them plant the Earth, and live and enjoy their livelihood therein.

LAWS TO CHOOSE OFFICERS.

34. All Overseers and State Officers shall be chosen new every year, to
prevent the rise of Ambition and Covetousness. For the Nations have
smarted sufficiently by suffering Officers to continue long in an
Office, or to remain in an Office by hereditary succession.

35. A man who is of a turbulent spirit, given to quarrelling and
provoking words to his neighbor, shall not be chosen any Officer while
he so continues.

36. All men of twenty years of age upwards shall have freedom of voice
to choose Officers, unless they be such as lie under sentence of the
Law.

37. Such shall be chosen Officers as are rational men of moderate
conversation, and who have experience in the Laws of the Commonwealth.

38. All men from forty years of age upwards shall be capable to be
chosen State Officers, and none younger, unless any one by his industry
and moderate conversation doth move the people to choose him.

39. If any man make suit to move the people to choose him an Officer,
that man shall not be chosen at all that time. If another man shall
persuade the people to choose him that made suit for himself, they shall
both loose their freedom at that time, viz., they shall neither have a
voice to choose another, nor be chosen themselves.

LAWS AGAINST TREACHERY.

40. He who professes the service of a righteous God by preaching and
prayer, and makes a trade to get the possessions of the Earth, shall be
put to death for a Witch and a Cheater.

41. He who pretends one thing in words, and his actions declare his
intent was another thing, shall never bear Office in the Commonwealth.

WHAT IS FREEDOM?

Every Freeman shall have a Freedom in the Earth, to plant or build, to
fetch from the Storehouses anything he wants, and shall enjoy the fruits
of his labor without restraint from any. He shall not pay Rent to any
Landlord. He shall be capable of being chosen Officer, so he be above
forty years of age, and he shall have a voice to choose Officers though
he be under forty years of age. If he want any young men to be
assistants to him in his trade or household employment, the Overseers
shall appoint him young men or maids to be his servants in his family.

LAWS FOR SUCH AS HAVE LOST THEIR FREEDOM.

42. All those who have lost their freedom shall be clothed in white
woollen cloth, that they may be distinguished from others.

43.