The General Court of the Plymouth Colony instituted a legal code, the first composed in North America, on October 4, 1636. It guaranteed citizens a trial by jury and stipulated that all laws were to be made with the consent of the freemen of the colony. The Library's American Treasures exhibition highlights one of the first published versions of this code, The Book of the General Laws of the Inhabitants of the Jurisdiction of New-Plimouth. ...