237 



Salem Register, in an article from -wliich an extract has 

 already been given : 



Mr Upham then proceeded to illustrate the peculiar value 

 and characteristics of the history thus officially presented, in the 

 Records of the Colony of Massachusetts, from its foundation to 

 the close of its course, as an absolutely and completely inde- 

 pendent government, under the first charter. 



The substance of the position he took was that the records 

 before him constituted the most valuable work in existence on 

 the foundation, development, and essential elements of a free 

 State — a real republic — a just, well organized, and legitimate 

 body politic. 



In illustration of his views, on this point, we present a portion 

 of the minutes he used, which he was kind enough to allow us 

 to take from him at the time. 



It is very remarkable how little foreign or external interfer- 

 ence there was, during the period, covered by these records, in 

 the progress and course of things, in the formation of the 

 institutions of Massachusetts. The mother country seems to 

 have purposely abstained from intermeddling. From the time 

 that the charter came over with Winthrop, until society had 

 received its final impress and mature formation, Massachusetts 

 was almost as effectually separated, and as independent of the 

 control of the mother country, as if on not merely another 

 hemisphere, but another planet. 



Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, quotes 

 at length the order of council which Archbishop Laud issued 

 June 17, 1634, to all places of trade and plantation where the 

 English were settled, enjoining the establishment of the na- 

 tional church in them ; and remarks that, while that order was 

 extended to all the four great divisions of the world, and gen- 

 erally received and obeyed in all colonies and settlements, "New 

 England was somewhat of an exception." "The Dissenters," 

 says he, "who transported themselves thither, established their 

 own fancy." 



Here then we have, on a clear field, entirely unoccupied by 

 any organized society, so far as institutions are concerned as 

 fresh as if never trodden by man before, the experiment of the 

 Social State fairly worked out. No external power interferes, 

 no foreign precedents claim authority, no closet statesman or 

 speculative theorist forms the scheme, and no lordly proprietor, 

 or board of trade, or distant corporation, or foreign official of any 



