ure and Harvard College, a right to
establish a religion by law in Marshpee, and take the property of
the Indians to support a minister they will not hear? Where did the
General-Court get any power to give away the property of the Indians,
any more than the lands of white men, held in common? They cannot take
the property of the Indians to support a private individual. Was it
then a public use? But the Constitution says "no part of the property
of any individual, can with justice be taken from him, or applied to
public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative
body of the people, and whenever the public exigencies require that
the property of any individual should be appropriated to public uses,
he shall receive a reasonable compensation therefor." Apply this to
the act of the General Court, by which Mr. Fish holds four hundred
acres of the common lands of the Indians, against their consent,
and for which they never received a dollar, and answer. Is not the
Constitution violated, every day he is suffered to remain on the
plantation, against their consent, subsisting on the property of the
poor Indians, not to benefit them, but to preach to the whites?

Look at this subject also, in connexion with religious freedom.
The old article of the Constitution, gave the Legislature power
to _require_ the towns to provide for public worship at their own
expense, where they neglected to make such provisions themselves;
but it also provided that the towns, &c. "shall at all times have the
exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and of contracting
with them for their support and maintenance."

This right the Indians have never had in regard to Mr. Fish, nor did
they neglect to support worship, and if they did, the Legislature had
no power to take their property and set it apart, but might impose a
tax or a fine.

But what says the amended article on this subject of religious
freedom? "The several religious societies of this Commonwealth, (the
Indian as well as the white man,) whether corporate or unincorporate,
shall ever have the right to elect their pastors or religious
teachers, to contract with them for their support, to raise money
for the erecting and repairing houses of public worship, for the
maintenance of religious instruction, and all religious sects and
denominations, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good citizens,
shall be equally under the protection of the law."

Are the Indians