 rated on the 25th inst. in memory of that event. 
 
 The Society met, agreeably to the call of the Directors, 
 on Monday, the 25th of October, at its House, 18 Somer- 
 set Street, Boston, a century having on that day been 
 completed since the organization of the government of 
 Massachusetts under the constitution in 1780. 
 
 The Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, Ph.D., the president of 
 the Society, opened the proceedings in the following 
 words : — 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — In the absence of a more 
 elaborate and general celebration of the one hundredth 
 anniversary of the establishment of our State Government, 
 it has been thought advisable that this Society should take 
 cognizance of it, that a record of it might appear in our 
 proceedings, and tiius afford an example for its observance 
 when another century shall have closed. 
 
 Most heartily do we respond to the recommendations 
 of his Excellency Governor Long, in the memorable 
 words of his proclamation in regard to this day ; and most 
 devoutly would I join in the thanksgivings to the God 
 of nations which have just been offered at the capitol by 
 our venerable patriarch. Dr. Hopkins, for the manifold 
 
mercies which he has bestowed on the American Republic, 
 and especially for the signal favors conferred on this Com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 When I reflect on what Massachusetts has done for the 
 cause of education, science, commerce, manufactures, civil 
 and religious freedom, and every thing that pertains to 
 the highest civilization of her people and the welfare of 
 the human race, my heart rises in gratitude to my heav- 
 enly Father, that he permitted me to be born close on her 
 borders, under the shadow of her blessed institutions, — 
 here for a long course of years to enjoy the rich blessings 
 which have flowed from a wise and beneficent administra- 
 tion of her government, and the principles on which it is 
 founded, — and here at last, I trust, to rest in the bosom 
 of a soil consecrated by the blood, piety, and patriotism 
 of her sons, to the cause of liberty and the rights of 
 man. 
 
 The observance of this anniversary we owe not only to 
 the present generation, but to those which are to follow 
 us, in memory of the fathers who laid the foundation 
 of our government, that their examples of wisdom and 
 philanthropy may be perpetuated through all coming 
 time. 
 
 The president then read the following letter from the 
 Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, LL.D., president of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society : — 
 
 New York, 23d Oct., 1880. 
 
 My dear Mr. Wildkr, — Few things would have given me more 
 pleasure than to unite with the governor and council on Monday next, 
 and afterwards with you and the New England Historic Genealogical 
 Society, in commemorating the centennial anniversary of the organi- 
 zation of our State Government. 
 
 Next to John Adams no one had a greater part in framing tlie con- 
 stitution of Massachusetts tlian James Bowdoin, under whose name, 
 as president of the convention, it was submitted to the people for 
 ratification. As the oldest of his living descendants, I should have 
 felt proud to be present on sucli an occasion. But, as a delegate to 
 
8 
 
 our Triennial Church Convention, I am bound to remain here until the 
 27th inst. Accept my best thanks, and believe me, vfith gieat re- 
 gards, Your obliged friend, 
 
 Robert C. Winthrop. 
 Hon. M. P. Wilder, President. 
 
 Messrs. Wheildou, Amoiy, and Safford, having been 
 announced by the president, read memorial papers on the 
 subject suggested by the day. 
 
PAPER BY MR. WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New Eng- 
 land Historic Genealogical Society, — The adop- 
 tion of a State constitution in this Commonwealth, and 
 the inauguration of a free and independent government 
 of the people in " the territory formerly called the Prov- 
 ince of Massachusetts Bay," on the twenty-fifth day of 
 October, 1780, was a very important event in its history, 
 and was so regarded at the time. The act was accom- 
 plished at the end of a hundred and fifty years from its 
 settlement, and may very properly be regarded as an 
 achievement in the great Puritan enterprise of settling 
 New England, resulting in the establishment of an in- 
 dependent civil government of the people, and the full 
 enjoyment of religious freedom. 
 
 purpose of the settlement. 
 
 The settlement of Massachusetts, however we may 
 regard it, and whether that at Plymouth be included or 
 not, was a marvellous undertaking, and from the begin- 
 ning has yielded and been productive of most important 
 and interesting results. The purposes and objects of the 
 settlement, which, naturally enough, may have been vari- 
 ous with the parties, were of a very decided character, and 
 iti is certain that the most prominent of these, in the minds 
 of the actual settlers, was religious freedom, — the liberty 
 and the right to worship God in their own way, and ac- 
 cording to their understanding of the Scriptures. 
 
 There were some, however, not in the Massachusetts 
 settlement, who did not come over with any such purpose 
 as that avowed by the Puritans, which may be illustrated 
 by a relation of Cotton Mather. He says, " I have heard 
 that one of our ministers, once preaching to a congregation 
 at the eastward, urged them to approve themselves a re- 
 ligious people from this consideration : That otherwise 
 
10 
 
 they would contradict the main end of planting this wil- 
 derness. Whereupon a well-known person then in the 
 assembly cried out, ' Sir, you are mistaken. You think 
 you are preaching to the people at the Bay ; our main end 
 was to catch fish.' " It is very likely, as has been said, 
 that the reports of tliose who did come to these shores for 
 the purpose of catching fish had some influence in direct- 
 ing and perhaps advancing the settlements, but they had 
 no intention of making a settlement. But neither with 
 the Pilgrims nor the Puritans did such considerations 
 have any weight : the Pilgrims came as pilgrims, and the 
 Puritans as puritans, and neither, it may certainly be said, 
 with any secular or speculative purpose. 
 
 NON-CONFORMISTS. 
 
 In looking into the past for the primary cause of this 
 movement on their part, it must be directly traced to the 
 Reformation in England, when the non-conformists as- 
 sumed a position and adopted an organization of their 
 own outside the Church of England. Finding the Refor- 
 mation laboring under a sort of "hopeless r'etardation," 
 as expressed in the " Magnalia," they did, in 1602, enter 
 into a covenant, " wherein expressing themselves desirous 
 of attending worship with a freedom from human inven- 
 tions and additions, . . • gave themselves up first unto 
 God, and then to one another." Finding their brethren in 
 the Church of England, as then established by law, took 
 offence at these their endeavors after a scriptural reforma- 
 tion, and being loath to live in the continual vexations 
 which they felt arising from their non-conformity, they 
 peaceably and willingly embraced a banishment into the 
 Netherlands, where they settled at the city of Leydjen, 
 about seven or eight years after the first combination. 
 These were the Pilgrims, who afterwards, in 1620, left 
 Holland, and landed at Plymouth, where, after many hard- 
 ships of climate, weather, want of food, encountering the 
 savages, accidents, and some wrongs and disagreements 
 among themselves, they triumphed over all obstacles and 
 
11 
 
 difficulties, and established "Congregational churches," 
 according to their own faith and convictions, which they 
 could not have done had they remained in England. 
 
 PILGRIMS AND PURITANS. 
 
 Thus, it will be seen, the removal of the Pilgrims to 
 Holland was a direct consequence of the Reformation in 
 England; and, becoming discontented there, "to avoid con- 
 tinual vexations," and be allowed to worship God accord- 
 ing to their own convictions, they voluntarily came to 
 New England. They were not persecuted, not martyrs, 
 not banished, but Pilgrims ; voluntary exiles from their 
 native land, that they might enjoy their religious faith and 
 worship God in their own way without the formalities of 
 the Church. Not so the settlement of Massachusetts by 
 the Puritans. In this case "it was persecution," as Cotton 
 Mather says in the most emphatic manner; and yet, in 
 laying this charge to the Church of England, which had 
 simply displaced the Church of Rome, he says, " limiting 
 that name unto a certain faction, . . . for, though their 
 mother had been so harsh to them as to turn them out of 
 doors, yet they highly honored her, believing that it was 
 not so much their mother, but some of their angry breth- 
 ren." Nevertheless, there can be no doubt it was the 
 persecution of the Church of England, however it may 
 have been influenced by members or authority, that com- 
 pelled the Puritans, if they would enjoy the religion they 
 professed and believed, to leavB the country, even for the 
 wilderness which was open to them. To forward this 
 purpose, it is said, with the peculiar fervor of the Puritan, 
 " the God of heaven served, as it were, a summons upon 
 the spirits of his people in the English nation, stirring up 
 the spirits of thousands, which never saw the faces of 
 each other, with a most unanimous inclination to leave all 
 the pleasant accommodations of their native countr}^ and 
 go over a terrible ocean into a more terrible desert, for 
 the pure enjoj'ment of all his ordinances." 
 
12 
 
 UNDER THE FIRST CHARTER. 
 
 By the first charter obtained by the company it was a 
 kind of corporation, and its members were allowed the 
 privilege of electing their own governor, and invested 
 with authority to govern and to punish offences. This 
 charter was continued through the early years of the col- 
 ony, from 1630 to 1684, more than half a century, when 
 it was finally annulled, and all the rights supposed to 
 have been gained and held under it were called in ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Sir Edmund Andros arrived in Boston in December, 
 1686, with a commission from the king as governor of 
 all the New England colonies, to which, two years later, 
 New York was added. Not only by this act were the 
 powers and privileges of the people of the colony reduced 
 and lessened, but they were, in fact, when the work of 
 government assumed a practical form, deprived of much of 
 their interest, and all their influence in its administration. 
 
 At this time, in fact, the colony was in its direst tribu- 
 lations. The substantiality of their patent, by which they 
 held the country, and even the papers, where they had 
 obtained any, by which they held their house-lots and 
 homesteads, were called in question. It seemed as if they 
 were to be rendered almost penniless by taxation, over 
 which they had no control, and homeless by claims which 
 they could neither meet nor satisfy. They were absolute- 
 ly preyed upon by the governor and his tools. " The 
 brutish things done by these wild beasts of the earth," as 
 Mather calls them, " are too many to be related." Among 
 other things, Andros made a law prohibiting town meet- 
 ings excepting once a year. The good thing the king did 
 at this time, needed to help forward the great end which 
 the colony seemed designed to effect, — civil and religious 
 freedom, — was the " Declaration of Indulgence," by which 
 there was to be universal toleration in matters of religion, 
 which called forth a day of thanksgiving in Boston. 
 
13 
 
 COLONIAL REVOLUTION. 
 
 The result of this condition of things which prevailed 
 was the first colonial revolution, which, as if monitory of 
 the Revolution which occurred nearly a hundred years 
 later, was mostl}^ enacted on the 19th of April, 1689, and 
 resulted in the imprisonment of the royal governor and 
 some of the leading men of his condemned administration. 
 The people for a while managed their own government, 
 observing, as far as might be, some of the forms j)rescribed 
 in the original charter of the colony. 
 
 THE SECOND CHARTER. 
 
 The second charter of 1692, which followed, continued 
 in force until the meetirg of the Provincial Congress, and 
 was the last under which the colony was governed by the 
 officers appointed by the king. It deprived the people of 
 many important rights and privileges which they had pre- 
 viously enjoyed, principally that of electing their own 
 governor and council. This, together with the laws of 
 Parliament and the attempt to tax the people exclusively 
 for the benefit of the home government, brought about 
 the second Revolution, which resulted in the independence 
 of the country, the union of the colonies, and the estab- 
 lishment of a government of the people, by the people and 
 for the people. 
 
 PROVINCIAL CONGRESS AND THE COUNCIL. 
 The government of Massachusetts was partially assumed 
 by the people on the organization of the Provincial Con- 
 gress, in October, 1774, and still more effectually, with a 
 General Court, expressly elected for the purpose, in July, 
 1775, — the council, elected by the General Court, officiat- 
 ing as the executive, in the absence of a governor and 
 lieutenant-governor, as provided for in the charter of 
 1692. This government, acting independently of king or 
 Parliament, and chosen by the people, continued until the 
 adoption of the State constitution, in 1780. The council 
 
14 
 
 consisted of twent3-eight members, and fifteen signatures 
 were necessary to make legal every act of the General 
 Court. 
 
 THE SECOND REYOLUTIOX, 
 
 however, was of an entirely different nature and character 
 from that which occurred something less than a hundred 
 years before, when the colony was in its infancy. It was 
 not simply dissatisfaction with the local government of 
 the colony, but against the laws and measures of the king, 
 the ministry, and the Parliament of England ; and before 
 its termination the Continental Congress declared the in- 
 dependence of the colonies, and the colony of Massachu- 
 setts assumed its own government, adopted a constitution, 
 and elected its own governor and general assembly. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION". 
 
 The interest and importance of this anniversary and 
 the occasion it commemorates can hardly be exceeded by 
 any that have preceded. In the midst of a war between 
 the colonies and the mother country, commenced a few 
 years before for the avowed purpose of punishing the Bos- 
 tonians, the people, having driven the enemy out of the 
 country, both array and navy, determined to assume the 
 rights and duties of their own government, • and establish 
 a constitution for all time. It was a bold, spirited, and 
 patriotic act of the people, and their first declaration^ was, 
 
 "ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL." 
 
 They assert, after what they had experienced under an 
 assumed despotic power and a government not of the peo- 
 ple, that " the body-politic is formed by a voluntary asso- 
 ciation of individuals, ... by which the whole people 
 covenants with .each citizen, and each citizen wath the 
 whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws 
 for the common good, and that the idea of a man born a 
 magistrate, lawgiver, or judge, is absurd and unnatural." 
 All men are endowed " with the right of enjoying and de- 
 feading their lives and liberties, of acquiring, possessing, 
 
15 
 
 and protecting property, and of seeking and obtaining 
 their safety and hap[)iness." They went even further than 
 this, declaring that no man or association of men shall 
 have any "peculiar and exclusive j)rivileges distinct from 
 those of the community." " The joeople of this Common- 
 wealth have the sole and exclusive rioht of o-overnine; 
 themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State." 
 "Government is instituted for the common good, for the 
 protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people, 
 and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any 
 man or class of men. Therefore the people alone have an 
 incontestable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to insti- 
 tute government, and to reform, alter, or totally change 
 the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and 
 happiness, require it." These were bold declarations. 
 
 Such principles as these were new to the world until 
 proclaimed in this country, more or less formally, in the 
 acts and proceedings of the people, and finally by the 
 Declaration of Independence, four years before the Massa- 
 chusetts constitution. ' 
 
 The clause in the bill of rights declaring the right ot 
 the people "• to reform, alter, or totally change their gov- 
 ernment when their protection, safety, prosperity, and 
 happiness require it," met their own case, and described 
 the condition of the people prior to the Revolution. For 
 a hundred and fifty years the people of the colony had 
 been the subjects of " His Majesty the King of England," 
 "whoever or wliatever the King of England might happen 
 to be ; and it may be said they had no rights of their own 
 by nature, and were only permitted to enjoy such as " his 
 Majesty " might be disposed to grant them. If not slaves 
 in the full sense of that term, they were the servants of 
 his will, living under his grant, and subsisting, as it were, 
 by virtue of his indulgence. 
 
 JOHN HANCOCK, GOVERNOR. 
 
 The second Revolution, as we have seen, put an end to 
 this state of things, and the last governor, who had sus- 
 
16 
 
 tained himself for a while by his military power alone, had 
 to leave the country, and was succeeded by the man whom 
 he had attempted to disgrace. John Hancock, the first 
 Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, escorted 
 the last British governor of the colony from Long Wharf 
 to the Old State House, in May, 1774, and was soon after, 
 on the 1st of August, dismissed from his command, the 
 governor no longer having occasion for his services. On 
 the 11th of October following, this dismissed officer was 
 elected President of the Provincial Congress, and in May, 
 1775, a year after the arrival of Gen. Gage, he was pro- 
 moted still higher, and was elected President of the Con- 
 tinental Congress, at Philadelphia; and, finally, on the 
 25th of October, 1780, six years after the arrival of Gen. 
 Gage in Boston, he was elected Governor of the Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts by the people, under the new 
 constitution of the State. Thus did the people revenge 
 the treatment of this sterling patriot by Gen. Gage, and 
 at the same time showed their appreciation of his patri- 
 otic services in their behalf, by placing him at the head 
 of a free and independent government of the State just a 
 hundred years ago this day. 
 
 This, Mr, President, is the day and the occasion which 
 we have met here to commemorate : the foundation of 
 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through the tribu- 
 lations of the first charter and the persecutions which fol- 
 lowed persecutions under it, leading to its revocation; 
 through the first colonial revolution, and the burdens of 
 the second charter, up to the time of Gen. Gage, the Pro- 
 vincial Congress then assuming the powers of government 
 in the presence of a British governor and a British army ; 
 then the temporary government, advised by the Continental 
 Congress, until, finally, the adoption of a State constitu- 
 tion in place of a British charter, and the establishment 
 of an independent government. If there ever was a com- 
 munity or State, as far as the principles of a free and inde- 
 pendent government and the rights of the people to 
 worship God according to their understanding of the 
 
17 
 
 Scriptures are concerned, that may be said to be founded 
 upon a rock, that State is Massachusetts. Massachusetts 
 Bay was settled upon the basis of the Christian religion, 
 with a strong and abiding faith in God, the Son of God, 
 and the holiness of the Bible. This spirit was the mov- 
 ing and the ruling power, and it may almost be said the 
 actual settlers knew no other ; they certainly regarded no 
 other as superior to it. Their religious belief was at all 
 times paramount, whether in the Church or the State ; and, 
 whatever criticisms are to be made upon them or their 
 conduct, the errors they committed may be traced to their 
 zeal in the cause which they professed, and which at all 
 times controlled them. And surely it may be added that 
 whatever interruj)tions, delays, or drawbacks, have occurred 
 in history, here or elsewhere, must be considered as inci- 
 dental to the undertaking, or, as Hutchinson expresses it, 
 resulting from the fallibilities and infirmities of human, 
 nature. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The great purpose of the Puritans, for which they had 
 left their homes and sacrificed every thing else, was ac- 
 complished even beyond their expectations. The recog- 
 nized law that a sect once persecuted is sure to become in 
 its turn persecutors, came into full force, and the persecu- 
 tion of different sects by the Puritans themselves was 
 more severe and reckless than any thing which they had 
 experienced, extending not merely to fines and corporal 
 punishment, but to maiming of the body and the taking 
 life. The result was the interference of the king, strange 
 to say, in favor of religious freedom against the Puritans, 
 and the final annulment of the charter of the colony. 
 Thus, persecution brought about the settlement of the 
 country, and secured for all time religious liberty and 
 universal toleration. 
 
 The temporary despotism which followed the revocation 
 of the charter was overthrown by its subjects, and the 
 revolution gave place to the second charter, which was 
 distinguished by its restrictions and usurpations of the 
 
18 
 
 civil rights of the people, so that persecution was now 
 undertaken by the government against the rights of man, 
 political freedom, and personal independence. The ex- 
 cesses of the government and the attempt to tax and 
 enslave the people, resulted, as in the former case, in a 
 denial of the claim, a complete revolution, the establish- 
 ment of an independent constitution, and a free govern- 
 ment of the people. 
 
 So that, it is true to say, religious persecution brought 
 about religious freedom, and political persecution brought 
 about civil freedom, until both were secured to the people 
 of this CommouM^ealth by the constitution of 1780. 
 
 Note. — Tn the brief discussion -which followed the introduction of 
 the subject at the meeting of the Society, on the 6th of October, the 
 inquiry was made whether Massachusetts was the earliest of the 
 colonies in the adoption of a State constitution, after the Declaration 
 of Independence, and while the war continued. In answer to the 
 inquiry, it may be stated, that Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, 
 and New Jersey, each adopted State constitutions in 1776, which 
 were subsequently essentially remodelled ; and in all of them it was 
 provided that the governor of the State should be chosen by the gen- 
 eral assembly or legislature, and not by the people. In the Constitu- 
 tion of Massachusetts, adopted four years later, it was provided that 
 the governor and lieutenant-governor should be chosen by the popular 
 vote; and this provision now prevails in most, if not all, the States 
 of the Union. In the other States, comprising the original thirteen, 
 the constitution of each was adopted as follows: New York, revised 
 and amended, 1801; Pennsylvania, September, 1790; New Hampshire, 
 1792; Vermont, 1793; Rhode Island, under its charter until 1818, gov- 
 ernor elected by the people, constitution adopted, 1843; Connecticut, 
 charter of 166"2, until constitution in 1818; Delaware, revised and 
 amended, June, 1792; South Carolina, June, 1790; Georgia, revised 
 1798; so that it is probably true to say that the fii-st complete free and 
 independent State constitution, election of governor and other State 
 officers by the people, was that of Massachusetts, in 1780, and even 
 this has undergone revision and amendment. The early constitutions, 
 wherever adopted, were sure to be imperfect and incomplete, from the 
 very nature of things. A free government of a people and for a people, 
 all having equal rights and privileges, was literally "something new 
 under the sun," and, as we have .-een, required consideration, wisdom, 
 and experience, to make it as complete and perfect as it is at the 
 present day. 
 
19 
 
 PAPER BY MR. THOMAS C. AMORY. 
 
 The centennial commemoration of our national nativity 
 the last six years has been principally occupied with the 
 campaigns and engagements of the Revolution, which led 
 to independence. The ancient proverb, which has attained 
 also the dignity of a legal maxim, that inter arma silent 
 leges^ applied Avith less force to our revolt against the 
 mother country than to much of the more regular warfare 
 waged between long-established nationalities. Its leaders, 
 statesmen and lawyers, and accomplished officers who 
 commanded in the field, well knew for what they were 
 risking their lives in battle or on the scaffold. Success 
 depended in a great measure upon conciliating the good 
 opinion of the world at large, as well as upon what might 
 be thought of them at home. They consequently took 
 good care to compel respect, not only by the justice of 
 their cause and their honesty of purpose, but by a scrupu- 
 lous regard to law, in sj)irit and in form, in their military 
 operations and their civil administration. The pulpit and 
 the press instructed all the educated classes up to the 
 importance of the crisis. The principles involved in the 
 struggle were constantly discussed. Algernon Sydney's 
 book on government, and similar works, Avere their favorite 
 study. The literature of the war exhibits throughout a 
 profound knowledge of what liberty signifies, and teems 
 with the many ancient historical precedents to incite and 
 justif}^ their efforts to escape from the intolerable political 
 servitude to which they were subjected. 
 
 Nor had the intelligent farmers and artisans who fought 
 the battles of the war much to learn on the subject of 
 government. From the memorable compact in the cabin 
 of " The Mayflower ; " from the generous charter of 
 Massachusetts Bay, unconsciously granted by the first 
 Charles, to be wrested away by the second in 1684 ; 
 under the provincial charter of 1692, which reduced the 
 
20 
 
 colony to more complete subjection to the Crown, down to 
 the arbitrary measures which at last aroused resistance, 
 the inhabitants of our own as well as of the sister colonies 
 had had frequent occasion to experience the full bitterness 
 of oppression. Monarch and ministers, rejjresenting a few 
 haughty oligarchs, not the great body of the English 
 people, had violated without consideration their riglits as 
 British subjects, disregarded their chartered privileges, 
 interfered with their trade, foreign and domestic, and 
 treated with contumely remonstrance and complaint. 
 These grievances festered into implacable resentment 
 what remained of loyalty ; and when the arbitrament of 
 arms could no longer be avoided, the whole American 
 people, with a few exceptions among the opulent, sprang 
 up, like the seed of Cadmus, armed men, to fight for their 
 liberties. 
 
 The organization of the army besieging Boston under 
 general officers appointed by the Continental Congress in 
 June, 1775, committed the sister colonies to the defence of 
 the common cause. At Watertown, behind the lines, the 
 Provincial Congress, having no pretension to be regarded as 
 a duly constituted body, competent to legislate, dissolved, 
 and on the 19th of July the General Court re-organized 
 under the provincial charter ; the powers of the Execu- 
 tive, in the absence of a governor, vesting, as therein pro- 
 vided, in the majority of the council. One consideration 
 which prompted this course was to legalize the exercise of 
 authority ; and, moreover, wisdom counselled not to lose 
 any advantage that might be of value in case of reverse 
 from that instrument, should it remain in its full vitality. 
 They had not then thrown off their allegiance, or relin- 
 quished the hope that b}^ their strength and bold vindica- 
 tion of their rights they might obtain from the prudence 
 of the British Government what its sense of justice and 
 magnanimity denied. Many among the ablest of English 
 statesmen were ready to admit that Parliament, in which 
 they were not represented, had no right to tax the colo- 
 nies. That coercion and illegal exercise of power justified 
 
21 
 
 resistance was the cardinal principle of English liberty, 
 from Magna Charta to the Bill of Rights. That conces- 
 sions would be made, and their connection with their fel- 
 low-countrymen across the sea be maintained, was for a 
 time an expectation. But they were not long deceived, 
 and no redress or immunity offered but in separation, that 
 became their aim and object. 
 
 The British, in March, 1776, were driven out of Boston, 
 and in May, some weeks before the declaration of inde- 
 pendence at Philadelphia, the General Court passed the 
 Style Bill, as it was termed, which renounced, so far as 
 Massachusetts was concerned, all allegiance to the Crown. 
 It was drawn up by James Sullivan, then at the age of 
 thirty-two judge of the Supreme Court. It recited in 
 brief the grievances which had compelled the people to 
 have recourse to arms, and ordered that after the first of 
 June, all legal process, administrative acts and commis- 
 sions, civil and military, should be no longer in the name 
 of the king, but of the government and people of the 
 Massachusetts Bay in New England. 
 
 In a letter alluding to this bill, Sullivan writes as 
 follows to John Adams: — 
 
 "Taking it for granted such is the celerity of the American world 
 to independence, and so obvious the decrees of Heaven for that grand 
 event, that the sluggish motions of the irresolute and the weak and 
 scandalous efforts of the tyrant are alike unable to prevent it, the 
 important question is. What shall be done by this colony? Shall we 
 urge you to an acceleration of the wheels of fate, and force you to 
 translate us into an independent world immediately? Or shall we 
 only assure you that we are ripe for the measure, and are in danger of 
 being rotten before the proprietary governments are ripe ? There are 
 many among us who dread the change, as good men do their natural 
 dissolution, perfectly pleased with the idea of an hereafter, but stand 
 trembling on the brink, and fear to launch away. But none are there 
 who do not heartily engage to support the measure if Congress should 
 pursue it. 
 
 "We are daily altering our old, unmeaning form of government, as 
 you may learn by the Style Bill, a history of which I sent Mr. Gerry; 
 and I hope we shall attend to it when the defence of our coimtry caUs 
 not our attention another way, until it is made a basis of liberty, and 
 
22 
 
 not a path to vassalage and lawless domination. Some are writing to 
 Congress for leave to assume a new form of government, but my mind 
 is otherwise. I think it would be attended with the greatest anarchy, 
 as it would leave the people for a time without any rulers; and to be 
 free on the subject, I have many doubts whether the Congress has or 
 ought to have power to regulate the national police of the different 
 colonies, their business being, in my opinion, only to regulate the 
 matters between government and government, for which particular 
 assemblies are incompetent. I am, therefore, for attending to this 
 matter ourselves, and for altering our constitution, piece by piece, in 
 a manner the least alarming to our sister colonies, until we shall 
 reduce it to true republican principles." 
 
 That same month Congress recommended to the States 
 that the exercise of every kind of authority under the 
 Crown should be "suppressed. New Hampshire the pre- 
 vious year had changed its colonial forms for republican, 
 and the other States, except Rhode Island and South 
 Carolina, proceeded to organize governments. Our Gen- 
 eral Court, without delay, appointed a committee to con- 
 sider the matter ; but the opinion prevailing that any such 
 action should originate with the people themselves, they 
 were recommended to send deputies the following year, 
 empowered to adopt a form of government. In February, 
 1777, before the General Court assembled, the committees 
 of safety met at Worcester, and voted that an express 
 convention of delegates ought to be called to frame a con- 
 stitution. The deputies, however, when the court assem- 
 bled, came with the proposed powers, and it was too late 
 to recede. A draft was accordingly prepared by a com- 
 mittee, and approved in December, 1777, by the court ; 
 but wlien submitted on the following fourth of March to 
 the people, it was rejected by a vote of one to six, one 
 hundred and twenty of the towns making no returns. 
 Its defects were manifold. It contained no bill of rights, 
 enunciated no great principles. The powers and duties of 
 the legislators and rulers were not defined, and it was in 
 many other respects objectionable. The press strenuously 
 opposed its adoption, and a pamphlet reporting the pro- 
 ceedings of a convention at Ipswich to consider its insuffi- 
 
* 23 
 
 ciency, called the " Ipswich Result," was thought also to 
 have influenced its rejection. 
 
 A year later the General Court, in February, 1779, not 
 discouraged by the ill success which had attended their 
 first effort, submitted to the people the question whether 
 they would empower the next General Court, to assemble 
 in May, to call a convention to form a constitution. The 
 response being in the affirmative, a convention met at 
 Cambridge on Wednesday, the first of September, over 
 which James Bowdoin presided, and of which Samuel 
 Barrett was secretary. Three hundred is the largest num- 
 ber of members noted as present at any one time. They 
 consisted of the ablest men of the State, of which Maine 
 then formed a part. Rules and orders were prepared and 
 adopted. The preparation of a declaration of rights and 
 frame of government was voted to be intrusted to a com- 
 mittee consisting of four members chosen at large, and 
 twentj^-seven apportioned to the fourteen several counties, 
 according to their representation in tlie General Court, 
 to be nominated by their respective county delegations. 
 
 The names of that committee, most of them illustrious 
 in our annals for their wisdom, ability, and distinguished 
 services, and equally memorable for their patriotism and 
 self-sacrifice, their uprightness and general elevation of 
 character, for they were as good as they were great, de- 
 serve this day to be especially remejnbered with grateful 
 veneration. 
 
 Samuel Adams, John Pickering, Caleb Strong, and Wil- 
 liam Gushing were chosen at large; James Bowdoin, John 
 Adams, and John Lowell, for Suffolk ; Theophilus Parsons, 
 Jonathan Jackson, and Samuel Phillips, for Essex; James 
 Sullivan, Nathaniel Gorham, Eleazer Brooks, for Middle- 
 sex ; Noah Goodman, Hezekiah Smith, John Billing, from 
 Hampshire ; John Cotton and Gad Hitchcock for Plym- 
 outh ; Enoch Hallet for Barnstable ; Robert Treat Paine 
 and Samuel West for Bristol; Benjamin Chadbourne and 
 David Sewall from York; Jeclediah Foster, Joseph Dorr, 
 John Nichols, from Worcester; Samuel Small from Cum- 
 
24 • 
 
 berland ; Benjamin Brainard from Lincoln ; James Harris 
 and William Walker from Berkshire. 
 
 There were many members possibly as distinguished not 
 on the committee ; and the roll of the convention can 
 hardly be read to-day by any of us without recalling num- 
 berless careers too useful and honored to be forgotten. 
 
 After a week spent in organizing the convention, it 
 adjourned, on the 7th, for seven weeks, to Oct. 28th, to 
 give time for the committee to perfect its work. The com- 
 mittee met on Monday, Sept. 1-3, at the new court-house 
 in Boston, and appointed James Bowdoin, John Adams, 
 and Samuel Adams, as the sub-committee to draw up the 
 plan of a constitution, and afterwards John Adams alone 
 to prepare a bill of rights. Mr. John Adams, who had 
 returned from Europe shortly before the meeting of the 
 convention, and who sailed again on his return thither as 
 minister to negotiate treaties of commerce, on the 17th of 
 November, prepared according to tradition, the first draft 
 of both instruments. 
 
 " More than any other man, perhaps, in America, he had devoted 
 himself to the study of the different theories of government. His 
 early writings had done much to shape public opinion, and he was nat- 
 urally regarded as the most safe and efficient leader in this important 
 labor. While always loyal to liberty, and never hesitating in his faith 
 in republican government as the best, — though that best must in some 
 respects be imperfect, — his principal aim was to constitute a govern- 
 ment of laws, not of men; and making the duly expressed popular 
 will the rule of what should be deemed wise and expedient, various 
 checks and restraints were introduced into his plan, to guard against 
 the natural infirmities to which that will is subject in its periods of 
 excitement. ' ' ^ 
 
 His associates on the sub-committee helped to shape 
 the report, and, when submitted to the general committee, 
 it was for several weeks under discussion before it was 
 reported on the 28th of October, 1779, to the convention. 
 The convention sat at Cambridge till the 12th of Novem- 
 ber, and then adjourned to meet in the Representatives' 
 Chamber in Boston on the 5th of January. Heavy snows 
 
 1 Life of James Sullivan, vol. i. p. 107. 
 
25 
 
 impeded travel, and for a time but few were in attendance. 
 When, towards the middle of the month, sixty were at 
 last present, the work was taken up and diligently prose- 
 cuted. No report of the debates has been preserved, and 
 the skeleton minutes of the secretary shed little light. 
 The draft reported to the convention in October was 
 variously amended and extended, but in essentials was 
 little changed. The most protracted discussion was on 
 the third article of tlie declaration of rights for the sup- 
 port of the churches. 
 
 As their deliberations were approaching an end, a com- 
 mittee of five, nominated by the House, of which Judge 
 Sullivan was chairman, and Mr. Sara Adams, John Lowell, 
 West, and Gray were members, was charged with the' draft 
 of an address to the people to be printed with the con-- 
 stitution, that it might be better understood. Mr. Wells, 
 in his memoir, claims the authorship of this address for 
 Mr. Adams; but Dr. Eliot, the general biographer of the 
 cotemporary leaders, states that it was composed jointly, 
 by Adams and Sullivan. The duty, according to custom, 
 devolved upon the chairman to draw the report, but both. 
 may have done their part. Such co-operation was not rare 
 at that day when they measured their words. The princi- 
 pal part in preparing the frame of government andi 
 declaration of rights is also claimed for Mr. Sam Adams. 
 This seems an injustice to his great memory. It needs no 
 borrowed plumage. To no single Lycurgus or Solon is 
 Massachusetts indebted for its excellent constitution. 
 There were many at work. Lowell, whose amendment of 
 the first article, that all men are born free and equal, has 
 been claimed as abolishing hereditary bondage ; Sullivan, 
 whom a writer in "• The Evening Post " in 1782 states to 
 have had a considerable share in forming the constitu- 
 tion ; Paine and Pickering, Gushing and Parsons, who, as 
 Caleb Strong tells us in 1819, took an active part, were 
 not all who helped in the work. 
 
 The declaration of rights was happily no original com- 
 position. It embodied the political teaching of ages. 
 
26 
 
 Part as old as Runiiymede, part in the bill of rights of 
 1689 settling the crown on William and Mary, part the 
 suggestion of recent experience, it enlarged and improved 
 upon the declaration of Virginia in May, 1776, and may 
 be found piecemeal all through the disputes with Parlia- 
 ment, in speeches, essays, and correspondence, for the 
 twenty years before. 
 
 The frame of government differs but little in form or 
 in its main features from that rejected in 1778, some few 
 portions of which were incorporated, word for word, in 
 the report of the committee to the convention, and in the 
 matured drafts submitted in May, 1780, to the popular 
 vote. Both drew largely from the previous systems under 
 the colonial and provincial charters, which were familiar. 
 John Adams has been generally believed to have drawn 
 up the first report to the general committee of both 
 instruments, and the fifth chapter on the encouragement 
 of art and literature and the general distribution of 
 powers, is stated to have been his exclusive charge. 
 
 On the second of March the convention, having com- 
 pleted their work, voted to submit it to the people for 
 their approval and ratification. The citizens of the several 
 towns were invited to adopt it absolutely, or conditionally 
 if amended, or to reject the whole or any part, — one or all 
 of the thirty articles of the declaration of rights or sixty- 
 nine of the frame of government, of which they severally 
 consisted, one hundred in all being the original number 
 If the majority in any town should disapprove of any 
 clause, they were requested to express their objections. 
 It was provided that if two-thirds of the votes cast 
 throughout the Commonwealth should be in favor of all 
 parts of the instrument, it was to be considered adopted. 
 The several towns were also requested to empower their 
 delegates to modify what should be disapproved, to con- 
 form to the general sense of the people. Eighteen hun- 
 dred copies of the proposed constitution were distributed 
 to the selectmen, who were enjoined to submit it to the 
 voters of tiieir towns, in May, ai)d make return of the 
 
27 
 
 result before the last Wednesday of that month or 
 the first Wednesday in June, to which time the conven- 
 tion then adjourned. 
 
 Upon examination of the returns in June from a 
 hundred and seventy-four towns, it was found that objec- 
 tion had been made to several clauses : to the third article 
 of the declaration of rights, providing for support of the 
 churches by general taxation ; to the sixteenth, j)roviding 
 trial by jury in all civil suits, except for causes arising on 
 the high seas, or mariners' wages; to art. 7, sect. 1, chap. 
 2, of the frame of government that the Senate should 
 choose its own president, appoint its own officers, and 
 determine its own rules of proceedings; to art. 7, chap 6, 
 to the honorary title of governor, lieutenant-governor, 
 and council. The objections to the whole, or to any spe- 
 cial clause, were not sufficiently numerous to affect the 
 two-thirds vote required for adoption, and on the fifteenth 
 of June, every article being read separately, and the ques- 
 tion put if the people had accepted it, the vote in each 
 case was largely in the affirmative. It was then moved 
 and seconded that the people of the State of Massachu- 
 setts Bay had accepted the constitution as it stands in the 
 printed form submitted to their revision by the resolves of 
 the second of March last, and this also passed by a large 
 majority. 
 
 On the following day it was resolved that the first Gen- 
 eral Court should be held on the last Wednesday of 
 October, and that town meetings should be called through- 
 out the State on the first Monday in September, to choose 
 a governor, lieutenant-governor, and persons for councillors 
 and senators ; and in October, ten days at least before the 
 last Wednesday, representatives to serve in the said Gen 
 eral Court. James Bowdoin, president of the convention. 
 Judge Greenleaf, General Davidson, Ebenezer Stoier, and 
 Hon. Oliver Wendell, were appointed a committee to wait 
 on the two Houses of Legislature with an attested copy of 
 the resolves. Another committee was appointed to make 
 application to the court for payment of the attendance 
 
28 
 
 and travel of the members of the convention out of the 
 public treasury ; and yet another, to request the court to 
 provide for the usual entertainment on election day, for 
 the said last Wednesday in October. The committee 
 charged to present the resolves were ordered to request 
 the branch of the Legislature, whose turn it was, to 
 appoint, if they saw fit, a minister to preach the usual 
 election sermon on that day. 
 
 John Hancock was elected governor. There was no 
 choice by the people of lieutenant-governor, and James 
 Bowdoin and then James Warren were successively 
 chosen by the General Court, but declined, and Thomas 
 Gushing was elected. The Senate and House were filled 
 with well-known personages already or later consijicuous 
 in the public service. On the election day the Gadets 
 escorted the governor to the State House,^ and when he 
 had been qualified, thirteen guns were fired. After the 
 sermon by Dr. Cooper in the old Brick Meeting House, 
 from the text in xxx. Jeremiah, — "And their congrega- 
 tion shall be established, and their nobles shall be of 
 themselves, and their governor shall proceed out of the 
 midst of them," — the Government and invited guests 
 dined at Faneuil Hall, the number of toasts being likewise 
 thirteen, in recognition of the sisterhood of States. 
 
 Proclamation was soon after made by the governor from 
 the Province House, then, as earlier, the headquarters of 
 the Executive, that the judges and other officials, as pro- 
 vided in the constitution, should exercise their functions 
 till others should be appointed. The. judges of the Su- 
 preme Court and Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Pickering were 
 appointed a commission to revise the laws in conformity 
 with tlie principles of the new government, and submit 
 them to the Legislature. Entails and primogeniture were 
 
 1 The Cadets, it will be recollected, had disbanded themselves, when 
 Gen. Gage withdrew the commission of John Hancock as commander ; 
 but as their presence is mentioned in the newspapers of the day, it is 
 probable that they volunteered their services on the occasion. The corps 
 was afterwards revived and commissioned, under the administration of 
 Gov. Bowdoin, in 17H5. 
 
• 29 
 
 virtually repealed, or rendered ineffective. Every vestige 
 of regal rule was taken from the statute book. Supposed 
 necessary safeguards for the security of property, where 
 not repugnant to the constitution, were respected. Thus 
 the people of Massachusetts became " a free, sovereign, 
 and independent State, with the sole and exclusive right 
 of governing themselves ; to exercise and enjoy every 
 power, jurisdiction, and right which is not or may not 
 hereafter be by them expressly delegated to the United 
 States of America, in Congress assembled." They so 
 remained sovereign till the ratification of the federal con- 
 stitution, and so continue, except so far as that instrument 
 can be fairly construed to have divested them of any part 
 of their independence. 
 
 Certainly Sam Adams, who urged the importance of the 
 amendments, that the good people may clearly see the 
 distinction between the federal powers vested in Congress 
 and the sovereign authority belonging to the several States, 
 which is the palladium of the private and personal rights 
 of the citizens ; Sullivan, whose work on the United States 
 Government, in 1791, was written expressly to insure the 
 amendment to the federal constitution, securing the judi- 
 cial independence of the States; John Hancock and many 
 more who took part in framing the State constitution, 
 believed State sovereignty an important safeguard of 
 liberty. 
 
 In 1795 it was decided not to revise the constitution as 
 provided in the instrument, but in 1820, a convention, 
 over which John Adams was invited to preside, but de- 
 clined, submitted to the people fourteen amendments, nine 
 of which were adopted. The first provided that no bill 
 submitted within five days of adjournment should become 
 a law unless signed by the governor. The General Court, 
 by the second, was authorized to make towns of twelve 
 thousand inhabitants cities. The third determined who 
 should be entitled to vote, and repealed the sixty pound 
 qualification. The sixth and seventh abbreviated the oath 
 of allegiance, and the ninth provided for amendments. 
 
30 
 
 The tenth amendment, in 1831, changed the beginning 
 of the political year to the first Wednesdaj^ in January. 
 The eleventh, in 1833, annulled the third article of the 
 declaration of rights as to the support of churches by 
 general taxation. The thirteenth, in 1810, removed the 
 property qualification for the Legislature. In 1853 a con- 
 vention framed a new constitution, which was not ap- 
 proved by the people, but some of the proposed changes 
 were embodied in the subsequent amendments. The 
 recent large immigration had created some solicitude lest 
 those born in the country should be largely outnumbered, 
 and this may account for some of the constitutional changes 
 made or advocated at this period. 
 
 The fourteenth amendment, in 1855, substituted the 
 plurality rule for the majority previously required. The 
 sixteenth provided that the councillors should be elected 
 by the people; and the seventeenth, the secretary, 
 treasurer, receiver-general, auditor, and attorney-general ; 
 the nineteenth, sheriffs, registers of probate, commissioners 
 of insolvency, clerks of court, and district-attorneys. 
 The eighteenth, the same year, prohibited the application 
 of public moneys to the support of sectarian schools. 
 
 The twentieth amendment, in 1857, provided that no 
 person should vote, or be eligible to office, who could not 
 read the constitution in the English language, and write 
 his name. The twenty-first and twenty-second, the same 
 year, reduced the House to two hundred and forty mem- 
 bers, and the Senate to forty. The twenty-third, in 1859, 
 that no one should vote, or be eligible to office, who had 
 not resided in the United States two years after his natu- 
 ralization, was annulled by the twenty-sixth in 1863. The 
 twenty-fourth, in 1860, provided that vacancies in the 
 Senate should be filled by the people ; and the twenty- 
 fifth, vacancies in the council by concurrent vote of Senate 
 and House, if in session, if not, by the governor, with the 
 advice and consent of the council. The twenty-seventh 
 and last, in 1877, removed the disqualification, under art. 
 2, chap. 6, of presidents, professors, and instructors of 
 Harvard College, for seats in the Legislature. 
 
31 
 
 These amendments are significant to whoever is familiar 
 with our history during the last hundred years. They 
 indicate the growing enlightenment in keeping religious 
 controversy out of politics, and the jealousy of authority 
 and drift towards democratic principles in filling the public 
 ofiSces by popular vote instead of by the previous Executive 
 appointments. They show, too, an increased confidence in 
 universal suffrage, by the removal of property qualifications 
 . for electors and elected. It is creditable to the wisdom of 
 those who framed the constitution, that in a changeable 
 woild so much of it remains, as originally reported and 
 adopted, undisturbed. The character of a people shapes 
 its institutions ; and those institutions have again a conser- 
 vative and retro-active influence in maintaining its pristine 
 standards, and holding fast the generations as they pass to 
 such paths of moderation as wisdom and experience teach 
 us are alike beyond the reach of despotic power and popu- 
 lar lawlessness. 
 
 If too bold to assume that the Constitution of Massachu- 
 setts, as originally adopted, was absolutely perfect, or even 
 superior to those of her sister States, it was wisely framed 
 to effect its object. It was not the earliest, and she 
 profited by the experience of those that had already 
 finished their task. For then all circumstances favored the 
 work. Exhausted by the war, the country felt the need 
 of more efficient methods of bringing out what remained 
 to it of strength. The Articles of Confederation had not 
 yet been adopted in 1880 ; and Congress, without means or 
 credit, and with divided counsels, was too feeble to cope 
 with its heavy responsibility. The importance of well-or- 
 ganized State governments to keep alive the struggle, on 
 which the safety of each and all depended, was perceived, 
 and fortunately there were not wanting clusters of trained 
 statesmen over the land competent to form them. Actu- 
 ated purely by a conscientious sense of obligation to 
 carry out the wishes of their constituents, no selfish ambi- 
 tion, no craving for personal rank or distinction, such as 
 had prevailed with liardly an exception in every other 
 
32 
 
 civilized land, swerved them from fidelity to the equal rights 
 for all, for which they were still contending. Discarding 
 every vestige of hereditary privilege, and carefully avoid- 
 ing the speculative fallacies of Fi'cnch philosophers then 
 chafing against the fetters of feudal vassalage, they 
 founded republics upon that perfect law of liberty which 
 opened to all the pursuits of happiness according to desert, 
 opportunity, and the behests of Providence, without dis- 
 turbing vested right or established order. 
 
 Never before had governments, so free and equal, with 
 representations so general, under written constitutions as 
 carefully guarded, been subjected by an intelligent people 
 to the test of experiment. Sorely tried by dangers fore- 
 seen by their framers, by many no forecast could have 
 anticipated, they have stood the strain ; and, if faith in 
 their ultimate stability has ever wavered, time has strength- 
 ened, not impaired. The States, each in its own sphere 
 independent, circle round a central power of their own 
 creation, clothed with a portion of their own vitality, re- 
 ciprocally receiving and diffusing health and vigor. Held 
 in their respective orbits by forces too beneficent to be 
 simply human, they constitute a system, which, we may 
 well hope, like the universe itself, will prove enduring ; 
 and, if the children are as sensible as the fathers that 
 framed it, will bear witness through time of the possibility 
 of free institutions, and serve as a model to nations as 
 they l)ecome sufficiently enlightened to value, and wise to 
 adopt it. 
 
33 
 
 PAPER BY THE HON. NATHANIEL F. SAFFORD. 
 
 After listening to the papers which have just been 
 read, in which have been traced, with careful and elabo- 
 rate research, the gradual development of the principles 
 which underlie the constitution, the rudiments of its 
 structure, its process of formation, and the extent and 
 limitations of its powers, I may, perhaps, on a public an- 
 niversar}^ like this, be indulged in a somewhat wider range 
 of remark than is befitting the themes usually presented 
 to the attention of this Society. ' I refer to the external 
 relations of the constitution, if, indeed, the powers of 
 sovereignty expressly delegated under this constitution 
 do not form a part of the constitution from which they 
 emanate. I mean the relation which subsisted to the 
 provincial laws, to the old confederation, the co-ordinate 
 sovereignty of the States, to the federal union, and to the 
 subrogation of certain attributes of the one, combining to 
 enthrone the nationality of the other. They were rec- 
 ognized at the time of its adoption in the relation then 
 subsisting; in the clause excepting from jurisdiction such 
 right and power as had already been, or should thereafter 
 be, delegated to the United States, in the provisions for 
 the election of delegates in Congress, and in the form of 
 the Oath of Allegiance. 
 
 Although the cession of powers of limited sovereignty 
 by the State has not impaired its entirety as a framework 
 of constitutional representative government, it has mate- 
 rially circumscribed the limits of its powers in their prac- 
 tical operation. These have also been modified by the 
 numerous amendments to the federal constitution ratified 
 by the States, and by the decisions of the federal courts. 
 No separate State-right system, exercising the full powers 
 of treaty and national supremacy as reposed in the federal 
 government, is known to our annals. Such system has 
 always been affected, whether under colonial or provincial 
 
O ,1 
 
 or more recent rule, by its relations to the Crown, the con- 
 federation or the union of the States. 
 
 So intimate were the governmental relations of the 
 colonies in their resistance to the Crown, and their rela- 
 tions as States to the confederation and the Constitution of 
 the United States, that any historical comments upon the 
 derivation of the rights, the origin of the sovereignty or the 
 limitations of the powers of the one, are soon deflected by 
 the co-existence and perturbations of the other. 
 
 There is probably no instance in human history where 
 discussions of civil, political, or chartered rights, of consti- 
 tutional and representative government, kept pace, side b}' 
 side, with incessant military campaigns and the alterna- 
 tions of victory and defeat, as during the seven years of 
 the revolutionary struggle. 
 
 Wherever you open the volume, the mind is impressed 
 with a consciousness of the magnitude of its momentous 
 issues, whether the eye rests upon the right or the left, 
 upon its civil or upon its militarj'- page. 
 
 On the military page are recorded those causes which 
 organized resistance ; the Stamp Act, the Revenue Bill, the 
 Boston Port Bill, the writs of assistance, the contests with 
 the Crown, the attempts to abrogate the charter, the stern 
 expressions of public sentiment, — "strong halters, firm 
 blocks, and sharp axes to those who deserve either," — the 
 scenes of the Boston Massacre, the manifestoes of the 
 Suffolk Resolves, of the provincial and continental Con- 
 gress, the Declaration of Independence, the events at Lex- 
 ington, Bennington, and Saratoga. 
 
 These, and such as these which either induced, or- 
 ganized, or resulted in resistance, may be fitly grouped 
 together on the military page under the two first words 
 of the motto upon the seal of the Commonwealth, — 
 " Ense petit.'' 
 
 The civil page transmits the record of events conse- 
 quent upon the exigencies of their governmental condi- 
 tions, the formation of a frame of civil government, the 
 adoption by the j)eople of the constitution of the State, 
 
35 
 
 the events fitly typified in the concluding clause of the 
 motto, " Placidam sub lihertate quietam.'''' 
 
 It is worthy of note that when, in years after, the Na- 
 tional Congress adopted a device for the great seal of the 
 Union, they selected a design almost identical in expression 
 with the sentiment which is conveyed in the motto of the 
 State, — the eagle holding in his right talon the olive 
 branch of peace ; with its left clasping thirteen arrows, 
 out of diversity evoking^ unity; a symbol of a new order 
 of ages, when the arrows of war should be clasped by the 
 girdle of peace, like that spirit of wisdom personified in 
 the scripture of old, — " being but one she can all things 
 do, and remaining in herself she maketh all things new." 
 
 In order to comply with the recommendation of Congress 
 to establish a constitution, slight changes only were requi- 
 site in the legislative and judicial departments. The 
 colonial system had introduced forms of administration 
 not dissimilar from those which had existed in Great 
 Britain, with "authority vested in two houses, one or both 
 elected by the people. But the constitutions adopted by 
 these States were the first written constitutions known to 
 history. Their framers sought some just philosophical 
 basis, such as should insure an equal and general repre- 
 sentation, but not an unrestricted right of suffrage. In 
 the Rhode Island and Connecticut plantations, the people 
 were empowered by their charters to elect all their officers. 
 In Massachusetts and the other colonies, the House of 
 Representatives was chosen by the people ; but the gov- 
 ernor and the body of councillors were appointed by the 
 King or bv proprietors. 
 
 For the structure of a State constitution they had no 
 distinctive model. Charters, ordinances, patents, and 
 statutes, had been so often disrespected by both King and 
 Parliament, that precedents had lost the force of example. 
 Precedents disappeared like footprints in shifting sands. 
 Laws and institutions were shaped by the logic of events. 
 They mouldered not out from uncertain or unmeaning 
 traditions. They were canonized in the lives, the sacri- 
 
36 
 
 fice, the language, the prayers, and predictions of the men 
 who had been the authors and actors in their utterance. 
 
 They ingrafted, it is true, some of the best muniments 
 of English liberty, such as the principles of Magna 
 Charta, the writ of habeas corpus, and the right of trial 
 by jury. But these were in no sense the framework of 
 the constitution ; they were but its scaffolding, — mere 
 incidents, — remedies already embodied in the common 
 law, long since interposed for the protection of the sub- 
 ject against the oppressive acts or exactions of a pre-ex- 
 isting tyranny. The concessions required by the barons 
 for their protection from the arbitrary rule of King John 
 by Magna Charta, six or seven hundred years before the 
 formation of this constitution, the writ of habeas corpus 
 to relieve the subject from arbitrary and unlawful im- 
 prisonment, however important and salutary in the ex- 
 igencies which gave them birth, in no sense justify the 
 encomiums which have been so often pronounced upon 
 their merits. These provisions, for aught of them that 
 these written constitutions contain, are neither the foun- 
 dation, the corner-stone, or the framework of a govern- 
 ment established on a basis of popular sovereignty, o/, hy^ 
 and for the people ; they are but ordinary or special 
 remedies under the common inheritance of the common 
 law ; and whether or not they are elsewhere the muni- 
 ments of English liberty, their forms might all co-exist 
 under the vilest system of oppression on which the sun 
 ever shone. 
 
 No. As Rousseau said, it was the " inalienable right " 
 that was the key-note to the anthem of universal freedom. 
 
 Rightly to estimate the magnitude of this revulsion 
 from all pre-existing allegiance, we must recognize it in 
 its assertion of dignity more ennobling, a world-wide 
 influence far more expansive than a mere relief from 
 coloniid dependence or subjection. For when, after this 
 constitution had been written, the treaty of peace was 
 signed, it became something more than a convention be- 
 , tween a kingdom and a colony, — it was henceforth a 
 
37 
 
 treaty of concession of prerogative, monarchy, and privi- 
 lege to the highest behests of human liberty. That 
 revulsion was attended with the throwing off of the 
 entire structure and scaffolding of monarchy, the opening 
 a way for the induction of popular sovereignty, and the 
 subversion of a fatal policy which had fastened into every 
 fold to repress the growth of the colonies. 
 
 In the earlier days of colonization, commerce sought its 
 protection and profit in exclusive monopolies. 
 
 Hence came' royal charters, patents, powers, and grants 
 of local government. Afterward, as their counterpart, 
 •came severe and unjust restrictions upon manufactures 
 and commerce, revocation of charters by the Crown, and 
 unwarrantable exactions by the Parliament. This system 
 of combined monopoly, prerogative, and privilege per- 
 meated all their relations to the colonial and provincial 
 governments, until, for the simultaneous upheaval and 
 subversion of the entire fabric, the hour had struck. 
 
 These royal charters, granted, revoked, re-issued, with 
 lines of boundary indefinite and deceptive, occasioned 
 ceaseless and even hostile antagonisms among the colonies. 
 Soon the wars between P'rance and England were trans- 
 ferred to the soil of America. There remained no other 
 alternative than to espouse the cause of Great Britain. 
 That cause espoused, was upheld by the colonies with a 
 kind of religious enthusiasm, for with her were the alBlia- 
 tions of language, law, sect, and race. The year 1763 
 witnessed the stibversion of French power in America. 
 
 Why, now, had they fought the battles for dismember- 
 ment from France, to be crushed anew by the ascendant 
 power of England ? 
 
 It has been said that the eleven years intervening be- 
 tween the first Colonial Congress convoked at Albany in 
 1765, and the Declaration of '76, witnessed more learned 
 and profound debates on the subject of human rights, 
 more thorough investigations of the rights of the citizen 
 and the principles of civil government, than up to that 
 time had ever occurred in the history of the human 
 race. 
 
88 
 
 The march of armies, the victories in naval warfare, 
 those eventful scenes of suffering and sacrifice, would have 
 been of less avail had they failed to secure at last a civil 
 government under a free constitution ; one that should 
 repose in rulers sufficient power to restrain and leave to 
 the citizen all reserved rights. 
 
 Notwithstanding the extreme reluctance of several of 
 the colonies to consent to the articles of the old confed- 
 eration, yet, when Virginia asserted in her constitution the 
 sublime truth of the self-evident rights of man, that 
 noble manifesto under slight variations in form of ex- 
 pression was repeated with a single exception in every 
 constitution that was formed after the Declaration of 
 Independence. Georgia recognized "the laws of nature 
 and reason." Upon this theme South Carolina remained 
 silent. 
 
 Among those renowned historic names of the gifted 
 sons of Massachusetts, the framers of her constitution, 
 the pride and glory of this centennial day, are written 
 those of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and 
 Robert Treat Paine. 
 
 What other than these in the annals of constitutional 
 liberty should greet the coming millions as they advance 
 to enjoy the priceless blessings, and transmit and perpetu- 
 ate the institutions, of a free and sovereign State? 
 
 For these were they, already written on the scroll which 
 contains the Declaration of Independence by these United 
 Colonies, which affirmed the truths that impelled them 
 to dissolve the political bands which had heretofore con- 
 nected them with the British Crown, to enable them to 
 assume among the powers of the earth" a separate and 
 equal station ; and who, " appealing to the supreme Judge 
 of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, had 
 mutually pledged to that Declaration and to each other, 
 their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." 
 
 How apposite that the name of John Hancock, the 
 President of Congress on the day of the adoption of the 
 Declaration of Independence, and the only name which 
 
39 
 
 nad yet been signed on the day of its adoption, when it 
 went forth into all the world, and the old bell of Inde- 
 pendence Hall rung out its thrilling tones unto all the 
 inhabitants of the land, and the old cradle of liberty was 
 rocking with its natal chants, how apposite, how fortu- 
 nate, yea, foreordained to an imperishable future, that 
 the same great name on that morning risen to a fame of 
 centennial glories, the name of one, whose hospitable 
 home had bid its repeated welcome to the patriot sires, 
 whose eye kindled and whose heart beat in unison with 
 every advancing wave of constitutional liberty, whose 
 hand never trembled, whose tongue never faltered, and 
 whose courage never quailed ; how appropriate, that he 
 should be thus associated in the annals of his native State, 
 and installed as the first governor of this honored Com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 Of that Congress, wrote Abbe Raynal in 1781, " With 
 what grandeur, with what enthusiasm, should I not speak 
 of those generous men who erected that grand edifice by 
 their patience, their wisdom, and their courage ! " 
 
 Said he, " Hancock, Franklin, the two Adamses, were 
 the greatest actors in that affecting scene, but they were 
 not the only ones : posterity shall know them all. Under 
 the bust of one of them has been written, ' He wrested 
 thunder from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants.' Of 
 the last words of this eulogy shall all of them partake." 
 Of that Union, said Patrick Henry, " British oppression 
 has effaced the boundaries of the colonies." 
 
 In after years, exclaimed Mirabeau, on the Tribune of 
 the National Assembly of France, " I ask if the powers 
 who have formed alliances with the States have dared to 
 read that manifesto, and to interrogate their consciences 
 after the perusal ? " 
 
 " I ask whether there be at this day one government in 
 Europe, the Helvetic and Batavian confederations and the 
 British isles excepted, which, judged after the principles of 
 the Declaration of Congress on 4th July, 1776, is not 
 divested of its rights? " 
 
40 
 
 Alluding to the same great scene, " Verily," said Napo- 
 leon, "the finger of God was there." 
 
 All constitutions representing popular sovereignty have 
 in their nature been protests against pre-existing forms, 
 and generally the dictate of State necessity. The com- 
 pact of the forty-one signers on board " The Mayflower " 
 in the harbor of Cape Cod was formed because they were 
 located without the bounds of their patent. Thus also 
 this constitution originated in the necessities of the condi- 
 tion of the colonists. 
 
 In the first confederation of the colonies of New Eng- 
 land, each colony exercised exclusive jurisdiction within 
 its own territor}^ ; but no two colonies were to join in 
 jurisdiction without the consent of all ; and it required 
 unanimous consent to admit any other colony into the 
 confederacy. 
 
 As early as 1754 a congress was held by commissioners 
 from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Con- 
 necticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, upon the subject of 
 defence in the war pending with France. 
 
 Many of the principles subsequently embodied in the 
 Constitution of Massachusetts there found expression. 
 They rejected all proposals for a division of the colonies 
 into separate confederacies, resolved upon a union of the 
 colonies, and proposed a plan of federal government with 
 delegates to be chosen by the provincial assemblies, and a 
 president-general to be appointed by the Crown. That 
 confederacy was to embrace all the then existing colonies 
 from New Hampshire to Georgia. But no such continen- 
 tal union was ever formed. No provincial assembly coun- 
 tenanced or sanctioned so dangerous an innovation. Ven- 
 turesome as the scheme was, it was too much in advance of 
 the times to warrant its adoption. Dr. Franklin subse- 
 quently declared such union of the colonies impossible 
 unless compelled by the agency of tyrannical force. 
 
 The Bill of Rights prefixed to the articles of the Con- 
 stitution of Massachusetts was not without precedent in 
 the civil history of the colony. The British Parliament in 
 
41 
 
 its Bill of Rights had only enunciated the concessions to 
 liberty, which, in 'the lapse of centuries, had been acquired 
 from their kings. The omission of any Bill of Rights in 
 the draft of the constitution submitted to the people in 
 1778 sufficiently justifies and explains its entire and deci- 
 sive rejection by the overwhelming vote of the people of 
 Massachusetts. In a congress of delegates from nine col- 
 onies assembled at the instance of Massachusetts, fifteen 
 years prior to the adoption of her constitution, a bill of 
 rights had been devised and concerted, wherein the sole 
 power of taxation was declared to be reposed in their own 
 colonial legislatures. That self-assertion of the absolute 
 authority of colonial legislation, in defiance of the su- 
 premacy of Parliament, illumined the pathway to the Con- 
 tinental Congress of '74 in its assertion of the inalienable 
 rights of British freemen. In the spirit of those resolves 
 the Union was formed. 
 
 It was a foregone conclusion that, in like manneras the 
 communion of the colonies had been one of the necessities 
 of war, so also, in the wreck of the confederation, unless 
 the boundaries of these separate States were to be marked 
 like the chain of Roman fortresses and castles along the 
 Rhine, a union under some federal government would be 
 one of the emergencies of peace. 
 
 There can be no holier hour of civil commemoration in 
 the cycle of the centuries than that which witnessed the 
 hand of John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration 
 of Independence of the United States of America, uplifted 
 as her first governor in the oath to bear true faith and 
 allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 
 friends of human rights and constitutional liberty in all 
 coming time will not withhold from the State of Virginia 
 their meed of gratitude for the wisdom and patriotism 
 which so inseparably and so early conjoined the muni- 
 ments of free institutions in her Bill of Rights ; and while 
 we recall with saddening recollections the more recent 
 scenes of civil strife, when the armies of Virginia were 
 arrayed upon her own soil in bloody conflict against the 
 
42 
 
 re-establishment of that Union which she had done so ranch 
 to form, and the re-assertion of that Bill of Rights which she 
 had given to the world ; — yet when beyond these passing 
 clouds there shall break the light of a serener vision, and 
 time shall tinge with more benignant hues the widening 
 vistas of an unsevered past, — in the memories of Appo- 
 mattox we may forgive, — the name of the gallant leader of 
 Virginia's hosts we may perchance forget, — and though 
 no arch of triumph shall ever rise, no molten column trans- 
 mit the record of battles fought or victories won, the torch 
 of constitutional liberty just lighted for the guidance of 
 the nations on the shore of a century shall pass undimmed 
 from hand to hand, in a union unbroken from State to 
 State, — and when the last days of this centennial era shall 
 all be numbered, the drums that beat at Bunker Hill will 
 beat again at Yorktown. 
 
 One of the most emphatic predictions prophetic of the 
 establishment of a regular American Constitution occurred 
 twelve years before the adoption of the Constitution of 
 Massachusetts, and seven years before the scenes at Lex- 
 ington. 
 
 " Courage, Americans ! " cried Livingston, one of the 
 famed New York triumvirate of Presbyterian lawj^ers, 
 " Courage, Americans ! liberty, religion, and the sciences 
 are upon the wing to these shores. The finger of God 
 points out a mighty empire to your sons. The savages of 
 the wilderness were never expelled to make room for idola- 
 ters and slaves. The land we possess is the gift of Heaven 
 to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed 
 it to our latest posterity. So legible is this munificent and 
 celestial deed in past events, that we need not be discour- 
 aged by the bickerings between us and our parent country. 
 The angry cloud will soon be dispersed, and America ad- 
 vance to felicity and glory with redoubled activity and 
 vigor. The day dawns in which the foundation of this 
 mighty empire is to be laid, by the establishment of a regu- 
 lar Aynerican Constitution. 
 
 "All that has hitherto been done seems to be little beside 
 the collection of materials for this orlorious fabric. 
 
43 
 
 " 'Tis time to put them together. The transfer of the 
 European part of the family is so vast, and our growth so 
 swift, tliat, before seven years roll over our heads, the first 
 stone must be laid." 
 
 When, from the time of that prediction, those seven 
 years were ended, there broke upon the ear the volley at 
 Lexington. 
 
 It is around shrines like these that the sons of Massa- 
 chusetts, in the oft-recurring anniversaries of our eventful 
 annals, will love to linger : — 
 
 " Shrines to no creed or code confined, 
 The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
 The Meccas of the mind." 
 
 After the reading of the papers, on motion of the Hon. 
 G. Washington Warren, the thanks of the Society were 
 presented to Messrs. Wheildon, Amory, and Saftord, for 
 their able, learned, and instructive papers, and it was 
 voted that copies of the papers be requested, and that 
 their publication be referred, as usual, to the Board of 
 Directors. 
 
 Colonel William M. Olin, the private secretary of his 
 Excellency Governor Long who had expected to be pres- 
 ent, was here announced, who presented a note to Presi- 
 dent Wilder, which he read as follows : — 
 
 " The Governor sends his greetings to this Society by his private 
 secretary, and regrets that a lengthened executive session prevents his 
 being at the Society's meeting to-day. He hoped to be able to come, 
 but has found it impossible." 
 
 Mr. David Pulsifer asked leave, which was granted, and 
 read extracts from the Massachusetts Records, giving the 
 names of the old Council, present Oct. 11, 1780, a form 
 of summons to the new senators, with the proceedings 
 Oct. 23, 24, and 25, and the record of the announcement, 
 
44 
 
 that John Hancock, Esq., was elected Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts, the ceremonies of administering to him the oath 
 of office, and the official announcement of his appointment 
 by the Secretary of State, and likewise by the Sheriff of 
 the County of Suffolk, who proclaimed his election from 
 the balcony of the Old State House. The extracts are as 
 follows : — 
 
 FROM THE COUNCIL RECORDS. 
 
 Wednesdav, October 11th, 1780. 
 Present in Council. 
 
 Hon. Jeremiah Powell honl Timo Danielson honi John Pitts 
 
 Thomas Gushing Nathan Gushing Aaron Wood 
 
 Samuel Holten Josiah Stone Joseph Dorr 
 
 Benja White Abraham Fuller Will>ii Whiting 
 Benja Austin Samuel Niles 
 
 FOPtM OF SUMMONS TO SENATORS CHOSEN ACGORD- 
 ING TO THE NEW GONSTITUTION. 
 
 To 
 
 You being chosen a Senator for this Commonwealth, are 
 hereby in the name of the Government & People of the 
 Massachusetts Bay in New England, summoned to attend and 
 assist at a General Court to be begun and holden at the State 
 House in Boston on Wednesday the twenty-fifth of the present 
 October, at nine of the clock a.m. under the New Constitution 
 of Government for the said Commonwealth ; fail not of attend- 
 ance, that there may be a due convention of Senators on the 
 said day. 
 
 Given pursuant to the said New Constitution of Government 
 at the Council Chamber in Boston the eleventh of October 
 A° D' 1780, and in the fifth year of the Independence of the 
 United States. 
 
 . President of Council. 
 
45 
 
 Monday, October 23(1, 1780. 
 
 Ordered that Capt. Moses MTarland be and hereby is di- 
 rected to cause thirteen guns at the fort on fort hill to be fired 
 on Wednesday- the 25th instant being election day. 
 
 By the major part of the Council of the State of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 31 Proclamatton for dissolving the Great and General Court or 
 Assembly. 
 
 Whe7-eas the Great and General Court or Assembly of the 
 State of Massachusetts Ba}' stands prorogued to Tuesday the 
 twenty-fourth da}' of October instant, One thousand seven hun- 
 dred and eighty, at 10 o'Clock in the forenoon, but as there will 
 be a meeting of the General Court on Wednesda}- the 25th in- 
 stant under the new form of Government ; 
 
 Therefore We have thought fit to dissolve the Great and 
 General Court or Assernbl}-, and the same is accordingly dis- 
 solved ; whereof all the members of the said Court, and all 
 others concerned are requested to take notice, and govern them- 
 selves accordingly. 
 
 Given at the Council Chamber in Boston this twenty-third 
 day of October A° D' 1780 ; and in the fifth year of the Inde- 
 pendence of the United of America. 
 
 Tuesday, October 24th, 1804. [1780]. 
 
 Ordered that Captain John Ingersol commander of the fort 
 at Fort hill, be and hereby is directed to fire thirteen guns at 
 said fort on the morrow being election day, the order to Captain 
 M^Farland to the contrary notwithstanding, the same being 
 reconsidered by this Board. 
 
 Ordered that Colonel William Burbeck be and hereby is 
 directed to deliver Captain John Ingersol fourteen twenty-four 
 pound cartridges and three twelve pound cartridges with wads 
 port fire and matchrope. 
 
 "Wednesday, October 25th, 1780. 
 
 The President and five of the Council under the Old Constitu- 
 tion went down to the Hoase of Representatives to administer 
 the several oaths to the members of the General Court, as 
 prescribed by the new form of Government. 
 
46 
 
 FROM THE SENATE RECORDS. 
 
 At a General Court of Massachusetts began Sf held at Boston upon 
 Wednesday the Twenty-fifth day of October^ One Thousand Seven hun- 
 dred Sf Eighty being the first setting of the General Court of the COM- 
 MONWEALTH of MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Present in Senate 
 
 Hon'''* Walter Spooner 
 Thos Gushing 
 Sami Holten 
 Jabez Fisher 
 Josiah Stone 
 Abraham Fuller 
 Sam' Niles 
 Azor Orne 
 Sam' Osgood 
 
 ■Wednesday, October 25, 1780. 
 
 HonWe Sami Baker 
 John Pitts 
 Thos Durfee 
 Joseph Dorr 
 Stephen Clioate 
 Nathi Gorham 
 Ephraira Stark weatlier 
 Seth Washburne 
 Increase Sumner 
 Solomon Freeman 
 
 Hon'''^ Walter Spooner, Tho' Cashing, Sam' Holten, Jabez 
 Fisher, Josiah Stone, Abr'' Fuller, Sam' Niles, Samuel Baker, 
 John Pitts, Tho' Durfee, Joseph Dorr, Stephen Choate, Nath' 
 Gorham, Eph'" Starkweather, Seth Washburne, Increase Sum- 
 ner, Sam' Osgood, Azor Orne, &, SoP Freeman, Esquires, this 
 day took the several Oaths prescribed by the New Consti- 
 tution to qualify them as Senators, the same being administered 
 to them by the President and five of the old Council, agreable 
 to said Constitution and took their Seats Accordingly. 
 
 Ordered, That Samuel Niles and Increase Sumner Esq" be 
 a Committee with such as the Hon*"'^ House shall join to con- 
 sider on what manner the Choice of the Hon'^'^ John Hancock 
 Esq' in case of his Acceptance of the Trust, shall be pub- 
 lished & declared. 
 
 Sent down for Concurrence. Came up concurred, and Gen' 
 Titcomb CoP Glover and M"" Barrett are joined. 
 
47 
 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
 
 In Conformity to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of 
 Massachusetts, The Senate and House of Representatives hav- 
 ing Examin'd the returns from the several Towns within said 
 Commonwealth respecting the Choice of a Governor and hav- 
 ing found that the Hon''''' John Hancock Esq'' had a Majority 
 of Votes for Governor we do now publickly declare His Ex- 
 cellency John Hancock Esq'' to be Governok of this Com- 
 monwealth and all Officers Civil and Military are to take 
 notice thereof and Govern themselves accordingly. 
 
 God save the Commonwealth of' Massichasetts. 
 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
 
 In Senate. 
 
 Ordered, That the foregoing Declaration be publickly an- 
 nounced from the.Balcon}' of the State House bj- the Secretary 
 and repeated b}' the Sheriff of the Count}- of Suffolk. 
 
 Nath' Gorham Esq'' went down with a Message to the 
 Hon*"^ House to Inform them that the Hon''''' John Hancock 
 Esq"" was in the Council Chamber, having Accepted of the 
 Office of Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
 and was ready to take the Oaths prescribed by the Constitution, 
 and to desire the Attendance of the House in the Council 
 Chamber to hear him take said Oaths required and to see him 
 Subscribe the same. 
 
 The Hon'"'' House attended Accordingl}' and the Oaths were 
 Administered by the Hon''''' Thomas Cushing Esq'' President 
 of the Senate, after which the Secretarj- made the Declaration 
 of the Appointment of the Hon**'" John Hancock, Esquire, as 
 Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, agreeable 
 to the Order of both Houses repeated bj- the Sheriff of the 
 County of Suffolk from the Balcony of the State House. 
 
 John Lowell Esq'' came up with a Message from the Hon'''' 
 House to acquaint the Hon'''" Council and Senate and His Ex- 
 cellency John Hancock Esq'' that they were readj' to attend 
 Divine Service and they attended Accordingly-. 
 
Commontocaltfi of fHassacfjusctts. 
 
 BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN D. LONG, 
 
 Governor of the Commonwealth. 
 
 A PROCLAMATION. 
 
 Wherkas, upon the adoption of the Constitution of the Common- 
 wealth of JNIassaehusetts, the first General Court assembled on the 
 twenty-fifth day of October, A. D 1780, and the government was 
 organized : 
 
 Now, therefore, in honor thereof, T call attention to the anniversary 
 which is near at hand. It will mark the end of a hundred years of 
 free popular government. During that period there has been a vast 
 expansion of the Commonwealth in population, education, wealth, and 
 material activity, but its Constitution remains substantially the same, 
 — a monument to the foresight and wisdom of the men who made and 
 adopted it. It has been a period lustrous with the names of great and 
 good men and women, who, in church and state and school, in war 
 and peace, in letters, art, and science, and in every departmi^nt of use- 
 fulness and humanity, have added to the renown of Massachusetts and 
 to the welfare antl inspiration of her people. It has been a hundred 
 years of law and ordei', of enlarging freedom, of riches accumulating 
 in the hands of labor, of increasing education, and of a Christian 
 charity at home and abroad that has reached out its help to the whole 
 world, whether it welcomed the stranger witliin its gates or sent its 
 missionaries to the utmost parts of the earth. While it has handed 
 down its perils, and suggests the continued need of eternal vigilance 
 of every moral and religious safeguard, and of an unflinching fight 
 against tlie sources of temptation, vice, and crime, it has yet vindi- 
 cated the stability and safety of a government of the people founded 
 on the principles of piety, education, and equality. 
 
 I trust, therefore, tliat Monday, the twenty-fifth day of October 
 current, will not pass altogether without observation of the events it 
 commemorates; that our clergymen and teachers will call attention to 
 them; that flags will be hung out, and that a grateful people will 
 thank God for the beneficent constitution, the wise laws, the religious, 
 civil, and social blessings under which tliey live in a Commonwealth 
 than which there is none more favored in all the world 
 
 Given at the Executive Chamber this eighteenth day of October, 
 in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty. 
 
 JOHN 1) LONG. 
 
 By his Excellency the Governor. 
 
 Henry B. Peirce, 
 
 Seci-etary of the Commonwealth. 
 
 God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
49 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 BY THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL OF THE 
 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 The national flags were displayed upon the State House 
 during the day. At two o'clock in the afternoon a large 
 number of gentlemen assembled in the Executive Cham- 
 bers by invitation of the governor. Among those invited, 
 most of whom were present, were the following : — 
 
 His Honor Lieut.-Gov. Byron Weston and Hon. Fred- 
 erick O. Prince, Mayor of Boston. Hon. Messrs. Brayton, 
 of Fall River ; Taylor, of Boston ; Heywood, of Con- 
 cord ; Wallace, of Fitchburg ; Carter, of Cambridge ; 
 Raymond, of Salem ; Edwards, of Northampton ; and 
 Spaulding, of Boston, of the Executive Council. Hon. 
 Messrs. Henry B. Peirce, Secretary of State ; Charles En- 
 dicott. Treasurer ; Charles R. Ladd, Auditor ; George 
 Marston, Attorney-General ; Ex-Governors Claflin, Gas- 
 ton, and Talbot. [Ex-Governors Boutwell, Banks, Bul- 
 lock, Washburne, and Rice were unable to be present.] 
 Hon. Messrs. Horace Gray, James D. Colt, Seth Ames, 
 Marcus Morton, William C. Endicott, Otis P. Lord, and 
 Aug. L. Soule, of the Supreme Judicial Court. Hon. 
 Messrs. Lincoln F. Brigham, Julius Rockwell, John P. 
 Putnam, Francis H. Dewey, Ezra Wilkinson, Robert C. 
 Pitman, John W. Bacon, William Allen, P. Emory Al- 
 drich, Waldo Colburn, and William S. Gardner, of the 
 Superior Court. Hon. Thomas Russell, of the Board of 
 Railroad Commissioners ; Albert Mason, of the Harbor 
 and Land Commissioners ; Julius L. Clarke, of the Insur- 
 ance Commissioners; and Mrs. Ellen C. Johnson, of the 
 
 Note. — The proceedinars at the State House, as well as those at 
 the City Hall, are here introduced as matters of historical interest. 
 
50 
 
 Prison Commissioners ; Hon. Carroll D. Wright, of the 
 Census Bureau. Major-Gen. Berry, Adjutant-General ; 
 Brigadier-Gen. Moore, 1st Brigade ; Brigadier-Gen. Sut- 
 ton, 2d Brigade; and Lieut.-Col. Edmands, 1st Corps of 
 Cadets ; Col. William M. Olin, Private Secretary. Hon. 
 Messrs. Charles F. Adams, George B. Loring, President 
 Eliot, of Harvard College, Charles J. Noyes, R. R. Bishop, 
 Marshall P. Wilder, William W. Wheildon, Rev. Dr. 
 Henry A. Miles of Hingham, and Dr. Samuel A. Green. 
 
 At two o'clock his Excellency Governor Long entered 
 the Executive Chamber, accompanied by the Rev. Mark 
 Hopkins, D.D., formerly President of Williams College, 
 and, having called the meeting to order, spoke as fol- 
 lows: — 
 
 REMARKS OF GOVERNOR LONG. 
 
 I have called this meeting of the Council, and invited 
 also the attendance of the representatives of the legisla- 
 tive, executive, and judicial departments, for the purpose 
 of commemorating the adoption of the Constitution of 
 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the assembling on 
 the twenty-fifth day of October, 1780, — a hundred 3-ears 
 ago, — of the first General Court and the organization of 
 the government, John Hancock governor. No provision 
 has been made by legislative action for an extended cele- 
 bration, but it seemed to me that the occasion should not 
 pass without recognition ; that we should express our 
 gratitude to the men and the spirit that founded the Com- 
 monwealth ; that we should recognize our happiness and 
 our responsibility as its citizens, and that we should em- 
 phasize afresh the foundations on which it was set a 
 hundred years ago, and upon which it will endure for 
 time to come. 
 
 The exercises here will therefore be the simplest, con- 
 sisting of your presence and a prayer to Almighty God, 
 to whom our fathers looked as the *' Great Legislator of 
 the Universe." To offer that prayer I have invited a 
 venerable clergyman of the Commonwealth, who was for 
 
51 
 
 many years the head of one of its colleges, and who, in 
 his teachings, now diffused and felt throughout the Re- 
 public, and in his long life, so useful and honorable, has 
 taught and exemplified those principles of piety, religion, 
 and morality, of equality and education, of human free- 
 dom and dignity, which inspire and which are the consti- 
 tution we commemorate, — the Rev. Dr. Mark Hopkins. 
 
 PRAYER BY THE REV. DR. HOPKINS. 
 
 Our Father and our God, we, who have assembled be- 
 fore thee at tiiis time, come in the name of our blessed 
 Lord and Saviour, beseeching thee to grant unto us the 
 presence and aid of thy Holy Spirit, that we may be 
 enabled to worship thee and to express before thee our 
 thanksgivings and joy to thy acceptance, and in accord- 
 ance with thy mind. 
 
 We thank thee that thou didst put it into the hearts of 
 thy servants who represent the authorities of this State, 
 — the governor, the lieutenant-governor, the councillors, 
 the judges and officers of the State, — to come together 
 to acknowledge thee, the Lord our God, as the God of 
 nations and of States ; to thank thee for all that thou hast 
 done for us in the past, and to supplicate the continuance 
 of those blessings which thou hast granted unto us, in the 
 time to come. As it pleased thee in old time to bring 
 thine ancient people out from under bondage, and to lead 
 them through the wilderness to the land which should be 
 to them for a possession and a land of rest, so it pleased 
 thee to bring our fathers out from under persecution and 
 religious thraldom into a land of liberty, civil and reli- 
 gious, and to lead them through the dangers of the sea, 
 through the perils of a wilderness unknown, through want 
 and famine and labor, of which we know in these days 
 nothing, and to bring them into the possession of bless- 
 ings unknown to former time. We remember, before thee, 
 the days of peril, of weakness, and of trouble, and we re- 
 joice and give thanks in view of all that thou didst do for 
 
62 
 
 our fathers in the times that are passed. We thank thee 
 that in due time they were separated from the mother 
 country, and permitted to govern themselves; and tliat 
 this Commonwealth, in connection with other associate 
 colonies, has now become, before thee, a great nation. 
 But we would especially, our God, give thanks before 
 thee at this time for that constitution which was adopted 
 a hundred years ago, and under which the people of this 
 Commonwealth have enjoyed so many and so great bless- 
 ings. We thank thee for the libert}'- we have enjoyed, for 
 a constitution which has given us our governors from 
 ourselves, and our laws from those whom we have ap- 
 pointed to make them ; and we thank thee for our schools 
 and our colleges, and for all the means of education and 
 enlightenment, and especially for that religious freedom 
 by which every man has been permitted to worship thee 
 according to the dictates of his own conscience. Blessed 
 be thou, O Lord God, for the wisdom that thou didst give 
 unto our fathers in framing this constitution, and for the 
 prudence which thou hast given to their successors in 
 amending it, so that now it stands as the bulwark of our 
 rights and the charter of our freedom ! 
 
 And now, merciful God, we confess before thee our 
 unworthiness of these blessings which thou hast bestowed 
 upon us. Great and marvellous is thy goodness ! And 
 now, as thou hast granted us these blessings, and mightest 
 rightfully take them away, we plead before thee for thy 
 great name's sake, who hast done so much for us, and for 
 the sake of Him through whom all our blessings come, 
 that these great mercies and blessings may be continued 
 to us in the time to come. To this end, merciful God, we 
 pray for thy servant the governor of this State, and for 
 all who are associated with him in authority, that thou 
 wouldst bestow upon them divine wisdom and grace and 
 favor and strength, that thou wouldst be with them in 
 connection with every emergency and every duty, and that 
 they may fulfil in wisdom and fidelity the great duties 
 which devolve upon them. We pray that thou wouldst 
 
53 
 
 be with them in succeeding days, and bring them, if it 
 pleases thee, to a good old age, and to peace at the end. 
 
 And, merciful God, we pray especially before thee for 
 this people. We cannot pray for prosperity to a wicked 
 people ; but we do pray that this people whom thou hast 
 so highly favored, on whom thou hast bestowed privileges 
 unknown in former generations, may be a great and under- 
 standing people. We beseech thee that they may appre- 
 hend rightly the privileges which they enjoy, that they 
 may know how to use liberty ; we pray that they may be 
 an enlightened people ; we pray that they may be a tem- 
 perate people ; we pray that they may he an honest people ; 
 we pray that they may be a pure people, preserving all the 
 institutions of marriage, and all the social organizations in 
 the method which thou liast appointed. We pray that 
 they may be a sabbath-keeping people. We beseech thee, 
 merciful God, that thy sabbath may be a delight to this 
 people, the holy of the Lord, honorable. We pray thee 
 that this people may be a people who shall be worthy to 
 receive that which has come to them, the inheritance of 
 the ages. Lord God, we beseech thee, that as thou hast 
 poured upon us the riches of all time, as thou hast given 
 us command, unknown before, over the forces of nature 
 and over all the wealth of the past, so we may not follow 
 the example of those who have gone before, and sink into 
 sensuality and ignorance and inefficiency and vice ; and 
 we pray that, with thy mercies, the knowledge, the integ- 
 rity, the principle, the industry, the power, of the people, 
 may be augmented, and that they may grow up and stand 
 before thee, a people whose God shall be the Lord. As 
 thou hast brought us into a new world, so we pray that 
 there may not come into this new world the incumbrances 
 and weights which have borne down mankind in the old 
 world. We pray that the tyrannies of the old world may 
 not come upon it, nor its superstitions, nor its formalism, 
 nor its unequal division of those good things which belong 
 in common to all, nor any permanent division of ranks 
 among men ; but that here men may be respected as men ; 
 
54 
 
 that here all useful occupations may be honored ; that 
 here industry, in every form, may rejoice ; that here 
 man, as in the image of God, may be honored ; that all the 
 institutions of society, may be built up in the spirit and 
 on the principle of the gospel of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 And, merciful God, we pray not for ourselves only, but 
 for the whole people. We bless thee that thoii didst 
 permit us to be a united people, and we thank thee for 
 thy favors to us in this regard, in the times past. And 
 now we pray thee that thou wilt be with thy people in 
 connection with the present choice of a Chief Magistrate, 
 and that they may act wisely and truly, and that their 
 choice may be one which thou wilt approve and bless. 
 And we pray that this Commonwealth may be a worthy 
 part of the commonwealth of States, and that all these 
 commonwealths may be united in principle that should be 
 accordant with the principle which thou hast manifested 
 in thy kingdom, and may hold together and become a 
 great nation, the light of all nations. And may this 
 Union, which has been so signally preserved, be continued, 
 and be a blessing till the end of time. And now, merciful 
 God, we pray not for ourselves only, not for this Common- 
 wealth only, not for this nation only, but with united 
 hearts and united voices we would pray for all people in 
 the words taught us by our Saviour, saying, " Our Father 
 which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom 
 come ; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. 
 Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as 
 we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, 
 but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the 
 power and the glory forever. Amen." 
 
 After the prayer, the Secretary of State pronounced 
 the words, God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
 and the exercises were closed. A salute of one hundred 
 guns, by the State battery, was fired at the conclusion of 
 the commemorative service. 
 
65 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CITY OF BOSTON. 
 
 At a regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen, on 
 Monday, Oct. 18, 1880, Alderman O'Brien, chairman, pre- 
 siding, the following communication was received from 
 the Mayor : — 
 
 Mayor's Office, City Hall, \ 
 Boston, Oct. 18, 1880. ) 
 To the Honorable the City Council. 
 
 I transmit herewith for your consideration a communication from 
 the New England Historic Genealogical Society, relative to the pro- 
 posed observance of the centennial anniversary of the adoption of the 
 constitution and the organization of the State Government, on the 25th 
 of October, 1780; and I respectfully suggest the propriety of placing 
 such decorations upon the Old State House building as may seem 
 appropriate, in commemoration of the important events in the history 
 of Massachusetts, which took place in that building on that day. 
 
 FREDERICK O. PRINCE, Mayor. 
 
 Society's House, j 
 
 18 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass., [ 
 
 Oct. 14, 1880. ) 
 
 To his Honor Frederick O. Prince, Mayor, and the City Council of 
 Boston. 
 Gentlemen, — His Excellency the Governor, having signified to us 
 his intention to observe the approaching centennial anniversary of the 
 adoption of the constitution and the organization of the State Govern- 
 ment, on the 25th of October, 1780, when John Hancock was 
 inaugurated as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 
 the Old State House, now the property of the city of Boston, we ask 
 leave to suggest the propriety of designating that building as may be 
 thought proper on the same occasion. Within its walls, in the year 
 1774, Gen. Gage read his commission as governor of the colony and 
 
66 
 
 commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in America, and six years 
 thereafter John Hancock, who, as commander of the " Governor's 
 Independent Company of Cadets," had escorted him to the State 
 House, and was soon thereafter dismissed from office, occupied the 
 same hall for the delivery of his inaugural address as Governor of an 
 Independent Commonwealth. Hoping that his Excellency the Gov- 
 ernor may have an opportunity to visit this venerable building wherein 
 one hundred years ago the first State Government was organized, we 
 remain, very respectfully yours, &c., 
 
 WM. W. WHEILDON, 
 In hehalf of the Committee of the N. E. His. Gen. Society. 
 
 Eef erred to Joint Committee on Public Buildings, with full power. 
 
 The Old State House was handsomely decorated with 
 flags, having the Arms of the State and the Pine-Tree flag 
 over the balcony. On the west end of the edifice, on 
 Washington Street, was the inscription : — 
 
 IN THIS BUILDING, ON THE 25TH OF OCTOBER, 1780, 
 WAS ORGANIZED THE FIRST FREE AND INDEPENDENT 
 GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 At the east end of the building, on State Street, was 
 the following : — 
 
 1780. 
 
 ADOPTION OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION. 
 JOHN HANCOCK, GOVERNOR. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH, 
 
 1630-1780. 
 
 BY WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 
 
 It is a little remarkable at this peiiod, when centennials 
 are so much thought of and so frequently celebrated, that 
 the completion of the first century since the adoption of 
 the Constitution of the State should not even have been 
 mentioned during the year, up to the present time. In 
 1780 the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
 setts was made by a general convention, and adopted by 
 the people. The government of the colony had been con- 
 tinued, as far as practicable, in conformity with the char- 
 ter of 1692, without a governor or deputy governor, after 
 Gov. Gage and Gen. Howe had left the colony. The 
 great event we have mentioned, it will be seen, was 
 reached in the period of one hundred and fifty j-ears from 
 the settlement of the colony, and one hundred years ago 
 on the 25th of the present month; and that day will be the 
 centennial anniversary of the adoption of the State Consti- 
 tution and the organization of the State Government, with 
 John Hancock as its first governor. 
 
 FOUNDING OP THE STATE. 
 
 The settlement and naming of Boston, together with 
 Dorchester and Watertown, on the arrival of Gov. Win- 
 throp, with the charter, on the 17th of September, 1630, 
 
 Note. — This paper was published on the 3d of October to call 
 attention to the Centennial, and as it contains a statement of many 
 important historical facts, it is here reproduced as a valuable adden- 
 dum to the Society's proceedings. 
 
58 
 
 may very properly be assumed as the founding of the 
 State, notwithstanding the prior arrival of some of the 
 party at Salem and Charlestown. Here, in Boston, it was 
 at once understood, a permanent settlement was to be 
 made, and the very naming of the town was a confirma- 
 tion of the act. "It is ordered that Tri-mountain shall be 
 called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester; and the town upon 
 Charles River, Watertown." This was the act of the 
 court of assistants, on the 7th (17th) of September. 
 
 The great celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth 
 anniversary of the settlement of Boston, was, therefore, 
 equally that of the foundiiig of the State, which has 
 gradually grown up to the present Commonwealth from 
 the settlement of the Puritans rather than that of the 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 FIRST CHARTER. 
 
 The first government of the settlement was under the 
 charter granted by King Charles to Sir Henry Rosewell 
 and five others in the eighteenth year of his reign, 1628- 
 29. It w^as through the influence of the Puritans, and, as 
 it is now understood, at the instance of Rev. Mr. White, 
 that this charter was obtained by his friends of Dorches- 
 ter, where he lived and preached, when allowed to do so. 
 Through his influence the patentees became acquainted 
 with several leading men among the dissenters in and 
 near London, and an association was formed, whereby 
 three of the original patentees (Rosewell, Young, and 
 Southcote) sold their interest in the patent to five other 
 associates, who became its proprietors, in connection with 
 the remaining original patentees. John Endicott was one 
 of the six original patentees named in the charter; and he, 
 together with Isaac Johnson, Mathew Cradock, Thomas 
 Goffe, and Michael Saltonstall (the five associates named), 
 are named in the confirmatory charter of March 4 (15), 
 1628, and these controlled the charter in the interest of 
 the Puritans. Under this charter the Puritan government 
 was conducted for more than half a century. 
 
59 
 
 This charter was annulled by the court of chancery in 
 England, 18th of June, 1684, and a copy of the judgment 
 was received at Boston, 2d of July, 1685. The king there- 
 upon assumed the right to appoint the governor, and 
 temporarily gave a commission to Joseph Dudley to act as 
 president, not only of Massachusetts Bay, but also of New 
 Hampshire, Maine, and the Narrangansett country, or 
 king's province. William Stoughton was deputy presi- 
 dent. These commissions were received at Boston by the 
 "Rose" frigate, May 15, 1686. The council consisted of 
 fifteen members. 
 
 GOV. ANDROS. 
 
 On the 19th of December, 1686, Sir Edmund Andros 
 arrived with a commission as governor, which embraced 
 the whole of New England, and by this Massachusetts 
 and Plymouth became united under one government. In 
 1688, the authority of Andros, as governor, was extended 
 over New York. Andros was well received at first, but 
 soon lost the respect and confidence of the people over 
 whom he reigned. The office of "sheriff" was created 
 under him, probably as a means of serving his own pur- 
 poses and facilitating his own ends ; and he changed the 
 form of administering oaths, previously required " by the 
 book," and now by holding up of hands ; and some of his 
 council were allowed to make affirmation under the 
 penalties of perjury. Under his government the people 
 were relieved of any share in it, and both judges and 
 juries were pretty much under his control or within his 
 reach. In a very remarkable case, that of Rev. Mr. Wise, 
 of Ipswich, who complained of his arrest and the refut5al 
 of a writ of habeas corpus, Andros replied to him : " Mr. 
 Wise, you have no more privileges left you than not to be 
 sold as slaves." The people thought, and had good reason 
 to think, this was so, and even the last privilege might be 
 taken from them ; so they at once took the matter into 
 their own hands. 
 
60 
 
 THE ANDROS REVOLUTION. 
 
 The next year, the people becoming incensed against 
 the autocratic governor, the Andros revolution occurred 
 on the 19th of April, 1689. When the furor of the people 
 was manifested, Andros fled into the fort on Fort Hill, 
 and was taken from thence to the house of Mr. Usher, 
 where he was placed under guard until the people de- 
 manded his imprisonment. In August, he contrived to 
 escape, and got as far as Newport, where he was arrested, 
 and returned to prison in Boston. In February, 1690, he 
 was sent to England, by order of the king, and from that 
 time ceased to have any connection with New England. 
 As an excuse for the conduct of Andros, it is said he was 
 " the viceroy of a contemptible tyrant." The revolution 
 was begun and completed in a few hours' time, and wholly 
 without bloodshed. 
 
 ^ Upon the breaking out of the revolution and the im- 
 prisonment of their rulers, the people were, in fact, with- 
 out law and without government. But the habits of good 
 order, the necessity of immediate action, and their 
 cherished attachment to their former charter, led at once 
 to the adoption of measures to continue the institutions of 
 government, and to restrain any outbreak of the multi- 
 tude." Mr. Bradford was chosen president of the council, 
 and on the 2d of May they recommended to the towns 
 the election of deputies, to meet on the 9th of May. The 
 government was finally settled in form, agreeably to the 
 charter, on the 24th of May, 1689, and on the 5th of June, 
 a new House of Representatives assembled in Boston. 
 " The charter magistrates were re-elected, and the admin- 
 istration of political affairs went on in the colony as it had 
 done before the revocation of the charter." 
 
 THE SECOND CHARTER. 
 
 The government was carried on under Gov. Bradstreet, 
 then at the age of eighty-seven years, until the arrival of 
 Gov. Pbips with the new charter, called the second char- 
 
61 
 
 ter, on the 14th of May, 1692. He was followed by 
 Stougliton, as acting governor in 1694, then the Earl of 
 Bellamont, for one year, then Stoughton as governor in 
 fact ; then we have the council, and so on through a suc- 
 cession of governors and the council, until 1760, when 
 Bernard comes to the chair, and under his administration, 
 extending to 1769, the revolutionary troubles began. 
 Hutchinson follows, the difficulties increase, for, after the 
 Stamp Act in 1765 comes the Boston massacre, destruction 
 of the tea, and Gen. Gage in May, 1774, when it may be 
 said the revolutionar}' war commenced, and led to the 
 organization of a Provincial Congress for the government 
 of the colony. Gage having discarded the last General 
 Assembly, at Salem, in October, 1774. 
 
 THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS. 
 
 After the dissolution at Salem, a Provincial Congress, 
 agreeably to the action of the several county conventions 
 and the votes of the people at the polls, assembled at 
 Concord, to the number of about two hundred and eighty 
 members, on the 11th day of October, 1774. The Pro- 
 vincial Congress, together with its Committee of Safety, 
 continued to direct the aifairs of the colony, while there 
 was neither governor, deputy-governor, council, nor gen- 
 eral court, until July 19, 1775, when a new assembly was 
 chosen, and the government carried on as far as practica- 
 ble according to the second charter. 
 
 TEMPORARY CIVIL GOVERNMENT, 1775 TO 1780. 
 
 More than a year prior to the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and a month before the battle of Bunker Hill, the 
 Provincial Congress of Massachusetts had before it the 
 subject of the establishment of a civil government. 
 
 On the 8th day of May, 1775, less than a month after 
 the expedition of Gen. Gage to Concord, the matter, 
 which was to be considered on Tuesday, the 9th, was 
 postponed until Friday, the 12th, and on that day the 
 House resolved itself into a committee of the whole "for 
 
62 
 
 consideration of the question in debate." At the close of 
 the debate the president resumed the chair, when " Hon. 
 Joseph Warren, their chairman, reported that a committee 
 be raised for the purpose of reporting to the Congress an 
 application to the Continental Congress for obtaining 
 their recommendation for this colony to take up and ex- 
 ercise civil government as soon as may be, and that the 
 committee be directed to ground their application on the 
 necessity of the case ; which report, being read, was ac- 
 cepted by a very large majority, whereupon it was 
 Ordered, that the president. Dr. Church, Mr. Gerry, Col. 
 Warren, Mr. Sullivan, Col. Danielson, and Col. Lincoln, be 
 a committee to prepare an application agreeably to said 
 report." 
 
 APPLICATION TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 
 
 On the 15th of May, a resolve was passed that Dr. 
 Church proceed immediately to Philadelphia, and deliver 
 to the President of the Continental Congress the letter 
 which had been prepared, and also to confer with the 
 said Congress respecting the defence of the colony, and 
 other matters. The letter was dated on the 16th, and 
 rehearses the condition of affairs in the colony, and con- 
 cludes as follows : — 
 
 "We are happy iu having an opportunity of laying our distressed 
 state before the representative body of the continent, and humbly 
 hope you will favor us with your most explicit advice respecting the 
 taking up and exercising the powers of civil government, which we 
 think absolutely necessary for the salvation of our country ; and we 
 shall readily submit to such a general plan as you may direct for the 
 colonies, or make it our great study to establish such a form of gov- 
 ernment here as shall not only most promote our advantage, but the 
 union and interest of all America." 
 
 The concluding paragraph suggests the propriety of 
 Congress taking the regulation and general direction of 
 the army now collecting from different colonies for the 
 general defence of the rights of America. 
 
 On the 2d of June, the President (John Hancock) laid 
 
63 
 
 the letter before Congress, and Dr. Church was introduced ; 
 and on the next day a committee of five persons was chosen 
 by ballot, and the matter referred to them. The com- 
 mittee were J. Rutledge of South Carolina, Johnson of 
 Maryland, Jay of New York, Willson of Pennsylvania, 
 and Lee of Virginia. 
 
 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 On the 7th of June, ten days before the battle of Bun- 
 ker Hill, this committee reported, and thereupon, on the 
 9th, the Congress " resolved that no obedience was due 
 to an act of parliament altering the charter, nor to a gov- 
 ernor or lieutenant who would not observe it, and, there- 
 fore, that these officers were to be considered as absent, 
 and their offices vacant. And further, as there was no 
 council, and Gen. Gage was carrying on war against his 
 Majesty's peaceable and loyal subjects, that, in order to 
 conform, as near as may be, to the spirit and substance ( f 
 the charter, it be recommended to the provincial conven- 
 tion to write letters to the inhabitants of the several 
 places, which are entitled to representation in assembly, 
 requesting them to choose such representatives, and that 
 the assembly, when chosen, do elect councillors, and that 
 such assembly or council exercise the powers of govern- 
 ment until a governor, of his Majesty's appointment, will 
 consent to govern the colony according to its charter." 
 
 ELECTION OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 In obedience to this recommendation of the Continental 
 Congress, a letter was immediately prepared, June 19, 
 1775, calling upon the local authorities of the towns in 
 the colony to elect representatives to the General Court 
 or Assembly, to serve for and represent them until the day 
 next preceding the last Wednesday in May next, if neces- 
 sary, to assemble at the meeting-house in Watertown, 
 upon Wednesday, the nineteenth day of July ensuing 
 Thus, so promptly did the Provincial Congress act in the 
 matter, that, in less than ten days after the resolve passed 
 
64 
 
 the Continental Congress, the order for the election of 
 representatives, to meet in one month, was sent to the 
 towns, and elections accordingly held at such times as 
 the town authorities directed. It may not be generally 
 known that at this time the Boston town meeting, for the 
 election of representatives, was held at Concord, Boston 
 being in possession of the British army. 
 
 Thus was established a temporary civil government, 
 more nearly in conformity with the charter of the colony 
 than a Provincial Congress, although chosen by the people 
 in the same manner, but differing mainly in the restora- 
 tion of the Council, which exercised, the powers of gov- 
 ernor and deputy governor, while the officers of the Crown 
 were regarded as absent. This government continued un- 
 til 1780, — just one hundred years ago the present month. 
 
 THE STATE CONSTITUTIOlSr. 
 
 At a meeting of the General Court, in June, 1777, 
 nearly a year after the Declaration of Independence 
 (which was publicly celebrated in Boston the next month, 
 by order of the Legislature), the House of Representatives 
 and Council formed themselves into a convention for the 
 purpose of preparing a constitution, or frame of civil gov- 
 ernment for the State, the former General Court having 
 advised the people to elect representatives with this object 
 in view. It is to be noted that, though most of the repre- 
 sentatives were elected with this view, Boston and other 
 towns were opposed to it, and thought a convention ought 
 to be called composed of delegates for the express purpose 
 of preparing a form of civil government. 
 
 In December, 1777, however, the committee reported 
 the instrument which had been prepared by them, under 
 the instructions of the legislative convention, but it was 
 not considered by the General Court until February, 1778. 
 In March it was approved, and ordered to be submitted to 
 the people, two-thirds of the votes of the people being re- 
 quired for its adoption, all free males of the age of twenty- 
 one years being allowed to vote. For some reason, per- 
 
65 
 
 haps that already suggested and propagated in Boston, 
 viz., that a special delegate convention should be called 
 for the purpose, the constitution was not adopted, there 
 being (as stated, probably, in a general way) ten thousand 
 votes against it, and only two thousand in its favor, one 
 hundred and twenty towns making no returns. The citi- 
 zens of Boston voted unanimously against it. There ap- 
 pears to have been some serious objections to the instru- 
 ment itself. 
 
 CONVENTION PROPOSED. 
 
 After this experience and its result, the General Court 
 of 1779 again proposed to the people to form a constitu- 
 tion of civil government. And now it was proposed that 
 they should vote directly upon the question, the votes to 
 be returned to the court in June, and, if a majority of 
 them proved to be in favor of the measure, then precepts 
 were to issue for the choice of delegates in September fol- 
 lowing. The result was favorable to the proposition, al- 
 though about one-third of the towns of the State, as it is 
 called, or province, did not vote, or did not send in any 
 returns. 
 
 However, on the 17th of June, 1779, precepts were 
 accordingly issued to all the towns for the election of dele- 
 gates, to assemble at Cambridge, on the 1st of September. 
 The members chosen assembled accordingly at the time 
 and place appointed, and organized by the choice of Hon. 
 James Bowdoin as president, and Samuel Barrett, secretary. 
 Continuing in session until the 11th of November, the 
 convention then adjourned to meet at the representatives' 
 chamber, in Boston (at the old State House), on the 5th 
 of January, 1780. The session continued until the 2d of 
 March, when the form of a constitution was agreed upon, 
 and a resolve passed for its submission to the people ; and 
 the convention again adjourned to meet at the Brattle 
 Square Church, in Boston, on the 7th of June, one year, 
 less ten days, after the precepts were issued for the election 
 of its members. 
 
66 
 
 CONSTITUTION ADOPTED. 
 
 At that time and place the convention again met, and 
 appointed a committee to examine the returns of votes 
 from the several towns, when it appeared that more than 
 two-thirds of the votes were found to be in favor of the 
 constitution ; and it was " resolved that the people of the 
 State of Massachusetts Ba}^ have accepted the constitution 
 as it stands in the printed form submitted to their revi- 
 sion." In Boston, however, some suggestions were made 
 in favor of an alteration in the 3d article of the Bill of 
 Rights, which provides for religious instruction, "because" 
 (it seems almost strange to say, in view of the early history 
 of the Puritan reign, as we may call it, in the town) " they 
 wished for perfect toleration, and for no degree of compul- 
 sion in religious sentiments or worship." Nevertheless, 
 they accepted the instrument as it was, as it provided that 
 " no one should be molested on account of his religious 
 opinions, and that no denomination of Christians should 
 have any exclusive or peculiar privileges." 
 
 Notice was officially given to the General Court of the 
 acceptance of the constitution by the people, and that the 
 convention, as authorized by the people in their returns of 
 votes, be fixed upon the last Wednesday of October, for 
 the organization of the government, agreeably to its pro- 
 visions. The election of governor, lieutenant-governor, 
 and senators, took place on the 1st of September, and the 
 representatives were chosen in October, ten days previous- 
 ly to the last Wednesday of the month, when, on the 25th 
 of October, 1780, the General Court met at the State 
 House, and organized the State Government under the 
 constitution. John Hancock was elected governor, but 
 no person was elected lieutenant-governor by the votes of 
 the people. Thereupon the General Court elected James 
 Bowdoin to that office. He declined the office, and James 
 Warren was then chosen. He also declined, and finally 
 Thomas Gushing was chosen, and accepted the office. 
 Jeremiah Powell was elected president of the Senate, and 
 
67 
 
 Caleb Davis speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 The councillors were Samuel Holton, Azore Orne, James 
 Prescott, Thomas Danielson, Nathan Gushing, Walter 
 Spooner, Benjamin Chadbourne, and Moses Gill; John 
 Avery, jun., secretary of the Gommonwealth. The gov- 
 ernor made his inaugural speech a few days after the or- 
 ganization. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The first charter of the colony, dated in 1628, was 
 brought over in 1630, and, until the arrival of the second 
 charter, including the presidency of Dudley, &c., continued 
 in force for sixtj^-two years. The second charter went 
 into operation in 1692, and continued in force, and was 
 practically followed after the Provincial Gongress, until 
 1780, — a period of eighty-eight years, making one hun- 
 dred and fifty years from the first settlement, — when the 
 Gonstitution of Massachusetts was adopted, and the State 
 Government organized on the 25Lh of October, 1780 ; so 
 that the ensuing 25th of October will be the centennial 
 anniversary of the organization of the first government of 
 the Gommonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
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