from Charles II. in 1662, did little more than assume and ratify the constitution of 1639. It left its great principles unaltered; and Connecticut was still a complete republic in every thing but the name.* The constitution adopted in 1818 is altogether conformable in its principles, to the compact entered into by our fathers; differing from it chiefly in its adaptedness to a more numerous population and to the interests of a more widely extended and complicated state of society.

The constitution of 1639, then, in its main features, always has been, and still is, the constitution of the state. It is the magna charta of the people's liberties; and they have every reason for strong attachment to it. Nor should it be thought a matter of wonder or blame, that when fairer means had failed, the good people of this town should have had recource to a little stratagem, to save the precious instru

This charter included the Colony of New-Haven; but the union was not effected in form till 1665. Trumbull, Chap. 12.

ment, which had secured to them so many privileges, from the grasp of the king's governor, Sir Edmund Andross, who in 1687, was sent over with authority, to vacate all the charters of the New England colonies. The tradition is, that Sir Edmund, having arrived here, with a guard of sixty men, to demand of the assembly, then in session, the surrender of the charter, it was found convenient to prolong the debate, respecting the matter, till the evening; when, suddenly, the lights were extinguished, and a captain Wadsworth seizing the charter, as it lay on the table, conveyed it to a place of safe-keeping, in the hollow of an oak, on Wyllys' hill. Let that tree stand, and still bear the honored name of the charter oak. It deserves well of posterity for concealing the precious deposit. It is a venerable relic of the olden time. While it remains, we shall seem to stand nearer to the age of our fathers. At least, one monument will remain, to remind us of the care of our ancestors to preserve

for their descendants the great deed of their civil and religious liberties.

In less than two years, Sir Edmund, with about fifty of his associates was seized in Boston and placed in confinement; and the good people of Connecticut, not caring to submit to the government of a delinquent in prison, the charter was forth coming from its safe retreat; and the chartered government, never having been formally surrendered, was resumed and all its functions re-established. *

When we reflect upon the innumerable civil and religious blessings, secured to the people of this state, by the free and happy form of government adopted by our forefathers, and which, in all its essential features, has been continued to the present day, we can scarcely revolve with patience the proposal of lord Say and Sele and lord Brooke, with others of their fraternity, to transport themselves to the colony and here establish an order of nobility and a

* Trumbull, p. 373. Dwight's travels, Vol. I. p. 150.

hereditary magistracy. Much less can we endure the design of Archbishop Laud to erect an established church in the country and incorporate it, indissolubly, with the civil government of the state. Had such a thing been, we do not say, that we should this day have been a dependent colony of a foreign power, but certainly our institutions of government, our laws, our religion, and all the intercourse and habits of society would have been wholly unlike what they now are; and the difference, we cannot doubt, would have been to the disadvantage; if not the loss, of all that we now hold most dear.

Another subject claiming our grateful notice on this occasion, is the early and benevolent care of our fathers to establish common schools and higher seminaries of learning. They were republicans in principle; and their great object in coming here was to secure the enjoyment of religious liberty under the auspices of a free com

Note F.

monwealth. Persuaded that the only basis on which a republic can stand is the general intelligence and virtue of the people, they early made provision for common school education and the religious instruction of the community. In the code of laws established in 1650, it was ordered that every town of fifty families should maintain a school in which children should be taught to read and write; and every town of one hundred families should set

up a grammar school, "the masters whereof should be able to fit youths for the university."*

But previous to this, probably, indeed, from the beginning, the system of common school education was in operation in this town, and it is presumed also in the other

*The preamble to this law is memorable. "It being one chief object of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the scriptures, as in former times keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times, by persuading them from the use of tongues, so that at least, the true sense of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, it is ordered," &c.