John Adams and the Inclusion of the Declaration of Rights in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780

Ashley C. Arpano
John Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. The people of Massachusetts, after a failed attempt at a constitution in 1778, demanded a declaration of rights be included in the constitution to preserve their unalienable rights. Adams wholeheartedly agreed and used English constitutional history, his personal experiences, and different philosophers to create thirty rights guaranteed to the people of the commonwealth. Specifically, his influences came from the Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution and the English Bill of Rights 1689, the American Revolution, his own beliefs, and the works of the Abbé de Mably, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Baron de Montesquieu, and John Locke. The people approved Adamss new constitution, although with some debate, and it has remained the law in Massachusetts for over two hundred years.

read this article

Psychology and Philosophy