laws. As each one relies on the government for security and protection, so each one is bound to render his personal service, and to contribute his portion to the common expense of maintaining the state. If it may not be asserted, that no government but such as is founded on the principle of equal rights and rational liberty to all, is consistent with the laws of the Creator, it may be said, that no form of government seems to be so much so.

43. As the real foundation of government among us is the people, it is first to be considered in what manner the people exercise their powers of sovereignty. All the people cannot act in one assembly, nor each one in his own name. Hence there must be many places of meeting, and some name common to many. The acts of the people must be made known in some agreed manner. The people exercise their political rights by the general name of inhabitants of towns. All the political acts which they may do collectively must be done in town meetings. The people may assemble in such meetings, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to consult upon the common good, to instruct their representatives, and to petition the legislature for the redress of wrongs, or to remonstrate against grievances. The people have reserved to themselves the right to assemble when and how they please, in an orderly and peaceable manner, otherwise than in town meetings, to consult on the common good. The acts of such meetings have no legal force. Among such meetings may be classed lyceums, assemblies to hear lectures; caucuses, held by electors to confer together, and agree on candidates for office. The word caucus was first used in Boston, about the beginning of the revolutionary times. Its origin is not ascertained; it has now a well known meaning, and is in common use throughout the United States. The inhabitants of each town are declared to be a body politic and corporate. Their acts, as such body, are known by the record of their proceedings, duly certified by proper officers.

44. When a town meeting is necessary, the law requires that the selectmen shall issue a warrant, setting forth that a meeting is to be held, and for what purpose. The inhabitants who are qualified to attend and act, are to be duly notified thereof by the constable,* or such other person as the selectmen shall appoint to notify them.

*The first use of this word was (comes stabuli) count of the stables, or master of horse of an emperor. Afterwards it meant the highest military office,

45. The next corporate bodies known in the constitution are counties, which are divisions made for the purpose of administering justice within them. Counties are composed of one or more towns.

46. All the counties together make the next and last denomination of the political system, viz. 'the state.'

47. The law-making and the executive power arises from the votes of inhabitants of towns, and is thus provided for :

The constitution expresses (in the 3d article of amendment adopted in 1820), that every "male citizen of twentyone 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 within which he shall claim a right to vote, six calendar months, next preceding any election for governor, lieutenant-governor, senators or representatives, and who shall have paid, by himself, his parents, master or guardian, any state or county tax, which shall, within two years next preceding such election, have been assessed upon him, in any town or district of this commonwealth; and also every citizen who shall by law be exempted from taxation, and who shall in all other respects be qualified as abovementioned, shall have a right to vote in such election of governor, lieutenant-governor, senators and representatives; and no other person shall be entitled to vote in such elections."

of

48. Before this amendment, there was some distinction between those citizens who might vote in affairs of the town only, and those who might vote on those affairs and for state officers; but now that distinction is abolished in effect. The assessors are required by law to make a list, annually, voters, and to publish it. They are also required to meet, on some day previous to an election, to receive evidence of qualifications to vote, and to add names to the list. A list is carried to the place of election, and no one is allowed to vote, whose name is not found thereon. Persons who vote, knowing themselves not to be qualified, are subject to a fine.

49. The city of Boston does the same acts, in relation to all state affairs, which towns do; that is, it takes its share in all elections of state officers and rulers, and pays its part of

and then the highest civil office, under a sovereign. lowest executive officer, as used in the United States. by common law, and in part by statute law,

Constable means the His duties arise in part

taxes, &c. But its interior government is exercised in a different manner, and by officers of different names from those known in towns. This is so, from the law or act incorporating the city. This act is sometimes called the charter, which means nothing more than the law written on paper, charta being a Latin word, meaning paper. The citizens of Boston, instead of assembling in town meeting, assemble in wards or divisions of the city. Instead of voting in the presence of selectmen, they vote in the presence of ward officers. Instead of having selectmen, they have four representatives from each ward, and a board of aldermen, and a mayor. Thus they have a city legislature of two branches, each having a negative on the other. The mayor is the executive officer. The city is a little republic.

50. Justice is administered by officers different from those in other places, though the same laws are administered, with the addition of such as are made by the city legislature.

51. There is a court of civil causes of twenty dollars, and less, peculiar to the city; a court of criminal jurisdiction for small offences, called the Police Court; and a court of criminal trials of all offences between a justice's court and the Supreme Court. This is called the Municipal Court, and it punishes all offences which are not punished with death. The word municipal is derived from a Latin word, which meant taking a gift, and was applied to taking the gift or privileges of citizenship, in a city; and then was used to mean things pertaining to a city; and, as applied to this court, means the City Court, if it has any meaning. The word municipal is also used to signify some matter pertaining to the interior affairs of a nation, in contradistinction to matters which pertain to international law. The judge of this court in Boston has no civil jurisdiction. He is appointed and holds his office like other judges, and is paid, half his salary by the city, and half by the state.

52. The office of mayor is very responsible one. It is his duty to see that the laws of the city are executed, that the public peace and tranquillity are preserved. He has also a legislative character, as the presiding officer in the board of aldermen. He is, necessarily, aided by subordinate officers in the exercise of executive power. Mayor is said to be derived from an old English word, meyr, and that from miret, and means to keep, or guard.

CHAPTER VI.

On the Authority by which the State Laws are made.

53. A LAW is a command to do, or not to do, or a permission to do, some act. It must be made in relation to those who are bound to obey, and must be made by competent authority. There must be tribunals to judge of breaches of the law, and power to execute judgments. To show in a strong light the difference between absolute despotism and a government of constitutional laws,-The sultan of the Turks wants money he orders certain rich men to be put to death, and their money put into his treasury. The state of Massachusetts wants money. It cannot have such want for any purpose not provided for in the constitution. It cannot supply this want from the money of the people, otherwise than by a public law, openly and deliberately made; and whereby each citizen will be held to pay his just proportion.

This law-making power is vested in a "GENERAL COURT,"* or legislature. This latter word is derived from two Latin words, which signify law, and bearing or enacting. Experience has proved that the power of making laws may be safely trusted to the concurrence of two independent branches, subject to the qualified opinion of the executive chief. This principle is common to all the American constitutions. The General Court is composed of two branches, viz. the Senate and House of Representatives.

54. The number of senators is forty, who are chosen in districts composed of several towns, and which districts are established by law, from time to time.

The number of senators which each district may send, depends upon the amount which the inhabitants dwelling within that district are liable to pay, as their proportion of the whole state tax. But no district can have more than six senators, whatever tax it pays. Senators are chosen in town meetings, in each district, on the first Monday in April. The town

*The word court is (as many of our words are) from the language of the Saxons, a people who had conquered and settled in a part of England about the year 500. It meant a square in the castle of the chief lord, where his people met. With us, it means also the legislative assembly. Here, and everywhere in the United States, it means the tribunals of justice. The judges (and the judge, when only one sits) are called "the court." It means also the assembly in a court-house, in common speech. The word court is supposed, by some writers, to come from the Latin word curia. The English of this word is court.

clerk records the names of all persons voted for, and the number of votes for each. The selectmen and town-clerk send a copy of that record, certified by them, to the office of the secretary of state, seventeen days before the last Wednesday of May, to be laid before the governor and council, who examine those returns. The secretary is ordered to notify those persons who appear to be chosen senators, to attend the General Court, on the last Wednesday in May. If it happens that there is not a choice in one or more districts, the choice is made by a convention of senators and representatives, from the two candidates who have the highest number of votes.

55. A convention (derived from two Latin words, signifying to come together) is a meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives, in the hall of the latter, at which the president of the Senate presides. The two branches constitute one body, in such case, as to the act to be done in convention. The speaker of the House acts only, then, as one of the convention. Such conventions are held in consequence of a proposal made by one branch to the other, by sending one of its members with a message.

56. Representatives are chosen in May, ten days before the last Wednesday. They are chosen from among the inhabitants in each town, and represent the towns in which they respectively live. They are chosen by the inhabitants in town meeting, and are certified to have been voted for as in the case of senators; and they carry those certificates with them to the General Court.

57. As the constitution now is, each town is entitled to send a certain number of representatives, in proportion to its number of ratable polls,* making an assembly of more than five hundred persons. This provision is thought to make too numerous and expensive a House. Propositions are before the people to amend the constitution in this respect. It will be observed that the Senate is founded on representation of property; the House, on representation of numbers in towns. 58. Senators are called honorable. The constitution does not confer this title. The usage may, perhaps, be derived from the fact, that the Senate may be resolved into the highest judicial tribunal for the trial of impeachments; more probably, it is a remnant of colonial usage. The king's council were a branch of the colonial legislature. Its members

, 74.

* For the meaning of these words, see numbers 72, 73, 7