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sults in its effect on the life and development of the colonies; for he was the one who inspired the Connecticut Constitution, and first stated clearly, not only the right of the people to elect their magistrates, but to limit them in their powers by laws which they must follow. In other words, the absolute sovereignty of the people, or democracy, in its modern

sense.

Mr. Hooker had been a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, and had been influenced profoundly by the teachings of that most eminent divine, Thomas Cartwright. It is significant that Emmanuel College was regarded as a Puritan institution, and the men it graduated were all of a distinct and pronounced type. Such were Robert Browne, Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, Thomas Hooker, and John Cotton. For his opinions, Mr. Hooker was persecuted, and cited to appear before the High Commission Court in England, July 10, 1630. He fled to Holland and then to America. His ideas of liberty, equality, and democracy were dearly bought. They were not intellectual discoveries; they were spiritual experiences. Hear his words:

"We (as it becometh Christians) stand upon the sufficiency of Christ's institutions, for all kynde of worship; and that exclusively the word and nothing but the word, in matters of Religious worship. . . . Christ we know; and all that cometh from him we are ready to embrace. But these human ceremonies in divine worship we know not, nor can have anything to doe with them." 1

Hooker was a giant in stature, in faith, and in intellect. After remaining in Massachusetts a few years, he went to Hartford, Conn., in 1636. It is well to remember that the Massachusetts government was not, and was never intended to be, democratic.2 Mr. Hooker was exceedingly jealous for popular liberty, and his influence among his early associates in the Massachusetts Colony is revealed by the statement, made by an early chronicler, that,

1 Walker's Life of Hooker (Dodd, Mead & Co.), p. 58.
2 Ibid., p. 119.

"after Mr. Hooker's coming over, it was observed that many of the freemen grew to be very jealous of their liberties." 1

In the autumn of 1638, Governor Winthrop, who was an aristocrat, and had never divested himself of aristocratic notions, even in government, wrote a letter to Mr. Hooker 2 expostulating with him about—

"the unwarrantableness and unsafeness of referring matters of counsel or judicature to the body of the people, because the best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser."

Mr. Hooker replied that the judges must simply enforce the law, and the general counsel should be chosen by all; and he even goes so far as to say that otherwise it would lead to tyranny and so to confusion. He says, he would choose neither to live nor to leave his property under such a government. He quotes the Scriptures for his authority.3 The late historian of Connecticut, Alexander Johnston, says that this letter to Winthrop might be made the foundation. of the claim that Mr. Hooker had supplied the spirit of the Connecticut Constitution.4

In Massachusetts, the advice of the ministers of the churches was sought and followed as the practice, and Massachusetts was theocratic and aristocratic, for both John Cotton and Governor Winthrop contended for this; but the first written constitution in human history was that of Connecticut, adopted in 1639, and it was framed clearly on these lines marked out by Mr. Hooker. There was an adjourned session of the General Court in April, 1638. To this Court, says Dr. Trumbull, was intrusted the formation of that Constitution which was formally adopted in January, 1639. On. Thursday, May 31, 1638, Mr. Hooker preached a sermon before the General Court, and he held:—

"Doctrine. I. That the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance.

1 Hubbard's General History, p. 265. Winthrop, ii. 428.

8 Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., i. 11, 12.

4 Johnston's Conn., p. 71.

"II. The privilege of election, which belongs to the people, therefore must not be exercised according to their humors, but according to the blessed will and law of God.

"III. They who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them.

"Reasons. I. Because the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people.

"2. Because, by a free choice, the hearts of the people will be more inclined to the love of the persons [chosen] and more ready to yield [obedience].

"3. Because of that duty and engagement of the people."1

Dr. Leonard Bacon said:

"That sermon by Thomas Hooker, from the pulpit of the first church in Hartford, is the earliest known suggestion of a fundamental law, enacted not by royal charter, nor by concession from any previously existing government, but by the people themselves,- -a primary and supreme law by which the government is constituted, and which not only provides. for the free choice of magistrates by the people, but also sets the bounds and limitations of the power and place to which each magistrate is called." 2

Professor Alexander Johnston says:

"Here is the first practical assertion of the right of the people, not only to choose but to limit the powers of their rulers, an assertion which lies at the foundation of the American system." 8

John Fiske says:

"The Connecticut Constitution was the first written Constitution known to history that created a government, 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 to-day is in lineal descent more nearly related to that of Connecticut than to that of any other of the thirteen colonies."

In May, 1639, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Haynes went to Massachusetts to renew negotiations about the Confederation which had been unsuccessfully begun two years before. Mr. Hooker preached a sermon of more than two hours in length before the Governor, and we know that the result of

1

Walker's Life of Hooker, p. 125.

2 Centennial Conf. Address, pp. 152, 153.

• Conn., p. 72. 4 Beginnings of New England, pp. 127, 128.

this visit was an agreement of the Commissioners of the various Colonies in twelve articles, which constituted in ef fect, for certain matters of common interest, a federal government under the title of the "United Colonies of New England."1 This Federal Constitution prepared the way for that of 1787.

We now turn to another step in the development of our national political life, and again we find the moving spirit was a Congregational clergyman. We refer to the famous "Body of Liberties," which Massachusetts Bay adopted in 1641, and which was mainly the work of the Rev. Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, who graduated at Emmanuel College in 1603, one year before Thomas Hooker entered. This "Body of Liberties" formed the basis of the law and civil government of the Massachusetts Colony.

"In one hundred sections it lays down the substantial principles securing life, liberty, property, etc., and the methods of civil administration adapted to the time. It was fully studied and amended in the towns, and was adopted in the most deliberate way."2

Nathaniel Ward had studied law in England, and he was of course most intimate with Thomas Hooker; for, not only as graduates of the same college, but in their weekly ministers' meetings, they must have met often and compared views. This is significant, for both Nathan Dane and Rev. Manasseh Cutler, who wrote the Ordinance of 1787, came from the same town as Ward,-Ipswich. The laws and customs of New England were enforced by the magistrates in the spirit of a "sacred trust," for they were not accustomed to use office for personal ends.

We now pass to the most important of all legislative en1 Winthrop, ii. 121, 127. 2 Weeden, Vol. i. p. 77. 8 So far as we know, the significant fact has not heretofore been noticed that, whoever wrote the Ordinance of 1787, whether Nathan Dane, as stated by Daniel Webster, or Dr. Manasseh Cutler, as stated by Dr. Poole, it emanated from Ipswich, Mass., the home of Nathaniel Ward, the author of the Body of Liberties.

actments that Congress ever passed with regard to the public domain, the Ordinance of 1787.

Mr. Shosuke Sato,1 after reviewing carefully the claims of different men to the authorship of the Ordinance, says:"Mr. Poole's article remains the masterpiece on the subject of the Ordinance of 1787."

This article of Dr. Poole2 says:

"On the 13th of July, 1787, the Congress of the old Confederation, sitting in New York, passed an 'Ordinance for the Government of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio,' which has passed into history as the Ordinance of 1787.'

"The territory embraced what is now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Its provisions have since been applied to all the Territories of the United States lying north of latitude 36° 40′, which now comprises the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and OreAugust 7, 1789, the Constitution of the United States, having then been adopted, Congress among its earliest acts passed one recognizing the binding force of the Ordinance of 1787, and adapting its provisions to the Federal Constitution.

gon.

"The Ordinance, in the breadth of its conceptions, its details, and its results, has been perhaps the most notable instance of legislation that was ever enacted by the representatives of the American people. It fixed forever the character of the immigration, and of the social, political, and educational institutions of the people who were to inhabit this imperial territory, then a wilderness, but now covered by five great States, and teeming with more than ten million persons, or one-fourth of the entire population of the United States. It forever prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, that pestilent element of discord and tyranny in our American system, which then existed in all the States except Massachusetts, where it had come to an end by a decision of its Supreme Court only four years before. It declared that 'religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall always be encouraged.' It prothe feudal law of primogeniture, and provided that the property

hibited

of a parent dying intestate should be divided equally among his children or next of kin; that no person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments; that the inhabitants shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, of trial by jury, of a proporrepresentation in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings ac

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