derful 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. The most noteworthy feature of the Connecticut republic was
that it was a federation of independent towns, and that all attributes
of sovereignty not expressly granted to the General Court remained,
as of original right, in the towns. Moreover, while the governor and
council were chosen by a majority vote of the whole people, and by a
suffrage that was almost universal, there was for each township an
equality of representation in the assembly. [11] This little federal
republic was allowed to develop peacefully and normally; its
constitution was not violently wrenched out of shape like that of
Massachusetts at the end of the seventeenth century. It silently grew
till it became the strongest political structure on the continent, as
was illustrated in the remarkable military energy and the unshaken
financial credit of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War; and in the
chief crisis of the Federal Convention of 1787 Connecticut, with her
compromise which secured equal state representation in one branch of the
national government and popular representation in the other, played the
controlling part. [Sidenote: Connecticut Pioneers] [Sidenote: The first
written constitution]

Before the little federa