with the act calling it into being, the convention directed that these articles be presented for ratification in town meetings by men qualified to vote for representatives in the legislature.
On April 9 the towns voted, the selectmen of each forwarding the returns to an examining committee appointed by the convention. The people approved nine of the articles, including the extension of the franchise, abolition of the test oath, the amendment article, and a stiff ban on plural officeholding. They disapproved of those articles, 1, 2, 5, 9, and 10, that the convention had labored hardest and longest to perfect (see Document 10). Article 1 embodied the revision of the third article; 2 altered the political year and provided for one, instead of two, annual sessions of the legislature; 5 was the article on representation, both house and senate, including the changes in the executive council; 9 contained new safeguards for the judiciary; and 10 confirmed the charter and the historic rights and privileges of Harvard University, except to open its board to clergy of any denomination. This article, in fact, was rejected by the largest majority of all—only Suffolk County favored it—suggesting that the democratic prejudice against Harvard, or perhaps against private corporations generally, ran wide and deep. The representation article also lost by a large majority. An analysis of the vote gives no clue to the reason. Essex returned the largest margin against it; two of the valley counties narrowly approved it.
With respect to the article on religion, however, it seems clear that the nearly 2 to 1 rejection was founded not on opposition to the minor changes proposed but on opposition to its retention in any substantial form. The article encountered strongest opposition in Bristol and Berkshire, whose delegates in the convention had supported the reform minority. Those from Bristol voted 2 to 1 for the Childs substitute, while their constituents voted 17 to 1 against the amended article. The three eastern-most counties returned modest majorities in favor, while the counties from Worcester westward voted 2½ to 1 against it. In all probability the convention’s revision pleased neither side, or any side, in the religious disputes of the commonwealth.
The Massachusetts experiment in state-supported religion deteriorated rapidly during the next decade. A legal system of public worship could not be maintained in a community characterized by a multiplicity of sects and, partly for that reason, by a profound regard for religious liberty. Bowing to the inevitable in 1833, the legislature sent to the people an amendment of the third article, basically the same as Childs had proposed a dozen years before. It was ratified by a majority of 10 to 1. In time, too, the people reformed the political year, altered the system of representation in the house, and placed the senate on a popular base.
The amendment article thus proved to be the most important reform introduced into the Massachusetts constitution in 1821. Democracy expressed itself more effectively through the slower and more cautious amendment process than through the convention medium. At first glance the vote on ratification of the fourteen articles might suggest that the populace was even more conservative than the convention. On closer inspection, however, it is apparent that the people approved the articles that came up to the democratic standard and disapproved those that did not. In general, then, the popular vote expressed a democratic judgment on the work of the convention. Marshaled and controlled by a conservative elite, the convention was a highly successful rearguard action against the advance of democracy. The speeches of Webster and Story, in particular, gave intellectual form and content to the conservative resistance everywhere. Significantly, the North American Review, the Boston quarterly and citadel of New England letters, devoted an article to these speeches, which at once became famous and which remain even today the most memorable features of the convention. But the resistance could not endure. As democratic leadership matured and acquired effective political organization, the electorate gradually reformed the historic constitution that was so little disturbed by the convention of 1820–1821.
| 1820 | |
| June 16 | A statute provides for a referendum on the question of a convention to revise the constitution and for the election of delegates if a majority of the voters approve. |
| August 21 | In town meetings the people endorse a convention; the vote is 11,756 to 6,593. |
| October 16 | The convention delegates are elected in town meetings. |
| November 15 | The convention opens in Boston. |
| November 24 | The delegates commence debate in committee of the whole on the reports submitted by the select committees. |
| 1821 | |
| January 1 | The convention begins consideration of amendments reported by the committee of the whole. |
| January 2 | The convention approves, 245 to 147, the revised plan—the eighth resolution of the legislative committee—for the apportionment of representatives. |
| January 6 | The convention rejects, 136 to 246, Childs’s substitute amendment for the third and fourth articles of the bill of rights. |
| January 8 | The convention takes up the report of the committee appointed to reduce the approved amendments to form. |
| January 9 | The convention gives final approval to fourteen amendments and to an “Address to the People” and adjourns sine die. |
| April 9 | Nine of the fourteen amendments are ratified by the people in town meetings. |
The question of religion in its connections with civil government was first discussed in the convention on December 4. At issue was the test oath—a declaration of belief in the Christian religion—required of all elective officials. The select committee on this chapter of the constitution called for abolition of the oath. Daniel Webster, the chairman, opened the debate with a justification of the change on grounds of expediency rather than of right. The thirty-eight-year-old Webster, though a native of Massachusetts, had not yet embarked on his distinguished political career in that state. He had moved to Boston to practice law in 1816, having served for several years in Washington as a New Hampshire Congressman. He apparently held no firm convictions on the question before the convention.
The speakers who followed him did, however, James Prince, of Boston, condemned the test oath on the principles of religious liberty. Joseph Tuckerman, a Unitarian minister who later became famous for his ministry to the poor of Boston, held that a Christian people had a right to demand Christian rulers. James T. Austin, a prominent Boston attorney, Republican, and legislator, concisely and cogently defended the resolution.
MR. WEBSTER. It is obvious that the principal alteration, proposed by the first resolution, is the omission of the declaration of belief in the Christian religion, as a qualification for office, in the cases of the governor, lieutenant governor, counsellors and members of the Legislature. I shall content myself on this occasion with stating, shortly and generally, the sentiments of the select committee as I understand them on the subject of this resolution. Two questions naturally present themselves. In the first place; have the people a right, if in their judgment the security of their government and its due administration demand it, to require a declaration of belief in the Christian religion as a qualification or condition of office? On this question, a majority of the committee held a decided opinion. They thought the people had such a right. By the fundamental principle of popular and elective governments, all office is in the free gift of the people. They may grant, or they may withhold it at pleasure; and if it be for them, and them only, to decide whether they will grant office, it is for them to decide, also, on what terms, and with what conditions, they will grant it. Nothing is more unfounded than the notion that any man has a right to an office. This must depend on the choice of others, and consequently upon the opinions of others, in relation to his fitness and qualification for office. No man can be said to have a right to that, which others may withhold from him, at pleasure. There are certain rights, no doubt, which the whole people—or the government as representing the whole people—owe to each individual, in return for that obedience, and personal service, and proportionate contributions to the public burdens which each individual owes to the government. These rights are stated
