Fundamental Orders Adopted: America's First Constitution

Thirty-six years before the English Bill of Rights and 150 years before the United States Constitution, a group of Connecticut settlers drafted a document that created a government from scratch, based on the consent of the governed. The Fundamental Orders, adopted on January 14, 1639, are widely considered the first written constitution in the Western tradition, and the reason Connecticut still calls itself "The Constitution State." The settlers who wrote it had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony because they found its government too restrictive. Thomas Hooker, a Puritan minister, had led his congregation overland from Cambridge to the Connecticut River valley in 1636, establishing the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. Hooker preached that government authority should flow from the free consent of the people, a radical position even among Puritans. His sermon of May 1638, arguing that "the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people," provided the philosophical basis for the document that followed. The Fundamental Orders established a General Court composed of elected representatives from each town, a governor chosen by popular vote, and a system of laws that applied equally to all freemen. Unlike the Massachusetts charter, which required church membership for political participation, the Fundamental Orders imposed no religious test for voting. The governor was limited to serving no more than one term in succession, preventing the consolidation of executive power. The document was remarkably specific for its era. It laid out procedures for calling and conducting legislative sessions, defined the powers and limits of the governor, established methods for taxation, and created a framework for adding new towns to the federation. Roger Ludlow, the only trained lawyer among the settlers, is believed to have drafted the legal language. The Fundamental Orders governed Connecticut for nearly a quarter century until the colony received a royal charter from Charles II in 1662, which incorporated many of its provisions. The idea that ordinary citizens could design their own government, write it down, and live by it traveled forward through American political thought with remarkable durability.