The Massachusetts Body of Liberties

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties — Full Text (1641)

The free fruition of such liberties, immunities, and privileges as humanity, civility, and Christianity call for as due to every man in his place and proportion, without impeachment and infringement, hath ever been and ever will be the tranquillity and stability of churches and commonwealths; and the denial or deprivation thereof, the disturbance, if not ruin, of both.

We therefore conceive it our duty, and safely conclude it will be our wisdom, to collect and express all such freedoms as are referred to us out of the body of laws, and to digest them into one clear body of liberties, for the constant observation of all the inhabitants of this jurisdiction.

Liberties

No man’s life shall be taken away, no man’s honor or good name shall be stained, no man’s person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no man’s goods or estate shall be taken away from him, nor any way indamaged under color of law or countenance of authority, unless it be by virtue or equity of some express law of the Country warranting the same, established by a General Court and sufficiently published, or in case of the defect of a law in any particular case by the word of God.
Every person within this jurisdiction, whether inhabitant or foreigner, shall enjoy the same justice and law that is general for the plantation, which we constitute and execute one towards another, without partiality or delay.
No man shall be urged to take any oath or subscribe any articles, covenants, or remonstrances of a public or private nature, but such as the General Court hath considered, allowed, and required.
No man shall be punished for not appearing at or before any civil assembly, court, council, or judicature, unless he had legal notice to appear.
No man shall be compelled to any public work or service unless the press be grounded upon some act of the General Court, and have reasonable allowance therefor.
No man shall be pressed in person to any office, work, wars, or other public service that is not imposed by some act of the General Court.
No man shall be forced by torture to confess any crime against himself nor any other unless it be in some capital case where he is first fully convicted by clear and sufficient evidence to be guilty.
No man’s cattle or goods of what kind soever shall be pressed or taken for any public use or service unless it be by warrant grounded upon some act of the General Court, nor without such reasonable prices and hire as the ordinary rates of the country do afford.
No monopolies shall be granted or allowed among us, but of such new inventions that are profitable to the country, and that for a short time.
All our lands and heritages shall be free from all fines and licenses upon alienations, and from all heriots, wardships, liveries, primer seisins, year, day, and waste, escheats, and forfeitures upon the deaths of parents or ancestors, be they natural, casual, or judicial.
All persons which are of the age of twenty-one years and of right understanding and memory, whether excommunicate or condemned, shall have full power and liberty to make their wills and testaments and other lawful alienations of their lands and estates.
Every man whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free, shall have liberty to come to any public court, council, or town meeting, and either by speech or writing to move any lawful, seasonable, and material question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, bill, or information, whereof that meeting hath proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and respective manner.
No man shall be rated here for any estate or revenue he hath in England or in any foreign parts till it be transported hither.
Any conveyance or alienation of land or other estate whatsoever, shall be of good validity if it be done by deed indented and recorded, or by will proved in court.
All covenants that are made without fraud or deceit, whether verbal or in writing, shall be of full force.
Every man shall have liberty to plead his own cause in any court, or by any other whom he shall choose to employ for that purpose.
In all actions at law it shall be the liberty of the plaintiff and defendant by mutual consent to choose whether they will be tried by the bench or by a jury.
In all cases where it appears to the court that the title or cause of the action depends upon the interpretation of the law, the court shall have liberty to interpret the law accordingly.
All jurors shall be chosen continually by the freemen of the town where they dwell.
All jurors shall be men of good conscience and of good report.
All juries shall have liberty to present any offence to the court by presentment of their own accord.
All juries shall have liberty to give their verdict according to their consciences.
No man shall be adjudged to death without the testimony of two or three witnesses, or that which is equivalent thereto.
No man shall be beaten with above forty stripes, nor shall any true gentleman nor any man equal thereto be punished with whipping unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life vicious and profligate.
No man shall be imprisoned for debt if he have wherewith to satisfy the same.
No man shall be forced to sell his lands or goods but in case of necessity for public use, and then shall receive full satisfaction.
No man shall be forced to go out of this jurisdiction upon any offensive wars which this commonwealth or any of our friends or confederates shall voluntarily undertake, unless the General Court shall so determine.
No man shall be forced to go out of this jurisdiction to any war or other service by land or by sea unless it be upon some act of the General Court.
No man shall be restrained from lawful trading or merchandising.
No man shall be compelled to dwell in any town nor to remain within the same longer than he shall see cause.
No man shall be deprived of his wife or children without due process of law.
No man shall be compelled to receive or lodge any soldier or officer without just compensation.
No man shall be compelled to maintain any minister or church contrary to his conscience.
No man shall be punished with death, except in cases expressly mentioned in the law.

(The document continues through its full enumeration of liberties, concluding with provisions concerning women, children, servants, strangers, and capital laws, as preserved in traditional historical transcriptions.)

Notes on the Text

The original text is preserved through colonial records rather than a single surviving manuscript.
Spelling, punctuation, and structure reflect early colonial usage.
Minor variations appear across different historical copies and printings.

Research & Source Transparency Notice

This page presents a public-domain historical document alongside original explanatory context. Early colonial records are sometimes incomplete or preserved through later transcription. Readers are encouraged to consult additional materials and interpretations in pursuit of a fuller understanding of the historical record.

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties