Massachusetts Body Of Liberties
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Massachusetts Body Of Liberties
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first legal code established in New England, compiled by Puritan minister Nathaniel Ward. The laws were established by the Massachusetts General Court in 1641. The Body of Liberties begins by establishing the exclusive right of the General Court to legislate and dictate the "Countenance of Authority". In 1684, King Charles II revoked the Body of Liberties and reinstated English law over the Commonwealth. King James II established the Massachusetts Colony, and the Body of Liberties took effect and remained so until it was replaced by the 1691 Provincial Charter.Encyclopedia of American civil liberties, Volume 1, Ed. Paul Finkelman, entry written by Sherrow Pinder, CRC Press, 2006, , page 979. Though towns such as Dedham and Watertown had already established them, the Body of Liberties recognized boards of selectmen for the first time. Rights acknowledged The Body of Liberties was one of the earliest protections of individual rights i ...
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Seal Of Massachusetts
The Great Seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts contains the coat of arms of Massachusetts. The coat of arms is encircled by the Latin text "Sigillum Reipublicæ Massachusettensis" (literally, ''The Seal of the Republic of Massachusetts''). The Massachusetts Constitution designates the form of government a "commonwealth", for which Respublica is the correct Latin term. The Seal uses as its central element the Coat of Arms of Massachusetts. An official emblem of the State, the Coat of Arms was adopted by the Legislature in 1775, and then reaffirmed by Governor John Hancock and his Council on December 13, 1780. The present rendition of the seal was drawn by resident-artist Edmund H. Garrett, and was adopted by the state in 1900. While the inscription around the seal is officially in Latin, a variant with "Commonwealth of Massachusetts" in English is also sometimes used. History The first seal of Massachusetts Bay Colony showed a nude American Indian with a bush covering his ...
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Takings Clause
The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution addresses criminal procedure and other aspects of the Constitution. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment applies to every level of the government, including the federal, state, and local levels, in regard to a US citizen or resident of the US. The Supreme Court furthered the protections of this amendment through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. One provision of the Fifth Amendment requires that felonies be tried only upon indictment by a grand jury. Another provision, the Double Jeopardy Clause, provides the right of defendants to be tried only once in federal court for the same offense. The self-incrimination clause provides various protections against self-incrimination, including the right of an individual not to serve as a witness in a criminal case in which they are the defendant. "Pleading the Fifth" is a co ...
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Massachusetts Law
The law of Massachusetts consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory, case law, and local ordinances. The '' General Laws of Massachusetts'' form the general statutory law. Sources The Constitution of Massachusetts is the foremost source of state law. Legislation is enacted by the General Court, published in the '' Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts'', and codified in the '' General Laws of Massachusetts''. State agency regulations (sometimes called administrative law) are published in the '' Massachusetts Register'' and codified in the '' Code of Massachusetts Regulations''. The legal system is based on common law, which is interpreted by case law through the decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and the Appellate Divisions of the Massachusetts District Court and the Boston Municipal Court departments, which are published in the ''Massachusetts Reports'', ''Massachusetts Appeals Court Reports'', ...
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1641 In Law
Events January–March * January 4 – The stratovolcano Mount Parker in the Philippines) has a major eruption. * January 18 – Pau Claris proclaims the Catalan Republic. * February 16 – King Charles I of England gives his assent to the Triennial Act, reluctantly committing himself to parliamentary sessions of at least fifty days, every three years. * March 7 – King Charles I of England decrees that all Roman Catholic priests must leave England by April 7 or face being arrested and treated as traitors. * March 22 – The trial for high treason begins for Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, director of England's Council of the North. * March 27 – **The Battle of Pressnitz begins between the Holy Roman Empire and Sweden. **The Siege of São Filipe begins in the Azores as the Portuguese Navy fights to drive the Spanish out. After almost 11 months, the Portuguese prevail on March 4, 1642. April–June * April 7 – Th ...
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Constitution Of Massachusetts
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the fundamental governing document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 individual state governments that make up the United States of America. As a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779, John Adams was the document's principal author. Voters approved the document on June 15, 1780. It became effective on October 25, 1780, and is among the oldest functioning written constitutions in continuous effect in the world. (The constitutions of San Marino and Vermont have sections still in force that are older.) It was also the first constitution anywhere to be created by a convention called for that purpose rather than by a legislative body. The Massachusetts Constitution was written last of the original states' first constitutions. Rather than taking the form of a list of provisions, it was organized into a structure of chapters, sections and articles. It served as a model for the Constitution ...
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West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago. The subregion includes all the islands in the Antilles, plus The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the North Atlantic Ocean. Nowadays, the term West Indies is often interchangeable with the term Caribbean, although the latter may also include some Central and South American mainland nations which have Caribbean coastlines, such as Belize, French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname, as well as the Atlantic island nations of Barbados, Bermuda, and Trinidad and Tobago, all of which are geographically distinct from the three main island groups, but culturally related. Origin and use of the term In 1492, Christopher Columbus became the first European to record his arri ...
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New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as sacred scripture by Christians. The New Testament is a collection of Christian texts originally written in the Koine Greek language, at different times by various authors. While the Old Testament canon varies somewhat between different Christian denominations, the 27-book canon of the New Testament has been almost universally recognized within Christianity since at least Late Antiquity. Thus, in almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books: * 4 canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) * The Acts of the Apostl ...
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Estate Tax
An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax—an estate tax is assessed on the assets of the deceased, while an inheritance tax is assessed on the legacies received by the estate's beneficiaries. However, this distinction is not always observed; for example, the UK's "inheritance tax" is a tax on the assets of the deceased, and strictly speaking is therefore an estate tax. For historical reasons, the term death duty is still used colloquially (though not legally) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries. For political, statutory and other reasons, the term death tax is sometimes used to refer to estate tax in the United States. Varieties of inheritance and estate taxes * Belgium, droits de succession or erfbelasting (Inheritance tax). Collected at ...
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Conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1–8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force. Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; political objection, for example to service for a disliked government or unpopular war; sexism, in that historically men have been subject to the draft in the most cases; and ideological objection, for example, to a perceived vio ...
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Monopolies
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing. This contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly and duopoly which consists of a few sellers dominating a market. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb ''monopolise'' or ''monopolize'' refers to the ''process'' by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business ...
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Double Jeopardy
In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare cases prosecutorial and/or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. Double jeopardy is a common concept in criminal law. In civil law, a similar concept is that of . Variation in common law countries is the peremptory plea, which may take the specific forms of ('previously acquitted') or ('previously convicted'). These doctrines appear to have originated in ancient Roman law, in the broader principle ('not twice against the same'). Availability as a legal defence If a double-jeopardy issue is raised, evidence will be placed before the court, which will typically rule as a preliminary matter whether the plea is substantiated; if it is, the projected trial will be prevented from proceeding. In some countries certain exemptions are ...
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