Constitutional History of Boston, Massachusetts

Excerpt from Constitutional History of Boston, Massachusetts: An Essay These comparative disadvantages put Boston to a sharp test, and helped to develop its character. Boston was obliged to work hard, and to mix its toil' with farsighted intelligence. The character of Boston is best shown in its institutions, and not the least, perhaps, in the general organization and management of the community. Whoever wishes to understand and appreciate Massachusetts, should read her laws, and ascertain what they effected. Our public laws, after all, are the quint essence of our public life no less than of our joint ambition and public morals. They are the outcome of what the community for the time being wants. To the historian they are the backbone of all researches. The sources for. A constitutional history of Boston, therefore, are the town orders and the town records, interpreted by the acts of the town officers, on the one hand, and by the Massachusetts statutes and records, on the other. The first period of Boston, in the history of its constitu tion the most important, begins with the settlement under the patent, in 1630, and ends with the granting of the Province Charter, in 1691-92. The chief sources are the second and seventh Report of the Boston Record Commissioners (ed. Of the Colonial Laws of Massachu setts, edited, after the editions of 1660 and 1672, by W. H. Whitmore (1889 and and the Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay (1853 - 4, 5 vols. In six parts.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.