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Show t Written Constitution framed m AmericaJOO Years Ago 14, 1639, Representatives from Three Connecticut Tow a doc -fare Adopted tlio "Fundamental Orders" That P 'A 7 mb,ed at Hartford 'wMfution Under Which the United States ls N r fr the Federal ,, , 'now Governed 'at?' y l'LMO SCOTT AVATSON Jyp(i cw'''Nc.W5l,;il,crlJlllon- "OrHoOU.?h tJhe Posing of the Orders' indicates that it was he work of a man trained Tin the law, as Roger Ludlow was, work Me WaS probablv the work of Reverend Thomas Hook-er- It said: tl,rF4naSuch as U hath Pleased dn m'ghty God h the se disposUion of his divine provi- hn7 that we the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Hart-rS Hart-rS ?A"d Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and uppon the River of Conecttecotte and the Lands thereunto adjoin-rog, adjoin-rog, And well knowing where a People are gathered togather the word of god requires that to mayntayne the peace and Union oi such a people there should be an Orderly and decent Government Govern-ment established according to Ood to Order and dispose of the attayres of the people at aU seasons sea-sons as occasion shaU require. Doe therefore associate and con-jowe con-jowe ourselves to be as one Pub-Jike Pub-Jike State or Comon welth, and doe for ourselves and our Successors Suc-cessors and such as shall be adjoined ad-joined to us at any time hereafter here-after enter into Combination and Confederation together to mayn-tayne mayn-tayne and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospell of our lord Jesus which we now profess, pro-fess, as also the discipline of the Churches which according to the truth of the said gospell is now practiced amongst us, As also in our Civil affaires to be guided and governed according to such lawes Rules Orders and decrees as shall be made Ordered and decreed as followth:" Not only was the world's first written constitution produced in Connecticut by a lawyer but the Nutmeg' state also claims the distinction of having had the first law school in America. A few years ago a house on South street in Litchfield, Conn., and a little building adjacent to it were established es-tablished as a permanent memorial memo-rial to Judge Tapping Reeve, the founder of the school, and Judge James Gould, who later helped to conduct it. Tapping Reeve, a graduate of the College of New .Jersey (Princeton) in the class of 1763, settled in Litchfield in 1772, began be-gan the practice and teaching of law, and built a home. Judge Reeve conducted the law school ofn ' s s x ivita V-tvn v v x , - r M fhi vir v - vVKs&v x I A ?0 ' s - N !! V xx v x N 4 , I i V ' X M . x J A v ;N f - It si ster , v , ht x , I iere x . , x x x x xx f x V j xi v x v lOull x a ( t t xv X XX xss 10W wy- i-.t - " . t l" , I 1 Joor x'Svi-.','J x ...... j J, " ' f f ,. S s v" I . . , -f'-.: . T. jS """" N 1 1 '-wu.Jj . ,..,-..:v': -i.-S..-.-.,,,..;,.. Adoption of the "Fundamental 77 : t f..i. 4 - t.'tr?. i.'i Orders of Connecticut, January CM'Wi3'W' ..l--. (V, i'S-..S H, 1639" (From the mural , t&$ J- ; ,,v :- - .rs: '" painting by Albert Herter in the !L.-V-r i- ip- tl, ,J f '--'.s w..VjJ Connecticut Supreme court, Hart- J di-t..Z.i I.. -V.''W i-...- -ft j. ford). The figure seated at the Ka '-jiS v.'rV.X-HV-..-..r.. r.. :-' desk is supposed to be Roger ,,'JKV'- ,. v Ludlow; the speaker, facing for- - o 1. - ward, is Reverend Thomas Hook- iej -" ;- V.-r1'-5' er; and the one standing, facing ;.,-j..i .;.ij;-:j,'--r-. 1 Hooker and holding his hat, is . ,'t"n'.U -,. v-'- .-u c-- :- '7 i John Haynes, who was chosen aKI x,W'.. r .frSi rf-,t.VJ nrst governor of Connecticut un- 10C0 ' . -i- r 'r-r'-Kr der the "Orders Adoption of the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, January 14, 1639" (From the mural painting by Albert Herter in the Connecticut Supreme court, Hartford). Hart-ford). The figure seated at the desk is supposed to be Roger Ludlow; the speaker, facing forward, for-ward, is Reverend Thomas Hooker; Hook-er; and the one standing, facing Hooker and holding his hat, is John Haynes, who was chosen first governor of Connecticut under un-der the "Orders." ! I - - . 4. k"u.V CO: J ries - faimble of the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut." i ! ,3ZE hundred years ago this month a little group of -r'ish colonists in America gathered together and I red, for the first time in the history of the world, a i constitution, springing from the people and creat-'D creat-'D -eminent for them. It contained no reference to a nea -sovereign" or a "beloved king" it quietly assumed people had a right to rule themselves. mental Orders" which was adopted adopt-ed at the historic meeting in Hartford on January 14 of that year. "It has been customary to ascribe as-cribe the general character and content of the Orders to Reverend Rever-end Thomas Hooker of Hartford who preached before the General Court on May 31, 1638, a memorable mem-orable sermon on the text, Deuteronomy Deu-teronomy 1:13, which is presumed pre-sumed to have presaged the Orders," Or-ders," says George M. Dutcher in the introduction to a pamphlet on "The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," published for the Connecticut Tercentenary commission com-mission by the Yale University Press in 1934, "The legal phrasing phras-ing of the Orders on the other hand indicates the work of one trained not in divinity but in law. So far as is known the one individual in-dividual at that time resident in he three Connecticut river towns who possessed such training was Roger Ludlow of Windsor, to whom it may be presumed that the actual authorship of the Orders Or-ders should be credited. To what extent Hooker and Ludlow may have conferred and co-operated, and what contribution if any was made from other sources can JOHN HAYNES First governor of Connecticut under the "Orders." not in his own home but in a small building which he had placed m his front yard, to the left of the entrance gate and the house itself. He used this building build-ing as his law office because, even before he formally established estab-lished the school, so many students stu-dents came to "read law" with him that it was more convenient to have a separate building. In 1784, when the law school was for a legisla-; ordably, called the yj:- Court, whose raem-ble raem-ble -;:e elected by the nes ne the executive m-::sl functions of the led, were exercised jto" ' :venwr and six rnagis-aotr rnagis-aotr w assistants, also vi Part of the General the Selected by the peo-aotwas peo-aotwas the "Funda- j-Orders of Connecti- ; --"ed at Hartford on '714.1639. title-;, , )am - accordmg to one his- n J WMiecticut was as ab-t ab-t -s-a:e in 1639 as it was " formed the basis i ;;frof 1662 which reinforce re-inforce until 1818. But H Aant than that is the i;. served as the basis J1! t-'.'(; raI Constitution which " 1' United States Do, -a, woud adopt 14Qodd get rt?er historian points ft 'S J noced that this rffii-institution of Connecti- similarities to the '' . u as the individu-S:-- was recognized Ya. "and and the main People on the other, eTtW-hle P60Ple Bra :ct It : 1S an inter- W f6deral accordJ he comPr-7 comPr-7 Cordance With which H ; ' arrangement was CroSCalledthe'Con-""Promise CroSCalledthe'Con-""Promise ' " "St Slement. . ;!rs(tanding f this I :7 nt- is necessary I historl yTars in New I :,Z7' In 1630 the I ,S3ny had granted k ' who turned it g sand Sele-Lord 4tSnthrP. -n of P ml 3 .vernor, act- ilJlhe cnnecti-.! cnnecti-.! "or A f6d U saybrook ca dement years later Was funded .'W, Tanwhile. hw- , husetta Bay col- ' MTj?ms int0 the ?f fv'hatiSnowCon- Nation s ik .. was mainly Satisfaction with the hard rule of the united church and state in Massachusetts. One man, particularly, who dissented from this rule was Rev. Thomas Hooker. "Herein of ye fame of Conightecute River, they had a hankering mind after it" says a contemporary chronicler. So in 1636 Hooker and a congregation of more than 100 set forth for the Connecticut valley, arrived at the site of Hartford and there made their settlement. Within a year the new colony of Connecticut had more than 800 people gathered in the three towns of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield. Although nominally nominal-ly under the control of Massachusetts, Massa-chusetts, it soon became evident that the people of Connecticut had "a hankering mind" after a government of their own. Trained for Law. One of the colonists of Windsor was a lawyer named Roger Ludlow, Lud-low, born in Wiltshire m 1590, educated at Balliol college, Oxford, Ox-ford, and admitted to the , Inner Temple in London in 1612 Having become a stockholder in the Massachusetts Mas-sachusetts Bay company in 1W0. he was appointed an assistant Gov. John Winthrop. In March of that year he sailed for New England. ,. . ; Ludlow took a fading part in founding Dorchester where he held several offices such as land commissioner and jus ice of the peace. In 1634 he was elected dep uty governor and disappointed at no being chosen governor he resolved to leave the colony ana g tCe0nTsettSeUrs of XdsoVhl prominent settlers oi - om was placed at the head of a com mission to make laws io ;;Well;0rdl636g" wheT Sord, SdeSdofthpSoSgov-ernment SdeSdofthpSoSgov-ernment to .serve Ujar He presided at the -a of magistrates which conv Hartford in March 1J36 dep. the same year was ei Iected uty governor and was several times nment in gamzation of the gc ) May, 1637 he was chose istrate and in w ly elected as governor. By fgnied that was generaUy recog Connect)cut was a MaS. from under the conteoi sachusetts and on n nking 0 the colonists began anent organizing a moiu r resuU form of government. Funda. was the drafting of tne only be pure surmise. Since the settlers of Connecticut Connecti-cut called upon Roger Ludlow to write their constitution for them, it would have been only just that they should have elected him the first governor to rule the colony under it. But they didn't They passed him by and elected John Haynes, Ludlow's "evil genius, to use his own words. Disappointed Again. Bitterly disappointed over this, Ludlow, accompanied by several of his friends and their families, moved to Unquon which was renamed re-named Fairfield. Then, as a crXig indig1' he wfls forced to rologize to the assembly for "undue haste" in taking up lands thTnei646 the assembly requested hiS to frame a body of laws for Connecticut and, by adding 14 States from the Massachusetts Sntm'th Rtfiffl a commissioner to KfoSceToTresponsibilityand trust' o,- his impetuous nature H!dlv led Wm into trouble re?ha he Authorities and finally, wltl? that he would no longer feCla-ninConnecticut, he sold out bve- rts and sailed with his his ?tet vteit his brother in Vir- A short time later he re-gml3;d re-gml3;d to Ireland where Oliver moved to ted t0 him the Cromwell e"trSt and the administration on forfeU determin.ng c of Cork. ed lands in we end some. SiS Ctpfore lSl-the exact date ? his delm being unknown. founded, it was this buildmg that housed the first classes. In' 1798 Mr. Reeve, then a judge, was joined by James Gould, a graduate of Yale in the class of 1791, and they conducted the school together until 1820, when Judge Reeve retired. One of Judge Reeve's earliest pupils was his brother-in-law, Aaron Burr. John C. Calhoun was one of five future cabinet members who received their legal le-gal education at Litchfield. Many senators, "members of congress galore" and judges "by the dozen" doz-en" also were trained there. In addition there were some who later made their reputations outside out-side the law, among them the educator, Horace Mann. The Litchfield law school is said to have played an important impor-tant part in the interpretation of law in the young republic until the school passed out of existence, exist-ence, when the establishment of law 'schools in connection with the colleges made private institutions institu-tions no longer necessary. The original law school building build-ing has undergone many vicissitudes vicissi-tudes since it was first established estab-lished as such in 1784. It on-tinued on-tinued to be used for classes until un-til the school was closed in 1833. In 1846 it was moved bodily through the streets of Litchfield, from South street to West Hill, to be used as the resident of Henry Hen-ry Ward, a printer and poet. Forty years later new owners made such large additions that the original structure became almost al-most unrecognizable. In 1906, however, a descendant of a graduate grad-uate of the school restored it to its original state, and, in 1911, it was taken over by the Litchfield Historical and Antiquarian soci- , ety. I |