Massachusetts State House
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Transcript
The gold-domed Massachusetts State House opened in 1798, after the Revolution, but its location on Beacon Hill tells you how quickly the new republic began building its own civic symbolism.
Architect Charles Bulfinch designed the building on land formerly owned by John Hancock, revolutionary merchant, politician and famously large signer of the Declaration of Independence. The dome was originally wooden, later covered with copper and eventually gilded.
Why stop at a post-revolutionary building on the Freedom Trail? Because revolutions do not end when shooting stops. The difficult question is what institutions replace imperial authority. Massachusetts moved from royal government to a state constitution drafted principally by John Adams and adopted in 1780. That constitution remains in force, making it the world’s oldest functioning written constitution.
Its language also mattered in the decline of slavery in Massachusetts. Enslaved people and their advocates used revolutionary claims about liberty in court, and the 1780 constitution’s declaration that all people were born free and equal helped make slavery legally untenable in the state.
The building therefore stands at an important transition: Boston’s prewar culture of protest giving way to the less romantic work of constitutions, legislatures and courts.