Answer: it’s the first complete constitution written in America. The
following comes from my volume, The Book That Made America: How the
Bible Formed Our Nation (Nordskog, 2009).
Rev. Thomas Hooker was a
committed Puritan. He had a disagreement with fellow Puritans in Massachusetts,
so he led a delegation into the wilderness of what is now Connecticut.
He preached a sermon in 1638 on Christian principles of government. Within
a year, his followers put into words the points he made in the sermon and
created the nation’s first complete constitution---the Fundamental Orders
of Connecticut. This document mentions how they desired "to maintain and
preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we
now profess, as also the discipline of the churches, which according to
the truth of the said Gospel is now practiced among us."
The constitution, by the
way, was written under a tree---an historic tree commemorated in a special
edition of a quarter. I once inquired as to the possibility of videotaping
that tree, only to discover that it had been destroyed by lightening in
the 19th century. Another point about the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
is that Peter Marshall notes that George Washington had copies of that
constitution available to all those who attended the Constitutional Convention
in 1787.
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