and the whole Colonial series is aptly closed by the Declaration of Independence, announcing not merely the rights of Englishmen, but the rights of men.
Only a few brief weeks before the Declaration of Independence, Virginia, taking the lead of her sister Colonies, established a Constitution, to which was prefixed an elaborate Declaration of Rights. This remarkable document, which became the immediate precedent for the whole country, marks an epoch in political history. Massachusetts and Connecticut had already led the way in that early and most comprehensive Preamble, which has been too little noticed; but in all English Declarations of Rights, and generally even in those of the Colonies, stress was laid upon the liberties and privileges of Englishmen. The rights claimed even by the Continental Congress of 1774, in their masculine Declaration, were the rights of "free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England." But the Virginia Bill of Rights, standing at the front of its first Constitution, discarded all narrow title from mere English precedent, planted itself on the eternal law of God, above every human ordinance, and openly proclaimed that "all men are by nature equally free and independent,"—a declaration which is repeated, though in other language, by the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
The policy of Bills of Rights is sometimes called in question. It has been said that they were originally privileges or concessions extorted from the king, and, though expedient in a monarchy, are of little value in a republic. As late as 1821, in the Convention for revising the Constitution of New York, doubts of their utility were openly expressed by Mr. Van Buren. But they are now above question. State after State, ending with California, follows the example of Virginia and Massachusetts, and places its Bill of Rights in the front of its Constitution. Nor can I doubt that much good is done by this frank assertion of fundamental principles. The public mind is instructed, people learn to know their rights, liberal institutions are confirmed, and the Constitution is made stable in the hearts of the community. Bills of Rights are lessons of political wisdom and anchors of liberty. They are the constant index, and also scourge, of injustice and wrong. In Massachusetts, Slavery itself disappeared before the declaration that "all men are born free and equal," interpreted by a liberty-loving Court.[32]
In the Convention of 1780 the Bill of Rights formed a prominent subject of interest. The necessity of such a safeguard had been pressed upon the people, and its absence from the Constitution of 1778 was unquestionably a reason for the rejection of that ill-fated effort. Indeed, the Constitution was openly opposed because it had no Bill of Rights. In the array of objections at the period was the following, which I take from an important contemporaneous publication: "That a Bill of Rights, clearly ascertaining and defining the rights of conscience and that security of person and property which every member in the State hath a right to expect from the supreme power thereof, ought to be settled and established previous to the ratification of any Constitution for the State."[33] Accordingly, at the earliest moment after the organization of the Convention, a motion was made, "that there be a Declaration of Rights prepared previous to the framing a new Constitution of Government," which after adoption gave way to another, "that the Convention will prepare a Declaration of Rights," and this motion prevailed by a nearly unanimous vote,—the whole number present, as returned by the monitors, being two hundred and fifty-one, of whom two hundred and fifty voted in the affirmative.[34] Thus emphatically did the early fathers of Massachusetts manifest their watchfulness for the rights of the people; and there is good reason to believe, also, that among the motives which stimulated it was a determination in this way to abolish Slavery.[35] The Convention then resolved to "proceed to the framing a new Constitution of Government." A grand Committee of thirty was chosen to perform these two important duties; and this Committee, after extended discussion, intrusted to John Adams alone the preparation of a Declaration of Rights, and to a Sub-Committee, consisting of James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, the duty of preparing the Form of a Constitution, which Sub-Committee again delegated the task to John Adams: so that to the pen of this illustrious citizen we are indebted primarily both for the Declaration of Rights and the Form of the Constitution.[36]
It is not difficult to trace most, if not all, of the ideas and provisions of our Preamble and Declaration of Rights to their primitive sources. The Preamble, where the body politic is founded on the fiction of the Social Compact, was doubtless inspired by the writings of Sidney and Locke, and by the English discussions at the period of the Revolution of 1688, when this questionable theory did good service in response to the assumptions of Filmer, and as a shield against arbitrary power. Of different provisions in the Bill of Rights, some are in the very words of Magna Charta,—others are derived from the ancient Common Law, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights of 1688,—while, of the thirty Articles composing it, no less than nineteen,[37] either wholly or in part, may be found substantially in the Virginia Bill of Rights: but these again are in great part derived from the earlier fountains.