Journal of Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of Delegates: Chosen to Revise the Constitution of Massachusetts, Begun and Holden at Boston, November 15, 1820, and Continued by Adjournment to January 9, 1821. Reported for the Boston Daily Advertiser

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Pub. at the office of the Daily advertiser, 1853 - Constitutional conventions - 677 pages

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Page 343 - III. [As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality ; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality...
Page 124 - I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich; and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent on me as , according to the best of my abilities and understanding agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.
Page 636 - All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.
Page 609 - ... the legislature shall from time to time authorize and require the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic or religious societies, to make suitable provision at their own expense for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily...
Page 639 - No subject shall be held to answer for any crimes or offence, until the same is fully and plainly, substantially and formally, described to him; or be compelled to accuse, or furnish evidence against himself. And every subject shall have a right to produce all proofs that may be favorable to him; to meet the witnesses against him face to face, and to be fully heard in his defence by himself, or his counsel, at his election.
Page 632 - Every male citizen of twenty-one years of age and upwards (excepting paupers and persons under guardianship), who shall have resided within the Commonwealth one year, and within the town or district, in which he may claim a right to vote, six calendar months next preceding any election of Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Senators, or Representatives, and who shall have paid...
Page 659 - ... be found necessary, the general court which shall be in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, shall issue precepts to the selectmen of the several towns, and to the assessors of the unincorporated plantations, directing them to convene the qualified voters of their respective towns and plantations, for the purpose of collecting their sentiments on the necessity or expediency of revising the constitution, in order to amendments.
Page 313 - We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age.
Page 163 - That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence...
Page 167 - For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right...

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