Crimes Explained: Massachusetts Constitution

The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, the oldest written constitution still in use, in its official text and annotated. Each provision is color-coded to show the rights it guarantees, the powers it grants and the limits it sets, and broken into its parts.

• Select any provision to open its own page with the official text beside a breakdown: each right, power, limit or duty in it, who holds it, who is bound, what it requires or forbids, its conditions and exceptions, and any note of the Legislature that it was annulled, superseded or amended. Breakdowns use only the provision's own text.
• In the official text, rights are green, grants of power are highlighted in orange, limits on government are red, and conditions by their if or unless are purple italics.
• Words in [square brackets] are printed that way by the Legislature to show wording that was later superseded; the Legislature's own notes ("Annulled by Amendments, Art. CVI", "See Amendments, Arts. XLVI and XLVIII") appear under the text and link to the articles they name. Provisions marked Annulled or Partly superseded say so on their cards.
• Dotted-underlined words are legal terms. Tap or hover to see what they mean.
• The colored bar on each card shows the provision's main kind: a right, a power, a limit, a duty, or structure (offices, terms, elections and procedures).