“But, after all [says Mr. Washburn], the laws on this subject, as well as the practice of the government, were inconsistent and anomalous, indicating clearly, that whether Colony or Province, so far as it felt free to follow its own inclinations, uncontrolled by the action of the mother country, Massachusetts was hostile to slavery as an institution!"[284]

No doubt Massachusetts was “inconsistent” in seeking liberty for her white citizens while forging legal chains for the Negro.  And how far the colony “felt free to follow its own inclinations” Chief-Justice Parsons declares from the bench.  Says that eminent jurist,—­

     “Slavery was introduced into this country [Massachusetts]
     soon after its first settlement, and was tolerated until the
     ratification of the present Constitution—­of 1780."[285]

So here we find an eminent authority declaring that slavery followed hard upon the heels of the Pilgrim Fathers, “and was tolerated” until 1780.  Massachusetts “felt free” to tear from the iron grasp of the imperious magistrates the liberties of the people, but doubtless felt not “free” enough to blot out “the crime and folly of an evil time.”  And yet for years lawyers and clergymen, orators and statesmen, historians and critics, have stubbornly maintained, that, while slavery did creep into the colony, and did exist, it was “not probably by force of any law, for none such is found or known to exist."(?)[286]

Slavery having been firmly established in Massachusetts, the next step was to make it hereditary.  This was done under the sanction of the highest and most solemn forms of the courts of law.  It is not our purpose to give this subject the attention it merits, in this place; but in a subsequent chapter it will receive due attention.  We will, however, say in passing, that it was the opinion of many lawyers in the last century, some of whom served upon the bench in Massachusetts, that children followed the condition of their mothers.  Chief-Justice Parsons held that “the issue of the female slave, according to the maxim of the civil law, was the property of her master.”  And, subsequently, Chief-Justice Parker rendered the following opinion:—­

“The practice was ... to consider such issue as slaves, and the property of the master of the parents, liable to be sold and transferred like other chattels, and as assets in the hands of executors and administrators....  We think there is no doubt that, at any period of our history, the issue of a slave husband and a free wife would have been declared free.  His children, if the issue of a marriage with a slave, would, immediately on their birth, become the property of his master, or of the master of the female slave."[287]

This decision is strengthened by the statement of Kendall in reference to the wide-spread desire of Negro slaves to secure free Indian wives, in order to insure the freedom of their children.  He says,—­