USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 8
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RIGHT OF SETTLEMENT AND OF VOTING.
The town code of 1786, p. 108, continued the bylaw prohibiting strangers from making Boston their home, except under a permit from the selectmen; persons acquiring a freehold, and apprentices, had per- mission to settle in Boston. The code reprinted the law of 1700-1 (1 Prov. Laws, 451), under which nobody could vote in town meeting without the consent of the selectmen or the town; but natives, free- holders, and apprentices were excepted. Immigration was carefully restricted, and strangers could not be entertained in Boston, even by their relatives, for more than twenty days, unless the facts were re- ported to the selectmen in writing. The pertinent law of 1736-7 (2 Prov. Laws, 835) was reprinted in the town code of 1786, p. 113. The Constitution of 1780 (ch. I, sec. II, art. 2) undertook to define an " in- habitant," but left the right of admitting inhabitants as before, that is, to the towns and the selectmen. Technically, then, nobody had the right of domicile in Boston, except natives of the town, freeholders, apprentices, and persons admitted by vote of the selectmen or the town. This admission must be formal and explicit, and without this formality the right of domicile or "inhabitancy " could not be acquired
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(4 Prov. Laws, 912). The Constitution recognized only the fact of actual residence. In 1789 a law defined " the settlement of a citizen in any particular town " (1 Gen. Laws, 366). The term citizen was new, not being found in the Constitution of 1780, save incidentally and in the sense of resident. The Constitution called citizens "subjects." At first the term " citizen " was used as an equivalant for inhabitant, or legal inhabitant. Before long the national government took charge of this subject, and citizenship was conferred, not by selectmen, nor by the Commonwealth, but by the United States. The State regulated the rights of domicile and suffrage, also the right of settlement, with its implied right to poor-relief.
The laws of citizenship and settlement were substantially one in Boston until Congress passed its first naturalisation act, in 195. Up to that time citizenship, or "inhabitaney," was the prerequisite to voting as well as to poor-relief. For a short time Massachusetts naturalised, but could not grant inhabitancy. When citizenship be- came a national affair, there was nothing in the premises left to the town, except to prevent the settlement of persons likely to need relief. But a settlement could be, and can be, acquired without citizenship. The old law of settlement, which had been inherited from the Colony, and had added greatly to the power of the town, thus passed away, leaving behind it the mean duty of protecting the town from paupers, while the inestimable right of citizenship was conferred by the United States. Boston had become part of a sovereign nation, and the nation decided who should be admitted to the enjoyment and exercise of national power. The Colony had freemen, that is, members of the company; the Province had freeholders, or owners of land, which con- ferred the rights of a British subject; the United States conferred citizenship, which was the first step to the highest rights the people of the United States as a body politic could confer. Surely, a new era had begun; the great Revolution yielded great results; the town of Boston had become part of a national partnership. It was to learn this in other directions, and to reap additional benefits.
No religious test was prescribed by the patent of 1629. The Colony was true to this silence, except that in 1654 it required the members of the General Court to be " orthodox Protestants " (Col. Laws, 1660, ed. Whitmore, 145), and that violent laws against Quakers were enacted. The responsibility for these violations of the patent (1 Mass. Rec., 16) rests wholly with the Colony (see the laws of 1660, ed. Whitm., 154-6).
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In part the action of the Colony may be explained by the fact that self- preservation was the paramount duty of the Colony, and that it was more important to save Massachusetts than to engage in untried ex- periments of toleration. The Province charter provided that "there shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians, except Papists " (1 Prov. Laws, 14). In 1700 all Roman Catholic priests were specially prohibited from living in the Province (1. c., 424), and the law remained in force until the Constitution of 1780 (part II, ch. VI, art. 6). The Colony did not and could not prevent the Society of Friends from establishing itself in Boston. The first Catholic church in Boston was not built until after the beginning of this century, though Catholics began to arrive after the Constitution of Massachusetts had replaced the Province charter. The declaration of rights (art. 2) established freedom of conscience and freedom of wor- ship, though the next article authorized town taxes for the support of " public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality." This authority was taken away by the eleventh amendment, in 1833. The oath that no foreign person hath, or ought to have, any authority in any matter, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this Commonwealth, had been replaced, in 1821, by the simple oath of allegiance. Nor were the members of the General Court required, after the amendments of 1821, to declare the truth of the Christian religion. The era from 1776 to 1822, then, saw something like emancipation from the political test of creed, as far as Massachusetts was concerned. The United States did not tolerate a test of its officers' religion, and made the free exercise of religion the supreme law of the land.
The difference between town and state suffrage was continued, town suffrage being the more liberal of the two. The Province had never defined the qualification of voters as to age and sex. The Constitution of 1780 expressed the practice of the Province period, limiting the right of voting in State matters to males at least twenty-one years of age. The property qualification was either a freehold yielding three pounds a year, or any estate worth sixty pounds. This was virtually an adop- tion of the Province charter requirements, the Massachusetts pound consisting, ever since 1652 (3 Mass. Records, 261-262), of three ounces of silver 31-40 fine. It was customary to treat two pounds sterling as equal to three pounds of this Massachusetts money of account. As a curiosity it is worth stating that the Massachusetts Constitution recog- nized silver money only (part II, ch. VI, art. 3), while the Province
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law was bimetallic in ordering the new-tenor bills of credit. In addi- tion to the sex, age, and property qualifications, which controlled to 1821, the voter must be a legal "inhabitant " or formally admitted to the town in which he claimed the right of suffrage. This inheritance from the Colony, which was a close corporation, was done away with in 1821, when the third Amendment of the State Constitution required all voters to be male citizens, residing in Massachusetts, who had paid a tax. In town matters the General Court gave the suffrage, in 1782, to "every person who is an inhabitant within any town in this Com- monwealth, who shall pay to one single tax, besides the poll or polls, a sum equal to two-thirds of a single poll tax " (1 Gen. Laws, 62). The general town act of 1786 retained this provision, but replaced the term "every person " by the phrase "the freeholders and other inhabitants. of each town in this government" (1. c., 250). The act of June 18, 1811, required town voters to be male citizens, at least twenty-one years of age, of at least one year's residence in the town, and to have been taxed (? Gen. Laws, 279). The city charter (sec. 8), finally, adopted for municipal purposes the same requirements of voters as the amend- ment of 1821 required in State elections.
At last, then, the difference between town voters and voters for State affairs was to disappear, but not while Boston remained a town. While Boston was a town, the selectmen decided who should vote, though in town meeting the moderator had control. In deciding who was a voter, the selectmen had the assistance of the assessors, who were required by the law of March 2, 1801, to make regular lists of voters (2 Gen. Laws, 44, 72). This list was perfected by the selectmen, but had reference to State elections only. In 1813 the assessors were required to make also a list of " all such inhabitants as may be qualified by law to vote in the choice of town officers" (1. c., 341). The same law introduced the system of checking at all elections. The city charter required the board of mayor and aldermen to make the voting lists (sec. 24). The active and passive right of suffrage in town matters was substantially one since the general town act of 1786 (1 Gen. Laws, 250); in State matters more was required of voters, and still more of persons voted for. The town, therefore, was more democratic than the State. It had been so ever since Colony times, and traces of this are still found. Among State officers the law recognizes rank; in town matters rank never counted for much. The idea of manhood suffrage, however, was unknown to the age under discussion. On the other hand, the town
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of Boston under the Commonwealth began with complicated restric- tions of suffrage, and ended in 1822 with simple and obvious require- ments upon the citizen voter. The progress made was altogether in the direction of simplicity and equality. No wonder the people were attached to their own town meeting, where they had rights unknown in State matters. The town was the nearest approach to a democratic republic known to the men of Boston in 1822.
POLICE DEPARTMENT.
For the better order of the town, Boston introduced street lamps just before the end of the Province; in part also to help the night watch- men who had to look after the British soldiers. When the soldiers left Boston, and the people returned to their own-they came in thousands -a day patrol was found necessary to maintain reasonable order. Some years later the first "inspectors of the police " were appointed, and the interesting ordinance authorizing a permanent patrol still stands in the town code of 1286, p. 66. The police department, then, began in 1286; but the old night watch was retained as a separate service until 1854. The force appointed in 1286 consisted of four "in- spectors of the police," the term police having reference to the good order of the town, not to the men appointed for that purpose. The term was new, it had not gone into the dictionaries, and at best a stu- dent would write of " well-policed states," meaning well-ordered states (18 Bost. Rec. Comm., 133). Howell used a similar expression in 1642, but the word was as foreign to the people of Boston in 1486 as the terms bi-cameral or physiological psychology are today. The "in- spectors of the police " were ordinary patrolmen, subject to the select- men, by whom they were appointed. A patrolman was required to report to his superiors once a week. Of course, the arrangement failed. Patrolmen who received their instructions from any one of the nine selectmen were obliged to consult their own judgment, and free to con- sult their own convenience. Promptness and responsibility in admin- istration are not compatible with committee rule. A committee means the absence of individual responsibility in administration. In addition it means delay, lack of discipline, and want of executive force.
Experience led to a change. The selectmen were authorized to "elect one suitable person to superintend the police [good order] of this town " (By-Laws of 1801, p. 33). The selectmen chose their own
11
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chairman, Charles Bulfinch, a good man, who served from 1499 to 1816, when he was succeeded by Jeremiah Freeman. In 1820 Caleb Hay- ward was appointed. The "superintendent " was required to patrol the streets in person. In case the work was too much for him, the selectmen were authorized "to appoint, from time to time, such and so many assistants to the superintendent as the business of the office may be found from experience to require " (By-Laws of 1801, p. 33). This arrangement remained until Boston became a city, and the city charter vested "the administration of police " in the mayor and alder- men. The term still meant, in the language of the old ordinance, the administration of "the by-laws of the town, and the laws of the Com- monwealth, which especially relate to the good order and government of this town," the purpose being that these laws and by-laws might be " carried into effect with energy and promptness " (1. c., p. 33). It took a long time to produce the modern term "police " and the estab- lishment so designated. The Colony began with a constable; a con- stables' watch was added; the next step was the watch and ward as recognized by the law of 1699; in 1761 Boston was graciously permitted to hire and pay its own watchmen, the General Court claiming the right to regulate some things the General Court did not pay for; in 1486 Boston began to employ a regular day police; and in 1799 the police department was complete, if not perfect. Even the term, "superin- tendent of police," was revived in 1878, after it had done duty from 1799 to 1823. The Boston police department, then, is not of provincial origin. It was the first executive department to rise in Boston after Massachusetts had become a State.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
The province did not prove a great benefactor to schools. The most illustrious name in the history of the Boston town schools belongs to the Colony age. The same age boasted of three schools supported by town taxes (? Bost. Rec. Comm., 187); the visitors of 1712 reported that they found the five schools of the town to have 941 pupils, of whom 199 were in the grammar or Latin schools, and 44 in the three writing schools, which ranked with our later grammar schools. Girls and young boys were not admitted. The girls were all taught in private schools; the rudiments of reading and writing were supposed to have been picked up by the boys before they entered the town schools. Yet there was no free trade in private schools. The system of town schools
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began from the top. Under the Commonwealth it was that the town of Boston admitted girls to its public schools, that primary instruction was first supplied at the public expense, and that the English high school was established for such children as wanted a practical education without preparing for college. George B. Emerson was the first mas- ter of the "English classical school," as it was called. Independence brought a certain largeness of speech that has never been wholly effaced. But the school system was made democratic. At the same time it slipped away, though gradually, from the selectmen and their successors. Today the public schools of Boston have a government of their own; the City government simply supplies the money. The gov- ernment of the schools is vested in the School Committee. The first School Committee, as the term is now understood, was chosen October 20, 1789.
This School Committee is a Boston invention. Up to 1789 the select- men had the management of the schools. In 1489 the management passed to the School Committee consisting of the nine selectmen and twelve persons chosen by the town. The School Committee was the accidental outcome of the annual committee that used to visit the schools once a year, and then dined with the selectmen at Concert or Faneuil Hall. This visiting committee was recognized by the Massa- chusetts school act of June 25, 1789: " No person shall be allowed to be a master or mistress of such [primary] school, or to keep the same, unless he or she shall obtain a certificate from the selectmen of such town or district where the same may be kept, or the committee ap- pointed by such town, district or plantation, to visit their schools, as well as from a learned minister settled therein, if such there be, that he or she is a person of sober life and conversation, and well qualified to keep such school " (1 Gen. Laws, 340). Much more was required of the teachers in the high schools, then called grammar schools; and all teachers were wisely required to be citizens of this or some other of the United States. Possibly the town was not unaware of this act when it appointed a committee of twelve, one from each ward, to propose a better government of the schools. The committee reported that there ought to be seven schools, that girls ought to be admitted to the higher schools, and that the town schools should be managed by a School Com- mittee, the latter to consist of the nine selectmen and one person from each ward. The report was adopted and carried into effect. At that time Boston had 18,000 inhabitants. No provision was made for pri-
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mary schools, although the State law tolerated them, provided they were kept at private cost, and superintended by the town authorities. Pri- mary schools were known as dames' schools, being kept by women. There were some charity schools of this kind, and the principle of free primary schools was greatly promoted by the Sunday schools, success- fully introduced in Boston in 1816.
In 1812 the town schools had 2,365 pupils, of whom but 836 were girls. Yet the town had nearly 40,000 inhabitants. Beside these pub- lic schools there were one hundred and sixty-two private schools, with 4,132 children in attendance, most of them girls. The number of tru- ants was reported at 526. As the School Committee failed to act prop- erly, the friends of primary town schools appealed to the town meet- ing, and Mr. James Savage hurled this indictment at the conservatives: " All children have an equal right to the [free] schools, we know, on the following conditions, and no other, viz,, Ist, The child must be seven years old; 2d, He must be able to read in the Bible sufficiently well to keep his place in a class; 3d, He cannot be admitted after the age of fourteen, however well he ean read, or however deficient he may be in writing or arithmetic." The town meeting, it is needless to say, decided in favor of establishing primary schools at the expense of the town; the School Committee, or grammar board, was ordered to ap- point a committee of thirty-six, three from each ward, to carry the plan into effect; and $5,000 was allowed for expenses. The town of Boston and its schools were enriched by this memorable vote on June 11, 1818. Twenty-five primary schools attended by about a thousand pupils were immediately established; when Boston became a city, it had the Latin School, the English classical, the Eliot, the Adams, the Franklin, the Mayhew, the Hawes, the Smith, the Boylston, and thirty-five primary schools. In 1855, when the Primary School Committee held its last meeting, and its work passed into the hands of the School Committee, there were one hundred and ninety-seven primary schools, with some twelve thousand pupils. From 1818 to 1855, then, Boston had two school committees, one for the grammar and high schools, and another, appointed by the grammar board, for the primary schools. This com- mittee consisted finally of one hundred and ninety-nine members. Its " Annals" have been saved from oblivion by Joseph M. Wightman, Mayor of Boston in 1860 and 1861. The men of 1818, especially James Savage and Elisha Ticknor, gave Boston not only its free primary sehools, but an establishment which, in connection with the higher
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grades, was destined to become a government in a government, to per- petuate government by committee, and to retain public respect, while the interest entrusted to them has become a popular passion of no mean significance.
BOARD OF HEALTH.
It may be possible to reduce police matters to municipal regulation, though not without danger to the State and nation. Epidemics, quar- antine, and the public health are not altogether municipal. The questions of public health that troubled Boston in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were essentially non-municipal, the smallpox being a frequent and cruel visitor. Yet the selectmen were the town board of health from 1630 to 1799, the Province merely offering advice in the form of penal laws. The first quarantine act passed by the Province, in 1699, had been thrown out by the privy council, as an ob- struction to commerce (1 Prov. Laws, 376). The State inherited from the Province the bad habit of leaving the management of epidemics and quarantine matters with the selectmen. In 1793 the General Court passed a law to prevent the spreading of smallpox, but left the admin- istration to the selectmen (1 Gen. Laws, 420). In 1810 vaccination was provided for; but while every town was required to have vaccination officers, vaccination itself was left to the discretion of the towns (? Gen. Laws, 253). In 1797 a general health and quarantine act was passed by the General Court, but left matters with the selectmen, un- less towns saw fit to appoint a health committee (1 Gen. Laws, 539). A supplementary act, of 1800, did not change this (? Gen. Laws, 9). Nor is it surprising that the health laws of the eighteenth century were confined to a struggle against contagious diseases. But by 1800 Boston had become a crowded and congested town. Nearly 25,000 people were living on the old peninsula of about one square mile. The water supply was not good, the sanitary arrangements were bad.
To appreciate the sanitary condition of Boston at about 1800, it should be borne in mind that the town ended just south of the present Kendall, Arnold, and Thorndike streets; that nearly 25,000 persons were living on less than a square mile of uneven territory, with im- perfect drainage, and surrounded by flats; that the streets were ill- paved and ill-swept; and that the houses were low, thus calling for more ground to spread on. Add the commerce of Boston, involving the arrival of nearly 2,000 vessels a year from all parts of the world,
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and the fact that but one corporation had tried to add to the natural, but insufficient, water supply. The selectmen and their police force were unable to cope with the nuisances that endangered the public health. On February 13, 1799, therefore, the General Court passed its first law for suppressing nuisances in the town of Boston, by a board of health to be chosen by the people. On June 20, 1799, this act was re- placed by another, which has made a permanent impression (? Special Laws, 301). It provided for the election of the twelve members con- stituting the Board of Health, by ward meetings, to be presided over by a ward clerk (sec. 1, 21). This eliminated the selectmen from the very beginning; they could not even call the ward meetings (sec. 21). In 1813 the board of health, together with the selectmen and the over- seers of the poor, were entrusted with the duty of appointing the town treasurer and collectors (4 Spec. Laws, 502), -- good evidence that the board had the public confidence. The board of health was the third of the new administrative departments established since 1446, and occa- sioned the new institution of ward clerks and ward elections. Its powers were very great.
The board of health appointed the scavengers, who were police in- spectors with great powers for ordering other persons to keep the streets clean (8 Bost. Rec. Comm., 97; 14 Bost. Rec. Comm., 325; By- Laws of 1786, 123-126). The board was required to deal with all nuisances, and was given power to invade any premises for that pur- pose. Its Rules and Regulations, when published, had the force of town bylaws, the penalty attached being five dollars. The board had some power in the matter of tainted provisions, and undertook to do what the ancient market department ought to have attended to (see the reg- ulations of the board, By-Laws of 1801, 36-39). Finally, the board had full quarantine powers, and was allowed a physician of approved ability. For the payment of all necessary expenses the board of health was "authorized to draw upon the town treasurer." The town com- mittee of accounts, however, might inspect the accounts of the board. In 1803 the power of the board of health was enlarged; it could estab- lish a quarantine on land, by preventing all unnecessary communication with infected places (3 Sp. Laws, 211). In 1816 a new act continued and enlarged the powers conferred in 1299 (5 Spec. Laws, 137). This act is an honor to the time. The board of health was to examine into " all causes of sickness, nuisances, and sources of filth that may be injurious to the health of the inhabitants of the town of Boston." The
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board had power to seize any unwholesome meat, fish, bread, vegetable, or liquor; its rules were to cover all clothing and other articles that could convey or create any sickness, whether such clothing and other articles were brought into or conveyed from the town of Boston, the penalty in this case being up to a hundred dollars; the board had full authority over all burying grounds and funerals; it was allowed a town physician and a port physician (see its excellent regulations in the By-Laws of 1818, 72-96). The city charter transferred all these powers from the board of health to the city council. In 1299 the powers of the board of health were taken away from the selectmen, who were executive officers, to be transferred, in 1822, to a compound legislative body. The evil effect was felt for fifty years.
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