Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
The Fundamental Orders were adopted by the Connecticut Colony council on January 24 [O.S. January 14] 1639.[1] The fundamental orders describe the government set up by the Connecticut River towns, setting its structure and powers. They wanted the government to have access to the open ocean for trading.[2]
The Orders have the features of a written constitution and are considered by some authors to be the first written Constitution in the Western tradition. Thus, Connecticut earned its nickname of The Constitution State. The document is notable as it assigns supreme authority in the colony to the elected general court, omitting any reference to the authority of the British Crown or other external authority. In 1662, the colony petitioned the king for a royal charter, which substantially secured the colony's right to self-govern following the same form of government established by the Fundamental Orders.
Competing claims for the first Western constitution[edit]
Connecticut historian John Fiske was the first to claim that the Fundamental Orders were the first written Constitution, a claim disputed by some modern historians.[7] The Mayflower Compact has an equal claim 19 years before; however, this Order gave men more voting rights and made more men eligible to run for elected positions.[8] Karolina Adamová, a scientific member of the Institute of State and Law of the Czech Academy of Sciences argues that the articles of the Bohemian Confederacy adopted by the General Assembly of the evangelical estates in Prague on July 31, 1619, can be considered to be the first modern constitution and simultaneously the first federal constitution in recorded history.[9]