BOOK: Charles Edward SMITH, Colonial Massachusetts Laws and Liberties and the English Commonwealth State Formation, the Rule of Law, and the People’s Welfare (Leiden: Brill, 2024). ISBN: 978-90-04-70633-0, € 172.78

(Source: Brill)

ABOUT THE BOOK

On July 4, 1653, the Nominate or Barebones Parliament convened with a minority of committed radicals (Levellers and religious extremists) and a conservative majority of Cromwell’s allies. During acrimonious debates on law reform, the radicals demanded a condensed law book similar to the one adopted in Colonial Massachusetts.
These mostly overlooked events reveal a radical wing of Puritanism determined to found a self-governing state, fully cognizant of the real possibility that England would interdict such attempts by force of arms. This work investigates the motives for such a hazardous undertaking, and the possible influences these events had on the colony’s posterity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Edward Smith, Ph.D. (1998), University of Chicago, has recently retired from the US Dept. of Defense, where he served as the Director of Legislative Operations in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1
The English Commonwealth and the Protestant Reformation
1 Massachusetts Capital Laws of 1642
2 Education and Radical Religiosity

Part 2
Creating a Legal Authority in the “New World”
3 No Taxation without Representation
4 The Negative Voice
5 The Standing Council

Part 3
Publishing Massachusetts Laws and Liberties
6 The Body of Liberties of 1641
7 Divine Magistracy vs. a Rule of Law
8 The Laws and Liberties of 1648

Part 4
Transatlantic Legal Reform and Popular Sovereignty
9 Penal Laws, Debt, and Early Modern Markets
10 Ship Money, Rex v. Hampden, and Matters of State
11 Popular Sovereignty: Salus Populi Suprema Lex

Part 5
Imperial Ambitions
12 An Arbitrary, Absolute, and Unlimited Power
13 Sovereignty of the Law

Conclusion

Works Cited

Index

More information with the publisher.