of thirty was chosen to perform these two important duties; and this Committee, after extended discussion, intrusted to John Adams alone the preparation of a Declaration of Rights, and to a Sub-Committee, consisting of James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, the duty of preparing the Form of a Constitution, which Sub-Committee again delegated the task to John Adams: so that to the pen of this illustrious citizen we are indebted primarily both for the Declaration of Rights and the Form of the Constitution.[36] [33] Essex Result, p. 4. [34] Journal of the Convention, pp. 22, 23. [35] This was the testimony of the late Rev. Charles Lowell, who had received it from his father, Hon. John Lowell, a member of the Convention, in whose family was a tradition that the latter obtained the insertion of the words "all men are born free and equal," for this declared purpose. See, _ut supra_, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 4th Ser. Vol. IV. p. 340. [36] Observations on the Reconstruction of Government in Massachusetts during the Revolution: Works of John Adams, Vol. IV. pp. 215, 216. It is not difficult to trace most, if not all, of the ideas and provisions of our Preamble and Declaration of Rights to their primitive sources. The Preamble, where the body politic is founded on the fiction of the Social Compact, was doubtless inspired by the writings of Sidney and Locke, and by the English discussions at the period of the Revolution of 1688, when this questionable theory did good service in response to the assumptions of Filmer, and as a shield against arbitrary power. Of different provisions in the Bill of Rights, some are in the very words of Magna Charta,--others are derived from the ancient Common Law, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights of 1688,--while, of the thirty Articles composing it, no less than nineteen,[37] either wholly or in part, may be found substantially in the Virginia Bill of Rights: but these again are in great part derived from the earlier fountains. [37] Namely, Articles 1, 2, 4-10, 12-18, 20, 26, 30. The Virginia Bill of Rights consists of sixteen Articles, three of which (the 5th, 6th, and 8th) are divided in the Massachusetts Declaration, constituting respectively the substance of Articles 30 and 8, 9 and 10, 12 and 13. * * * * *