O the free and universal reading of the Bible in that age men were much indebted for right views of civil liberty. As renowned Cornell University professor Clinton Rossiter affirmed:
After all, this was the Scriptural model: God had given Moses a fixed written law to govern that nation – a pattern that recurred throughout the Scriptures (c.f., Deuteronomy 17:18-20, 31:24, II Chronicles 34:15-21, etc.). But while Connecticut produced America’s first written constitution, it definitely had not produced America’s first written document of governance, for such written documents had been the norm for every colony founded by Bible-minded Christians. Hooker’s teachings and leadership sprang the “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut” – America’s first written constitution (and the direct antecedent of the federal Constitution). They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place. he choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance. Hooker explained the three Biblical principles that had guided the plan of government in Connecticut: They not only established an elective form of government but in a 1638 sermon based on Deuteronomy 1:13 and Exodus 18:21, the Rev. Samuel Stone, John Davenport, and Theophilus Eaton) founded Connecticut. Roger Williams established the Rhode Island Colony and its representative form of government, explaining that “he sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power lies in the people.” By 1641, they also had established a Bill of Rights (the “Body of Liberties”) – a document of individual rights drafted by the Rev. In 1630, the Puritans arrived and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and under the leadership of their ministers, they, too, established representative government with annual elections.
By 1636, they had also enacted a citizens’ Bill of Rights – America’s first. The Pilgrims eagerly took that message to heart, organizing a representative government and holding annual elections. Their pastor, John Robinson, charged them to elect civil leaders who would not only seek the “common good” but who would also eliminate special privileges and status between governors and the governed – a radical departure from the practice in the rest of the world at that time. In 1620, the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts to establish their colony. He first movement toward democracy in America was inaugurated in the house of God and with the blessing of the minister of God. Bucke the elected legislators then sat in the church choir loft to conduct legislative business. That legislature met in the Jamestown church and was opened with prayer by the Rev. In 1619 they helped form America’s first representative government: the Virginia House of Burgesses, with its members elected from among the people. Robert Hunt, Richard Burke, William Mease, Alexander Whitaker, William Wickham, and others. īut the ministers during the Revolutionary period were not necessarily unique they were simply continuing what ministers had been doing to shape American government and culture in the century and a half preceding the Revolution.įor example, the early settlers who arrived in Virginia beginning in 1606 included ministers such as the Revs. And such were the sons of the mighty who responded to the Divine call. God needed not reeds shaken by the wind, not men clothed in soft raiment, but heroes of hardihood and lofty courage. Mighty men they were, of iron nerve and strong hand and unblanched cheek and heart of flame.