ds founded his own government, and
which now, in after ages, constitutes his brightest title to renown.
The first of these opinions was that the royal charter to the Colony
of Massachusetts was a nullity, because the King of England had no
right to grant lands in foreign countries, which belonged of right
to their native inhabitants. This opinion struck directly at all
right of property held under the authority of the royal charter,
and, followed to its logical conclusions, would have proved the
utter impotence of the royal charter to confer power of government,
any more than it could convey property in the soil.

"The other opinion was that the Church of Boston was criminal for
having omitted to make a public declaration of repentance for having
held communion with the Church of England before their emigration;
and upon that ground he had refused to join in communion with the
Church of Boston.

"By the subtlety and vehemence of his persuasive powers he had
prevailed upon Endicott to look upon the cross of St. George in the
banners of England as a badge of idolatry, and to cause it actually
to be cut out of the flag floating at the fort in Salem. The red
cross of St. George in the national banner of England was a grievous
and odious eye-sore to multitudes, probably to a great majority, of
the Massachusetts colonists; but, in the eyes of the government of
the colony, it was the sacred badge of allegiance to the monarchy at
home, already deeply jealous of the purposes and designs of the
Puritan colony."

On the 4th of July, 1843, Mr. Adams, in a letter addressed to the
citizens of Bangor, in Maine, declining their invitation to deliver an
address on the 1st of August, the anniversary of British emancipation of
slavery in the West Indies, thus expressed his views on that subject:

"The extinction of SLAVERY from the face of the earth is a problem,
moral, political, religious, which at this moment rocks the
foundations of human society throughout the regions of civilized
man. It is indeed nothing more nor less than the consummation of
the Christian religion. It is only as _immortal_ beings that all
mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal; and when the
Declaration of Independence affirms as a self-evident truth that
all men are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the
affirma