RECORDS OF MASSACHUSETTS UNDER ITS FIRST CHARTER. THE 'HE design of the lecture this evening is to consider the Records of Massachusetts, under its first charter, from the point of view in which they illustrate the formation of a bodypolitic. The organization of families and communities into some established order is demanded by the conditions of our nature. More than any other temporal concern, it merits and compels the attention of thoughtful minds; and the questions relating to it have always been acknowledged to rank in the highest department, as subjects of inquiry and meditation. Through the entire range of history, the greatest minds have been turned to it. But a glance at the condition of the nations of the earth shows how unsatisfactory have been the results. The experience of ages has effected little; and the theories of philosophers, not much more. The human race in all lands, and all ages, has groaned under the crushing weight of institutions constructed on false principles. Governments everywhere are upheld by military force; and depend for continuance upon ignorance and superstition. So far as we are an exception, it becomes us to inquire to what we owe the degree of our exemption. Enlightened views on the subject of government are especially important to a people that governs itself. We can hardly expect to obtain them from treatises and essays, however ingenious and learned. There is, indeed, an inherent obstacle in the way of attaining to the truth by these means. Attempts to reason and speculate concerning it are thwarted by the influence on the mind of pre-existing usages and ideas. Every suggestion of reform is encountered by the necessity of adapting it to a surrounding state of things, and by well-grounded fear, that, however specious the theory, it may not work well in practice. The elements of motive, sentiment, and association, that actuate mankind, are so infinitely diversified that they cannot be calculated. Casual events, and complicated circumstances, not to be foreseen, may bring to naught the best considered schemes. On this subject, the world craves and needs, not what theorists have conjectured, or philosophers propounded, but what has been tried, and found sufficient. The question is-Has a fair experiment ever been made, under favorable auspices, of laying the foundation, and building the fabric of a government of men? and, if so, let it be brought before us. As answering this question, and meeting this demand, I cite the colony of Massachusetts, during its first half-century, as more to the purpose than any other instance in history. In pursuance of the recommendation of Governor Clifford, in a special message of Feb. 12, 1853, the Legislature of Massachusetts ordered the first and second volumes of the "Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," to be printed, embracing the proceedings in London prior to the transfer of the patent; and continued after that event, under the style of "Colony Records," to 1649. The next year a resolve was passed, approved by Governor Washburn, February 17, for printing the third, fourth, and fifth volumes, carrying the record to 1686, and covering, altogether, the entire period of the government under the first charter. The form and manner in which they were printed do honor to the Commonwealth, and to the distinguished member of our society, intrusted with the responsible duty of editing them, Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff. The copying was done, under his appointment, by David Pulsifer, whose thorough acquaintance with the chirography of early colonial times gives assurance of exactness. These volumes supply the most important instruction anywhere to be found, on the formation of a civilized State. They are the text-book on the subject; and stand alone in their character, and the value of their contents, as I proceed to show. On the 3d of November, 1620, James I. granted by letterspatent all that section of North America, between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels of latitude, from sea to sea, to the "Council established at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for the Planting, Ruling, Ordering, and Governing of New England in America." The Council at Plymouth conveyed by a contract, indented March 14, 1628, so much of the territory, included in their aforesaid patent, as was between lines, three miles north of Merrimack River and three miles south of Charles River, running from sea to sea, to Sir Henry Rosewell and Sir John Young, Knights, Thomas Southcott, John Humphries, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcomb, their heirs, assigns, and associates. One year afterwards, namely, on the 4th of March, 1629, in the fourth year of the reign of Charles I., letters-patent passed the seals, confirming to the above-named six persons, and twenty others, severally named, who had become associated with them, and their heirs, and assigns, "to their only proper and absolute use and behoof forevermore," the territory purchased from the Council at Plymouth. These twenty-six individuals thus came into complete possession, and were owners, so far as the crown of England could give title, of the continent within the limits described. The vocabulary of ordinary language, and of the law, was exhausted in expressing, in every possible iteration and reiteration, the fulness, absoluteness, and perpetuity of the feofment and jurisdiction thus conveyed. In three particulars only was any limitation imposed. The company was forbidden, in ruling its vast American domain, to make regulations repugnant to the laws of England. But this was merely nominal, as no provision was made, or required to be made, for redress of any wrong done by the company to a planter, or to any outside party. There was, indeed, no way left open, through which the regulations of the company could be brought to adjudication on this point. No political powers, or rights whatever, were given by the patent to the people of the settlement; for the negative protection implied in the language, that no laws should be imposed upon them in conflict with the statutes of the realm, was a mere shadow of a shade, as events proved. The company was required to pay to the crown one-fifth part of all ores of gold or silver found in the country. amounted to nothing. This There was one other condition, which also, in practice, hardly amounted to any thing. The patent exempted the settlements, to be made by the company, from all duties of any kind, "inward or outward," for seven years; and, after that, for twentyone years more, with this exception only, that, during the latter period, they were to be subject to a duty of five per cent upon goods shipped from the plantations to any other part of the dominions of England. But this had no sensible effect here, for the duty was to be exacted at the outer end of the voyage, in the port of discharge; and was there imposed upon all alike, foreigners as well as other colonists. Further, it was pledged by the crown, that on the re-exportation, at any time within thirteen months, of goods upon which this duty had been paid, to any country whatever, no further duty of any kind should be levied on them. The whole arrangement was justly to be regarded as the assurance of a privilege rather than the imposition of a burden. No provision was made relating to the subject, on the expiration of the twenty-one years, but the whole matter left, as between the crown and the company; for it must be noticed that there is no reference whatever, in the patent, to the authority, or even the existence, of Parliament, except as implied in the clauses requiring the regulations of the company not to be repugnant to the laws of England. The duty on goods was not in deference to any acts of Parliament, but carefully described, as "according to the ancient trade of merchants." In order that it might be made clear and certain, that the territories embraced in the patent should not be subject to Parliament, but exclusively connected with the personal private property of the crown, the device was adopted, as in the patent to the Council at Plymouth, of repeating over and over again, that they were appendages of the royal demesnes, "to be holden of us, as of our manor of East Greenwich." They were to be regarded as an enlargement of the grounds of one of the favorite residences of the sovereign. While thus protecting them from interference by any other parts of the government, the King bound himself, and his heirs and successors, to the end of time, not to encroach upon, |