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For those history buffs this is the 370 year anniversary of the beginning of a written Constitution in America.

The first written charter in America was in 1620, when the Mayflower Compact came into being. Later on the charter concept evolved into a more comprehensive type of constitution when Reverend Thomas Hooker and his associates adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. It should be noted that the Connecticut charter makes no reference to the Crown or the British Government as the source of its authority. It was a compact of “We, the people”.

It has been described that on the 14th of January, 1639, all the freemen of the three towns assembled at Hartford and adopted a written constitution in which the hand of the great preacher (Thomas Hooker) is clearly discernible. This document did not contain any of the conventional references to a “dread sovereign” or a “gracious King”, nor the slightest allusion to the British or any other government outside of Connecticut itself, nor does it prescribe any condition of church-membership for the right of suffrage. It was the first written constitution known to modern history, that created a government, and it marked the beginning of American democracy, of which Thomas Hooker deserves more than any other man to be called the father.

The government of the United States is in lineal descent more nearly related to that of Connecticut than with any of the other thirteen colonies. The foundation that Connecticut established in 1639 allowed it to silently grow till it became the strongest political structure on the continent, which was illustrated in the remarkable military energy and the unshaken financial support it provided during the Revolutionary War.

Maybe more than you wanted to know, but interesting.

Tom