At the opening session of the General Court, May 31,1638, Mr. Hooker
preached a sermon of wonderful power, in which he maintained that "the
foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people,"
"that the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's
own allowance," and that "they who have power to appoint officers and
magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of
the power and place unto which they call them." 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
is clearly discernible. It is worthy of note that this document contains
none 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 history, that created a government,
[10] and it marked the beginnings of American democracy, of which Thomas
Hooker deserves more than any other man to be called the father. The
government of the United States today is in lineal descent more nearly
related to that of Connecticut than to that of any of the other thirteen
colonies.
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