Excerpt from Personal Liberty Laws, (Statutes of Massachusetts), And Slavery in the Territories, (Case Had they done so, and reported against the provisions of the Personal Liberty Bill, which had been enacted by one legislature and amended by another, the burst of indigna tion which would have followed would have waked the echoes of Abington, and Lowell, and Worcester, even if it did not extend to Great Barrington itself. But in their Introductory Report the Commissioners, after stating that they had sedulously avoided the introduction of their personal opinions respecting matters of expediency, but had considered it their duty to construct the several chapters according to what appeared to be the general policy of the legislature, as they found it expressed, added this clause, viz.: They have not deemed it a part of their duty to pass upon doubtful questions of constitutional law, the presumption being that all the statutes of the State are constitutional until the contrary appears. As Commission ers, they were not authorized to rebut the presumption, and determine what was or was not unconstitutional but here is a reasonable indication of an opinion that there were some provisions which were at least of doubtful constitutionality and if any member of the legislature had made inquiry to what provisions reference was thus made, he would doubt less have received a ready answer. But no one asked, and certainly further suggestion need not have been volunteered. The Commissioners had abundant evidence that there were divers gentlemen in the legislature who deemed themselves quite competent to the work of revision without their assistance. It may be added that when chapter 144, which contains the provisions in relation to personal liberty was considered by the Committee of Revision, or by its sub committee. 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.