1The Report of a Constitution or Form of Government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 28 – 31 October 1779 (Adams Papers)
Agreed upon by the Committee—to be laid before the Convention of delegates , assembled at cambridge , on the First Day of September , A. D. 1779; and continued by Adjournment to the Twenty-eighth Day of October following. TO the Honorable the Convention of Delegates from the several Towns in the State of M assachusetts , appointed for the forming a new Constitution of Government for the said...
2Editorial Note (Adams Papers)
Of the eleven states that adopted constitutions during the Revolutionary period, Massachusetts, ratifying its document in 1780, was the last. (Connecticut and Rhode Island, both with corporate charters that granted broad autonomous powers, did not revise their organic law until the nineteenth century.) The General Court had drafted a constitution which it presented to the towns in 1778, but...