George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[368] the university at Cambridge, public schools, and

Chap. XVII.} 1780.

grammar-schools in the towns. The constitution was marked by the effort at a complete separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, that it might be a government of laws and not of men. ‘For a power without any restraint,’ said the convention, ‘is tyranny.’

‘The constitution of Massachusetts,’ wrote Count Matthieu Dumas, one of the French officers who served in America, ‘is perhaps the code of laws which does most honor to man.’

As if to leave to the world a record of the contrast between the contending systems of government for colonists, the British ministry, simultaneously with the people of Massachusetts, engaged in forming its model. The part of Massachusetts between the river Saco and the St. Croix was constituted a province, under the name of New Ireland. The system adopted for Quebec and for East Florida was to receive in the New England province its full development. The marked feature of the constitution was the absolute power of the British parliament; and, to make this power secure for all coming time, every landlord on acquiring land, whether by grant from the crown, or by purchase, or by inheritance, was bound to make a test declaration of allegiance to the king in his parliament, as the supreme legislature of the province. The attorney and solicitor general of Great Britain were to report what of the laws of England would of their own authority take effect in the province, and what acts of parliament the king might introduce by his proclamation. ‘It has been found,’ said the state paper, ‘by sad experience, ’