MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL COURT

(General Court of Massachusetts)


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Massachusetts General Court

The laws of England are bounded by the four seas and do not reach America.
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Massachusetts General Court

Your excellency is pleased to tell us, that declarations have been made and still subsist, that the act of parliament for granting the stamp-duties in the colonies, shall not be executed within the province. We know of no such declarations. If any individuals of the people have declared an unwillingness to subject themselves to the payment of the stamp-duties, and choose rather to lay aside all business, than to make use of the stamped papers, as we are not accountable for such declarations, so neither can we see any thing criminal in them: this house has no authority to control their choice in this matter: the act does not oblige them to make use of the papers; it only exacts the payment of certain duties for such papers as they may incline to use: such declarations may possibly have been made and may still subsist, very consistently with the utmost respect to the king and parliament.
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This is one of the most fascinating documents of the American Revolution. The British Parliament had passed the very unpopular Stamp Act, a form of tax that required a government stamp, which had to be paid for, to be placed on all legal documents from leases to wills. Governor Bernard opposed the Stamp Act and was trying to have the Colonies exempted (See {613881}). The assembly while apparently advocating obedience to the law and warning the Governor of the possibility of Colonists boycotting legal instruments, actually laid out the strategy and the legal defense for a boycott and provided a revolutionary blueprint for colonists to follow.

Massachusetts General Court

As piety cannot bee maintained without church ordinances and officers, nor justice without lawes & magistracy, no more can our safety & peace be preserved without military orders & officers
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The General Court was then the legislature.

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Massachusetts General Court
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Massachusetts General Court
  • Born:
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Judicial Court
Biography

The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when the colonial assembly, in addition to making laws, sat as a judicial court of appeals. Before the adoption of the state constitution in 1780, it was called the Great and General Court, but the official title was shortened by John Adams, author of the state constitution. It is a bicameral body. The upper house is the Massachusetts Senate which is composed of 40 members. The lower body, the Massachusetts House of Representatives, has 160 members. (Until 1978, it had 240 members.) It meets in the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill in Boston.