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death, the Christians who chose to worship God according to a ritual differing from his own.[1] Sometimes indeed, the zeal of his enactments induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same code which prohibits the use of tobacco.[2] It must not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons interested, and that the manners of the community were even more austere and more puritanical than the laws. In 1649 a solemn association was formed in Boston to check the worldly luxury of long hair.[3]
These errors are no doubt discreditable to the human reason; they attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold upon what is true and just, and is often reduced to the alternative of two excesses. In strict connexion with this penal legislation, which bears such striking marks of a narrow sectarian spirit, and of those religious passions which had been warmed by persecution, and were still fermenting among the people, a body of political laws is to be found, which, though written two hundred years ago, is still ahead of the liberties of our age.
The general principles which are the groundwork of modern constitutions—principles which were imperfectly known in Europe, and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, in the seventeenth century—were all recognised and determined by the laws of New England: the intervention of the people in public affairs, the free voting of taxes, the responsibility of authorities, personal liberty, and trial by jury, were all positively established without discussion.
From these fruitful principles, consequences have been derived and applications have been made such as no nation in Europe has yet ventured to attempt.
In Connecticut the electoral body consisted, from its origin, of the whole number of citizens ; and this is readily to be understood,[4]
- ↑ By the penal law of Massachusetts, any catholic priest who should set foot in the colony after having been once driven out of it, was liable to capital punishment.
- ↑ Code of 1650, p. 96.
- ↑ New England's Memorial, p. 316. See Appendix E.
- ↑ Constitution of 1638, p. 17.
with hard labour. Those members of the sect who should defend their opinions shall be first fined, then imprisoned, and finally driven out of the province. (Historical Collection of State Papers, vol. i., p. 630.)
