the present Constitution--of 1780."[285]

So here we find an eminent authority declaring that slavery followed
hard upon the heels of the Pilgrim Fathers, "and was tolerated" until
1780. Massachusetts "felt free" to tear from the iron grasp of the
imperious magistrates the liberties of the people, but doubtless felt
not "free" enough to blot out "the crime and folly of an evil time."
And yet for years lawyers and clergymen, orators and statesmen,
historians and critics, have stubbornly maintained, that, while
slavery did creep into the colony, and did exist, it was "not probably
by force of any law, for none such is found or known to
exist."(?)[286]

Slavery having been firmly established in Massachusetts, the next step
was to make it hereditary. This was done under the sanction of the
highest and most solemn forms of the courts of law. It is not our
purpose to give this subject the attention it merits, in this place;
but in a subsequent chapter it will receive due attention. We will,
however, say in passing, that it was the opinion of many lawyers in
the last century, some of whom served upon the bench in Massachusetts,
that children followed the condition of their mothers. Chief-Justice
Parsons held that "the issue of the female slave, according to the
maxim of the civil law, was the property of her master." And,
subsequently, Chief-Justice Parker rendered the following opinion:--

"The practice was ... to consider such issue as slaves, and
the property of the master of the parents, liable to be sold
and transferred like other chattels, and as assets in the
hands of executors and administrators.... We think there is
no doubt that, at any period of our history, the issue of a
slave husband and a free wife would have been declared free.
His children, if the issue of a marriage with a slave,
would, immediately on their birth, become the property of
his master, or of the master of the female slave."[287]

This decision is strengthened by the statement of Kendall in reference
to the wide-spread desire of Negro slaves to secure free Indian wives,
in order to insure the freedom of their children. He says,--

"While slavery was supposed to be maintainable by law in
Massachusetts, there was a particular temptation to Negroes
for taking Indian wives, the children of Indian women being
acknowledged to be free."[288]

We refer the reader, with perfect confide