What Is The First Written Constitution In America

Most people guess the U.S. Day to day, constitution. Some say the Articles of Confederation. Day to day, a few history buffs might throw out the Mayflower Compact just to see if it sticks. They’re all wrong — at least if we’re talking about a written* constitution in the modern sense: a single document that structures a government, limits its power, and derives its authority from the consent of the governed.

The answer sits in a quiet corner of Connecticut history, drafted in a meeting house in Hartford over a few hot weeks in 1639. So it’s called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. And it changes how you understand the American experiment before it even had a name.

What Is the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

The Fundamental Orders wasn’t a royal charter. It wasn’t a compact between settlers and a distant king. It was a framework for self-government written by the settlers themselves — specifically, the towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield — and adopted on January 14, 1639 (Old Style; January 24, 1639 New Style). Worth knowing.

It consists of a preamble and eleven orders. Consider this: eleven short sections. No bill of rights, no separation of powers in the Montesquieu sense, no judicial review. That’s it. But it does something radical for 1639: it creates a general court with legislative, executive, and judicial authority, elected by freemen, and it binds that court to govern “according to the rule of the word of God” and the orders themselves.

The preamble doesn’t invoke the King’s grace. It begins: “Forasmuch as it hath pleased the Almighty God… we do for ourselves and our successors… associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth.” That phrase — “for ourselves and our successors” — is the seed of popular sovereignty planted in New England soil a century and a half before Philadelphia.

Not a charter, not a compact

The distinction matters. The Massachusetts Bay Colony operated under a royal charter that the colonists carried with them — a legal fiction that let them govern themselves while technically remaining subjects of the Crown. The Mayflower Compact was a social contract, yes, but it was a temporary agreement to form a “civil body politic” for the sake of order, not a standing constitution with defined institutions.

The Fundamental Orders created standing institutions: a General Court that met twice a year, a governor elected for one-year terms (with no consecutive re-election), deputies from each town, and a process for making laws, levying taxes, and administering justice. It was a constitution in function before the word “constitution” carried its modern meaning.

Why It Matters / Why People Care

You might ask: why does a document from a tiny river colony matter when the U.S. Constitution is the one that actually governs us? Because ideas don’t appear from nowhere. They evolve. The Fundamental Orders is the earliest clear evidence that English colonists in North America believed they could design their own government from scratch — not just modify an inherited one.

It also reframes the “Connecticut Compromise” of 1787. Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, the Connecticut delegates who brokered the bicameral legislature at the Constitutional Convention, grew up in a political culture shaped by the Fundamental Orders. The idea that representation should balance population (House) and state equality (Senate) echoes the Orders’ structure: towns sent deputies proportionally, but the General Court functioned as a single body where each town’s voice carried weight regardless of size.

There’s a reason Connecticut’s nickname is the Constitution State. Day to day, it’s not marketing. The state legislature officially adopted the title in 1959, citing the Fundamental Orders as the first written constitution. Historians debate the label — some argue for the 1638 Frame of Government of Pennsylvania or the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties — but the Orders remain the strongest candidate for a complete* governmental framework in a single document adopted by the governed.

The theological anchor

It’s uncomfortable for modern readers. The Orders explicitly ground authority in “the rule of the word of God.” Only “godly” men could be freemen. That said, this wasn’t secular democracy. Here's the thing — the franchise was restricted to church members in good standing. It was a Puritan theocracy with democratic mechanics.

But the mechanics mattered. Once you accept that freemen choose the governor and deputies, you’ve accepted a principle that outlives the theology. Still, the container was religious; the mechanism was republican. That mechanism migrated, mutated, and eventually shed its theological skin.

How It Worked: The Mechanics of the Orders

The document is short enough to read in ten minutes. But the implications unfold in the details.

The General Court

The supreme power sat in the General Court. Think about it: it met twice a year — the second Thursday in April and the second Thursday in September. The April session was the “Court of Election.” The September session handled laws, taxes, and appeals.

The Court consisted of the governor (or a moderator in his absence), four magistrates, and deputies from each town. Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield each sent four deputies. Practically speaking, new towns added later got two. That’s a fixed ratio, not proportional representation — a deliberate choice to protect the original towns.

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The governor and magistrates

The governor served a one-year term. The governor had no veto. Which means he could not succeed himself. In real terms, this rotation prevented the consolidation of personal power — a direct reaction to the magistrates’ lifetime terms in Massachusetts Bay. He presided, cast a tie-breaking vote, and executed the Court’s decisions.

Magistrates were also elected annually by the freemen. The blend of legislative and judicial functions in the same body looks strange today, but it was standard 17th-century practice. In practice, they served as judges, councilors, and executive officers. The separation of powers came later.

The franchise

“Freemen” were the electorate. To become a freeman, a man had to be admitted by the General Court, which typically required church membership, a property qualification, and an oath of fidelity. Also, by modern standards, it’s narrow. Women, servants, non-church members, and non-property holders were excluded. By 1639 standards, it was remarkably broad — broader than England, broader than Massachusetts.

Lawmaking process

Laws originated with the deputies or magistrates. The Orders themselves could be amended by the Court — but only with the consent of the freemen at the next election. That said, the Court was unicameral and supreme. No upper house to stall them. A majority of the whole Court passed them. No royal assent required. That’s a rudimentary entrenchment clause: the constitution binds the legislature, but the people can change it.

Oaths and fidelity

Every officer swore an oath to govern “according to the rule of the word of God” and the Fundamental Orders. Every freeman swore fidelity to the Commonwealth. The language binds officeholders to the document, not to a person or a patron. That’s constitutionalism in embryo.

Common Mistakes / What Most People Get Wrong

“The Mayflower Compact was the first constitution.”

It wasn’t. Think about it: it didn’t create* institutions — it just agreed that they would* create them. The Compact was a covenant to form a government. The Plymouth Colony didn’t get a formal constitution until 1636, and even then it was a set of laws, not a structural document. The Fundamental Orders predates it by three years and does the structural work in one text.

“It was democratic.”

No. It was republican with a restricted franchise. “Democracy” in the 17th century was a pejorative — mob rule.

all in a mixed government that balanced power. This design reflected the colonists’ desire to avoid the concentration of authority they had witnessed under royal governors and lifelong magistrates elsewhere. By distributing power among elected officials who were answerable to the freemen, the Orders created a system where leadership was temporary, accountable, and subject to regular renewal.

Influence on Later Charters

When Connecticut received its royal charter in 1662, the framers deliberately incorporated many of the Orders’ principles. The charter retained the annual election of the governor and magistrates, preserved the unicameral legislature, and affirmed that laws could be altered only with the consent of the freemen. Historians note that the charter’s language echoing the Orders helped cement a tradition of self‑governance that survived the transition from colony to state.

Legacy in American Constitutional Thought

Although the Fundamental Orders never mentioned a separation of powers in the modern sense, its emphasis on written limits, popular consent, and periodic elections anticipated key features of the United States Constitution. James Madison and other framers studied colonial charters, and Connecticut’s early experiment was cited in debates about republicanism and federalism. The Orders’ notion that a constitution binds the legislature but can be amended by the people resurfaced in the amendment processes of both state and federal constitutions.

Connecticut’s Enduring Framework

The state’s current constitution, adopted in 1965, still bears the imprint of the 1639 document. Provisions for biennial legislative sessions, the requirement that the governor be elected by popular vote, and the insistence that any constitutional change be ratified by the electorate all trace their lineage back to the Orders. In this way, a text drafted over three centuries ago continues to shape the legal and political life of Connecticut.

Conclusion

Let's talk about the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut stand as a pioneering attempt to codify self‑rule through a written framework that balanced elected authority with popular oversight. Because of that, by establishing annual elections, limiting executive power, and linking governmental legitimacy to the consent of the freemen, the Orders offered a model of constitutionalism that influenced later colonial charters and, ultimately, the development of American democratic governance. Their legacy endures not only as a historical curiosity but as a living reminder that the foundations of republican government were laid early in New England’s town meetings and courtrooms.