[23] Julius, Nordamerikas Sittliche Zustände, Band I. p. 92.
[24] According to the old rule, Tres faciunt collegium.
[25] Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I. pp. 118, 250, 254.
[26] Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, Vol. II. p. 77.
[27] The House for many years numbered upwards of five hundred members,—in 1835, '36, and '37 swelling to the truly "enormous and unwieldy size" of 615, 619, and 635; and even under the greatly reduced apportionment established by the Amendment of 1840, the numbers in the two years (1851 and 1852) preceding the present Convention were no less than 396 and 402. See Gifford and Stowe's Manual for the General Court, (Boston, 1860,) p. 130.
[28] Preamble to the Body of Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony, 1641: Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 3d Ser. Vol. VIII. p. 216. See also General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony, revised and reprinted by Order of the General Court, 1672, p. 1.
[29] The Preamble in combination with the first Article of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties was adopted as the Preamble to the Connecticut Code of 1650. See Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, edited by J.H. Trumbull, (Hartford, 1850,) p. 509; and compare with Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., ut supra.
[30] Proceedings of the Congress at New York, p. 5. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. III., Appendix, p. 479.
[31] Journals of Congress, October 14, 1774, Vol. I. p. 28.
[32] See, on this subject, a paper entitled "The Extinction of Slavery in Massachusetts," by Emory Washburn: Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 4th Ser. Vol. IV. pp. 333-346.