USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 > Part 37
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There was, however, something to give color of reason to this misconception, in the fact that the Tories of Pittsfield, almost with- out exception, favored the restoration of the courts under the old system, and the recognition of the State government as legitimate, - reserving the rights of the king. The polemical skill, the talent, and the style of Woodbridge Little are unmistakable in the ablest papers on the side of the non-constitutionalists. It was truly said, too, that Goodrich "consorted with the most ancient and implacable Tories of the town ;" and, although it was only one of the strange combinations which are often effected in poli- tics, its influence against him at the time was irresistible. And so, on the other hand, phases in the conduct and measures of the con- stitutionalists favored the assertion of their enemies, that they were a set of violent, turbulent, and dishonest fellows, who only desired to suppress the courts, lest they might be brought to account for their misdeeds, and be compelled to pay their honest debts.
So effectually, indeed, did the newspaper libellers affix this stigma to the rejection of civil administration in Berkshire, that it has not even yet been removed.
And yet, surely, love of license, and the hope of avoiding just responsibilities, never inspired such consistent devotion to consti- tutional law as the Berkshire fathers constantly manifested ; never surely, before or since, were a people educated by the harangues of demagogues, and appeals to passion or selfish interests, up to the comprehension of, and desire for, the establishment of such principles of government as Pittsfield instructed Col. Williams to advocate in the convention of 1779. Tried by the decisive test of its effect upon the intellectual character of the people, the agitation of 1775-80 stands fully justified.
In argument and action, the Berkshire constitutionalists were better able to cope with their antagonists than in the arts of detraction. In the beginning, we saw them yielding to the apprehensions of their representatives in Congress their own convictions that a new form of government ought at once to be established ; thus proving their subordination of local feeling to the general good. Roused by the selfish appropriation of official patronage in the General Court of 1775 to a new perception of the evils inseparable from unrestricted power, as well in the hands of elected representatives as of anointed kings, and the
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jealousy which forbade free action to Massachusetts being allayed, they renewed their demand for a fundamental law. To the suggestion that the opportunity annually to change their represent- atives ought to satisfy them, they replied, in substance, " What we crave is not the privilege of changing masters. Some of the powers inherent in the people we do not choose to delegate ; some we would intrust, with carefully-guarded restrictions, to our repre- sentatives ; all we would have exercised by ourselves as well as our deputies, in certain well-defined modes of operation, and in accordance with a fundamental law solemnly agreed upon. That is, we ask a constitution for the Commonwealth." Upon this simple demand they rang the changes through six years of angry political controversy.
Sorely pressed to forego this boon till a more convenient season, they at last pledged themselves to yield for the time even to the existing government, upon the single condition that it should first be submitted to a vote of the people, so that their will might thus be recognized as the proper source of all rightful authority. A Constitution once established, it received their fullest allegiance. From first to last there was nothing factious in their conduet.
For many things they expressed desire as component parts of the frame of government; but upon one only they insisted, and that was a distinct recognition of the people's right to model and remodel their institutions as they saw cause.
It was urged upon them, that their uncompromising demand for this disturbed the harmony which, while the war lasted, ought to be preserved in the patriotic ranks. Their reply was, that, if they were to be the subjects of arbitrary power, it mattered little whether its scat were in London or Boston, and that, if the gov- ernment now set up were once quietly "permitted to take place," it would be very difficult ever after to shake it off. The example of Connecticut, and still more emphatically that of Rhode Island, - both which States retained charters far more liberal than that of Massachusetts as the bases of their independent govern- ments, - show how just was that apprehension. Nor was there really much in the turmoil of the times to defer the task of fram- ing and adopting a new form of government. The most perfect charters of freedom - so cunningly devised that tyranny cannot reach its victims without entirely setting them aside - were the work of disturbed eras. Magna Charta was not the child of
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Peace, nor was the Habeas Corpus act. Trial by jury dates back to an age of perpetual war. The Declaration of American Inde- pendence was born of conflict; and the Constitution of Massa- chusetts, providing for the most complex relations of people and government, was none the less wisely constructed, that it was finally framed while war gave strength and tone to men's minds. Is it too much to claim that the Berkshire constitutionalists were wiser than their generation in their strenuous opposition to "the inter- ests which had grown up in the State adverse to any more per- manent form of government" than consorted with the small ambitions of the magisterial class ?
CHAPTER XX.
THE BERKSHIRE CONSTITUTIONALISTS. - COMMITTEE GOVERNMENT OF THE INTERREGNUM.
[1774-1780.]
Committees of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety. - Their Character and Origin. - Subordinated in 1776 to the Courts of Law. - The Berkshire Com- mittees refuse Submission. - Their Administration of Justice. - Curious Sur- veillance of Morals and Manners. - Town Court established. - Its Rules of Practice and Fee-Table. - Discipline of Capt. Goodrich by the Committee. - He appeals to the Legislature. - Details of the Case.
O NLY brief allusion has been made in the foregoing chapters to the substitutes adopted in Pittsfield for the suppressed courts of law ; but the reader will curiously inquire how, when the ordinary machinery of government was obstructed, " tolerable order was maintained."
It so happened that Massachusetts had retained, through all changes in her condition, what to her was of more worth than royal charters, -her system of town governments, each so com- plete within itself, that, in the lapse of exterior authority, it lacked little to become a perfect State ; and each with citizens so accus- tomed to the conduct of public affairs, that they were capable of meeting whatever responsibilities were thrown upon them.
When, therefore, in 1774, the judicial system of the Province was broken up, the towns found little difficulty in assuming so much of its authority as the public necessity required should not utterly fail ; resorting, in the absence of precedent, to divers plans for the proper execution of the duties newly devolved upon them. Occasionally the people, in town-meeting assembled, adjudicated directly upon matters brought before them. Sometimes they crected special tribunals ; as in Attleborough, where the old Provin-
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cial fabric was imitated in miniature, with a superior court of four judges, and an inferior court of seven. But generally -and in Berkshire County universally -the improvised machinery of jus- tice was much less complex ; its entire powers being vested in the committees of inspection, with the occasional aid of a board of arbi- trators, such as, immediately after the first suppression of the courts, was appointed in Pittsfield, and of which an account was given in the proper connection.
It must not, however, be supposed that the committee rule was formally devised, adopted, and organized as a substitute for the courts and magistracy. It was an outgrowth, developed little by little by the necessities of the times, from the New-England prac- tice of placing every public business in the hands of a commis- sion.
Under the different organizations known as committees of cor- respondence, inspection, and safety, it had played an important part in securing unity and vigor in the initiatory stages of the Revolution ; and the powers recognized in those bodies by the State and Continental governments were formidable and extensive. Pre- cisely what they were, we are informed by a report to the General Court in October, 1776. According to this paper,1 the committees, originally existing by sufferance, acted upon their own discretion until the resolves of Congress, directed to them,2 confirmed and in some measure defined their powers; but they continued to " act dis- cretionally " when the resolves were not to be procured, or did not meet the case in hand. Originally the province of the committees of correspondence was, by the interchange of letters and the speedy communication of information, to apprise the community of dan- gers, and to concert measures for the public good, expose the designs of the enemies of liberty to public execration, and incite opposition to them. The committees of inspection took cognizance of unpatriotic importations of British goods, exerted themselves to suppress the sale of tea, and generally exposed and reprehended violations of the non-importation association, and denounced all acts detrimental to the common interests. The committees of safety were instituted to concert measures for the public safety of their respective towns, and the general safety of the community; " taking cognizance of measures afterwards taken up by Congress
1 Mass. Ar., vol. cxxxvii. p. 118.
2 The Resolves of Association, directed to the committees of inspection.
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as well of lesser matters relative to internal police at a time when prostrate law gave no remedy against disorder and confusion."
" These," says the report, "were the powers these several com- mittees had at their institution, although they afterwards received the sanction of the highest authority."
It will be perceived, that, in many particulars, the powers and- duties of the three classes of committee were identical; and on the 13th of October, 1775, they were consolidated in one, by an act of the General Court, directing each town, at its annual election, to choose " a committee of correspondence, inspection, and safety for the especial purpose of attending to the general and political interests of the Colonies ; to transmit intelligence to committees of the same denomination in other towns and counties, to the Gen- eral Court and the Council, as they might deem expedient ; to in- spect the conduct of any inhabitants or residents in their respective towns or districts violating the Continental association, the resolves, directions, or recommendations of Congress, the acts or resolves of the General Court, or the proceedings of former Congresses of this Colony, respecting the struggle with Great Britain; to proceed according to the direction of Congress, and the laws and resolves of this Colony in such cases made and provided ; to inform the Gen- eral Court or the Council of all breaches of trust in the officers of state and other servants of the Colony ; to use their influence in promoting peace and harmony ; and, finally, to execute any order and resolves of this Court to them directed."
On the 6th of October, the Continental Congress, addressing the committees of inspection, empowered them to arrest and secure every person in their opinion endangering their Colony or the lib- erties of America.
On the 19th of August, 1776, the committees were directed by the General Court, -
" To take possession of the personal and real estate of persons who had, in their opinion, fled to Boston - when in the possession of Gen. Gage -in the late times of trouble, to secure themselves, or have joined our enemies, or have withdrawn themselves out of the country with a view to aid their despotic measures; to take and let out such estates for one year, making an inventory of the personal property, and returning it with the rent of the real estate to the General Court; and to return a list of addressors, associates. and other unfriendly persons ; and also the names and crimes of those who have fled to the British fleet or army, together with the evidence of facts against such persons, unless they have given proof of contrition, and made satisfac- tion to the public."
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Afterwards, the Court empowered the committees to " send for, examine," and at their discretion cite, any person before a court of inquiry, and to prosecute their complaints to final judgment and execution.
By several resolves they were empowered " to call together regi- mental and alarm lists, and the train-bands of their respective towns, and, as some think, to execute law martial, while others think these resolves give no power to draft men, and refuse service under them."
The General Court also directed the committees to enforce the Test Act, the embargo on provisions, and similar laws ; empowered them to remove stock, grain, and meal from exposed places, to return the names of persons skilled in making "flynts," and to regulate the price of salt.
In August, 1776, they were authorized by the Council to see that prisoners of war were kept within the limits assigned them, to supervise their conduct in general, and if they were found strolling, were refractory, or refused to work, to confine them in jail. In the same month, the Council exhorted them to exert themselves in executing the laws and orders concerning the Tories; and, about the same time, Congress enacted that none might disci- pline Tories or persons unfriendly to liberty, except by order of Congress, the General Assembly, Convention, Council of Safety of the Colony, or the committee of inspection of the district where they resided.
The authors of the report, apparently somewhat startled by the magnitude of the powers which had accumulated in the committees, -personal liberty, property, and perhaps even life itself, having been placed in their hands, - naturally urged that the most discreet prudent, and firm persons should be preferred to an office so liable to abuse, and of such vast importance if rightly administered. And as the General Court, being practically the only tribunal of appeal from the action of the committees, 1 was flooded with peti- tions for redress, an enactment was recommended, authorizing an appeal - with proper provisions for the immediate safety of public interests -to the Court of General Sessions, as well to relieve the General Court from business more properly belonging
1 The action of the committees rarely differed from what the public sentiment of their respective towns approved ; and an appeal from one to the other was not likely to secure any very valuable result to the appellant.
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elsewhere as to provide a more easy and summary method of attaining the ends of justice.
In those counties where the authority of the General Court was fully admitted, the committees were thus brought into subordina- tion to the ordinary courts of law, and, although an extraordinary, were not an inharmonious portion of the judicial system.
In Berkshire, also, the committees zealously executed the rules and orders which have been quoted, kept faithful watch and ward against both the internal and external enemies of their country, and rendered the best aid they could give in the collection of the taxes levied by the State. But, while they accepted and faithfully per- formed the duties assigned them by Congress and the General Court, they held that their powers were derived from a higher source, and exercised them as well in resisting the authority of the General Court when it conflicted with their paramount allegiance to the little town democracies, or to the county congresses when the towns consented to delegate their sovereignty to those assem- blies. Under the commission of the town meetings, the com- mittees continued until 1780 to exercise the jurisdiction which had been instituted to meet the necessities of 1774, in maintaining public order and restraining crimes and misdemeanors, as well as in guarding against and punishing the political offences of the par- tisans either of the king or of the non-constitutional civil adminis- tration of the State.
All the functions of the Court of General Sessions fell to the committees, except the control of such matters - the granting of licenses, laying-out of highways, and the like - as are now intrust- ed to the county commissioners; these latter the towns managed like ordinary municipal affairs.
It appears, also, that the committees "interfered " in civil cases which in ordinary times would have gone to the Common Pleas; for in 1776 the town, offended with Capt. Charles Goodrich for his adhesion to the obnoxious State government, instructed them not only not to take into consideration the action brought by him against certain young men for taking " watermillions " in 1774, but also "not to intermeddle in the affair between him and Ezra Strong relative to their water-mill." 1
1 The suit of Charles Goodrich against Ezra Strong, John Strong, and War- ham Strong, in a plea wherein the said Goodrich demands one-quarter of a corn- mill standing on a stream of water which runs from the farm of said Ezra, was the
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We have also the evidence, to the same effect, of Hon. Timothy Woodbridge, who, in his memorial of 1776, pointedly, and no doubt with truth, alleged that " the committees assumed to them- selves jurisdiction in civil as well as criminal cases."
The committee alluded to in the Goodrich case was probably the board of arbitrators before mentioned. How long that board con- tinued in existence we are not informed.
There is nothing, however, to show by what process civil cases were brought before the Pittsfield committees, nor by what rules of practice, or formalities of any kind, it guarded the exercise of its functions as a court of civil jurisdiction. And there is little to indicate of what classes of suits it consented to take cognizance, or whether it refused its intervention in any, save when the parties had outlawed themselves by adherence to the king, or by siding with the State against the committees. The Goodrich case, before cited, shows that refusal of protection in person or property was considered a legitimate mode of punishing political maleficence.1 Protection to the rights of property, and the enforcement of the obligations of contracts, must have forced themselves upon the attention of the Revolutionary committees, as duties inevitably devolving upon those who seized the reins of government, and only to be postponed while the suspension of the courts was expected to be of brief duration. They did not, nevertheless, so far as we have information, take it upon themselves, like the Courts of Common Pleas, to compel the performance of obligations between man and man as such; but punished their violations as misdemeanors detrimental to the public interests, with whose care they were charged.
Obloquy would have surely fallen, both upon the obstruction of the courts and upon the party by which they were obstructed, if any had been permitted to pervert that measure to ends obviously selfish and unjust; and he who attempted to do so ren- dered himself amenable to the inspection of the committees.
With this view of their duties, these tribunals would aim at sub-
second on the docket at the re-opening of the Court of Common Pleas ; the plain- tiff being one of the judges, although, of course, not sitting when he was a party in the case. The jury found for Goodrich, and the Strongs appealed ; but, appar- ently, the appeal was not sustained, as the case does not again appear on the Com- mon Pleas docket.
1 Outlawry, it must be remembered, was then, and is still, a part of the pun- ishment of treason under British law.
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stantial justice, or what would seem such to the popular judgment, rather than at a strict application of the law to the evidence. Thus they would aid in the collection of debts which they con- sidered honestly dne, when the debtor was able to make payment, and the creditor had not outlawed himself as a public enemy.
It is very easy to see that a substitute for courts of law so loose as this was, even in the hands of well-meaning men, liable to be made the instrument of gross injustice, and sure to create uncer- tainty and confusion in business relations. That it was so in Berk- shire was confessed in the address to the superior judges, written by Mr. Allen, and adopted by the county convention of 1779, in which it is said, " We always had a sense of the necessity of law,. especially in times of war: we feel the want of a due exercise of it, and in many instances the sad effects of not enjoying it." The fathers of Berkshire were by no means insensible to nor unregret- ful of the evils which they consented to endure rather than sub- mit to the permanent establishment of a government without basis or limitation.
In its oversight of misdemeanors and minor morals, the Pittsfield Committee rule does not seem to have fallen at all short of the General Sessions and magistracy of earlier times. The town, indeed, through this and other agencies, kept rather a more strin- gent watch and ward than ever, both over its own citizens and the stranger that dwelt within its gates. In March, 1777, it ordered that " persons sixteen years old and over, who profaned the sab- bath day by behaving indecently in the house of God in time of public worship, or otherwhere out of doors, should be by the tith- ing-man, or any other informing officer finding them so doing, convented before proper authority for trial, and punishment if found guilty." Children under sixteen, offending in the same way, were to be brought into the " broad alley," and there kept until the close of divine service. In addition to this, Rev. Mr. Allen was " desired by the town to speak aloud to such persons as should be found disorderly or asleep in the time of divine service on the sabbath day, and reprimand them for the same."
On the 12th of August, in the same year, it was voted, " that the practice of horse-racing is attended with many evil consequences, is productive of much mischief, and is totally contrary to the sense and approbation of this town ; and that all persons who shall hereafter encourage, abet, or promote such evil practices shall not
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only be held in contempt in this town, but have their names pub- lished as persons counteracting and opposing the advice of the Honorable Continental Congress." 1
The soldiers of Burgoyne's army, who, when taken prisoners, were hired as laborers by the citizens, were also objects of the town's solicitude ; and, in August of 1778, it was " ordered, that if any of the foreign soldiers that are among us shall, after sunset, be seen sixty rods from the houses in'which they respectively dwell, they shall be whipped at the discretion of the committee, and, upon a repetition of the offence, be committed to the common jail ;" and " all innkeepers were forbidden to permit the said people to tipple in their houses, upon pain of the displeasure of the town." And the displeasure of the town, as then visited upon the offender, was not lightly to be challenged.
The judicial affairs of Pittsfield were thus administered until October, 1778, when the county having, with unusual deliberation and emphasis, again rejected the civil administration of the State, a more formal establishment for the administration of justice, with better-defined rules of practice, was deemed advisable; and a tri- bunal was established with all the powers of the old General Ses- sions, Chief-Justice Williams of the suspended Court of Common Pleas being placed at its head. The action of the town erecting the new tribunal was so characteristic, that it is well to here insert the record in full : -
MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
BERKSHIRE, SS.
Whereas the county of Berkshire, by a great majority of votes, have refused the admission of the course of law in its usual form; and whereas disorders of various kinds increase and abound amongst us, and there being no effectual way provided for the prevention thereof unless by the interven- tion and exertions of particular towns ; and it being of the utmost impor- tance that peace and good order be maintained and supported, - it is by this town resolved, -
1st. That the Selectmen and Constables, tithingmen, and all town-officers annually chosen by towns in the month of March, shall be upheld, supported, and protected by this town in the due execution of their respective trusts as by law prescribed and enjoined them.
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