At these sessions, the Preamble and the Bill of Rights, in its thirty different propositions, were passed in review and considered clause by clause; the various orders of the Convention, amounting to twelve in number, the petitions addressed to the Convention and referred to the Committee, as also informal propositions from members of the Convention and others were considered, some of them repeatedly and at length. On many questions there was a decided difference of opinion, and on a few the Committee was nearly equally divided. But after the best consideration we could bestow in our protracted series of meetings, it was found that the few simple propositions now on your table were all upon which a majority of the Committee could be brought to unite. As such I was directed to present them. Admonished by the lapse of time and the desire to close these proceedings, I might be content with this simple statement.
But, notwithstanding the urgency of our business, I cannot allow the opportunity to pass—indeed, I should not do my duty—without attempting for a brief moment to show the origin and character of this part of our Constitution. In this way we may learn its weight and authority, and appreciate the difficulty and delicacy of any change in its substance or even its form. I will try not to abuse your patience.
The Preamble and Bill of Rights, like the rest of our Constitution, were from the pen of John Adams,—among whose published works the whole document, in its original draught, may be found. At the time when he rendered this important service to his native Commonwealth and to the principles of free institutions everywhere, he was forty-four years of age. He was also quite prepared. The natural maturity of his powers had been enriched by the well-ripened fruit of assiduous study and of active life, both of which concurred in him. The examples of Greece and Rome and the writings of Sidney and Locke were especially familiar to his mind. The Common Law he had made his own, and mastered well its whole arsenal of Freedom. For a long time the vigorous and unfailing partisan of the liberal cause in Boston, throughout its many conflicts,—then in Congress, whither he was transferred, the irresistible champion of Independence,—and then the republican representative of the United, but still struggling, Colonies at the Court of France,—in the brief interval between two foreign missions, only seven days after landing from his long ocean voyage, he was chosen a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and at once brought all his varied experience, rare political culture, and eminent powers to the task of adjusting the framework of government for Massachusetts. As his work, it all claims our regard; and no part bears the imprint of his mind so much as the Preamble and Bill of Rights; nor is any other part authenticated as coming so exclusively from him.
At the time of its first adoption the Massachusetts Bill of Rights was more ample in provisions and more complete in form than any similar declaration in English or Colonial history. Glancing at its predecessors, we learn something of its sources. First came, long back in the thirteenth century, Magna Charta, with generous safeguards of Freedom, wrung from King John by the Barons at Runnymede. From time to time these liberties were confirmed, and, after an interval of centuries, they were again ratified, near the beginning of the unhappy reign of Charles the First, by a Parliamentary Declaration, to which the monarch assented, known as the Petition of Right, which, in its very title, reveals the humility with which the rights of the people were then maintained. Finally, in a different tone and language, at the Revolution of 1688, when James the Second was driven from his dominions, a "Declaration of the true, ancient, and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of the kingdom," familiarly known as the Bill of Rights, was delivered by the Convention Parliament to the new sovereigns, William and Mary, and embodied in the Act of Settlement, by virtue of which they sat on the throne. These, Sir, are English examples.
Their influence was not confined to England. It crossed the ocean. From the beginning the Colonists were tenacious of the rights and liberties of Englishmen, and at various times and in various forms declared them. Connecticut, as early as 1639, Virginia in 1624 and 1776, Pennsylvania in 1682, New York in 1691,—and I might mention others still,—put forth Declarations, brief and meagre, but kindred to those of the mother country. In the Colony of New Plymouth, the essential principles of Magna Charta were proclaimed in 1636, under the name of "The General Fundamentals"; and in 1641 the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay announced, in words worthy of careful study, that "the free fruition of such Liberties, Immunities, and Privileges, as Humanity, Civility, and Christianity call for, as due to every man in his place and proportion, without impeachment and infringement, hath ever been and ever will be the tranquillity and stability of Churches and Commonwealths, and the denial or deprival thereof the disturbance, if not the ruin, of both."[28] Such was the Preamble to the "Body of Liberties" of the Massachusetts Colony in 1641. It would be difficult to find any text more comprehensive than these remarkable words,—the object being "Liberties, Immunities, and Privileges," to such extent "as Humanity, Civility, and Christianity call for"; and this Declaration, broader than Magna Charta, became the inspiration of Massachusetts, if not of the Nation. Nor does Massachusetts stand alone in this honor. Connecticut is by her side.[29]
I should not do justice to this "Body of Liberties," if I did not call attention to at least four different declarations. There is, first, the clause: "There shall never be any bond slavery, villenage, or captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us"; and although this provision falls short of that universal freedom which is our present aspiration, it is a plain limitation upon Slavery, and marks the hostility of the Colony. Another declaration sets an example of hospitality: "If any people of other nations, professing the true Christian religion, shall flee to us from the tyranny or oppression of their persecutors, or from famine, wars, or the like necessary and compulsory cause, they shall be entertained and succored amongst us according to that power and prudence God shall give us." And it is further declared: "Every person within this jurisdiction, whether inhabitant or foreigner, shall enjoy the same Justice and Law that is general for the Plantation, which we constitute and execute one towards another, without partiality or delay." Here is nothing less than Equality before the Law, without this compendious term. There is another declaration, which has the same exalted character: "Every man, whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free, shall have liberty to come to any public Court, Council, or Town Meeting, and either by speech or writing to move any lawful, seasonable, and material question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, bill, or information, whereof that meeting hath proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and respective manner." Such declarations as these belong to the history of Freedom.
In the animated discussions immediately preceding the Revolution, the rights and liberties of Englishmen were constantly asserted as the birthright of the Colonists. This was often by formal resolution or declaration, couched at first in moderate phrase. At the outrage of the Stamp Act, a Congress of delegates from nine Colonies, held at New York in October, 1765, put forth a series of resolutions embodying "Declarations of our humble opinion respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the Colonists."[30] The humility of this language recalls the English Petition of Right under Charles the First. This was followed in 1774 by the Declaration of the Continental Congress, which, in another tone and with admirable force, in ten different propositions, arrays the rights which belong to "the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by the immutable Laws of Nature, the Principles of the English Constitution, and the several Charters or Compacts."[31]
"Time's noblest offspring is the last";