“And,” says Mr. Moore further, “recent writers of history in Massachusetts have assumed a similar lofty and positive tone on this subject. Mr. Palfrey says: ‘In fact, no person was ever born into legal slavery in Massachusetts.’[68] Mr. Justice Gray, in an elaborate historical note to the case of Oliver _vs._ Sale, Quincy’s R. 29, says: ‘Previously to the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780, Negro slavery existed to some extent and Negroes held in slavery might be sold; but all children of slaves were by law free.’” Is it any ground for wonder that with these apparently authoritative statements ever iterated and reiterated before them, the people of Massachusetts should really have believed that no child had ever been born into slavery on the sacred soil of Massachusetts, and that slavery itself only existed to “some extent”? Mr. Moore, with authorities in hand, shows that these declarations are unfounded, and states the uncomfortable but real facts. He quotes the ninety-first article of “The Body of Liberties,” which appears in the first edition under the head of “Liberties of Forreiners & Strangers,” and in the second edition, that of 1660, under the title of “Bond-Slavery.” “91. There shall never be any bond-slaverie, villinage or captivity amongst us unles it be lawfull captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are SOLD TO US. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authoritie.”[69] After showing the evolution of this law, Mr. Moore, on page 18, says: “Based on the Mosaic Code, it is an absolute recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself, as well as that of another man to buy him. It sanctions the slave-trade and the perpetual bondage of Indians and Negroes, their children and their children’s children, and entitles Massachusetts to precedence over any and all other colonies in similar legislation. It anticipates by many years anything of the sort to be found in the statutes of Virginia or Maryland or South Carolina, and nothing like it is to be found in the contemporary codes of her sister colonies in New England.”[70] Chief-Justice Parsons, in the leading Massachusetts case of Winchendon _vs._ Hatfield in error, referring to the dictum of C. J. Dana in a previous case, that a Negro born in that colony prior to the Constitution of 1780 was free, though born of slave parents, admits candidly: “It is very certain that the general practice and common usage had been opposed to this opinion.” These and other authorities cited by Mr. Moore would seem to place the matter absolutely beyond all question. IV Now as to the abolition of slavery.