HOOKER, THOMAS (1586–1647)

To escape persecution for his Puritan beliefs, Thomas Hooker fled England in 1633 and settled in Newton, Massachusetts, as its Congregational minister. In 1636 he led most of his congregation to a new settlement at Hartford, thus becoming a founder of Connecticut.

A leader among Puritan clergy, Hooker wrote a major defense of New England Congregationalism and extended his theological convictions into politics. Adopting his flexible stand on formal church affiliation, Connecticut refused to limit the franchise to church members.

In 1639 Hooker's preference for explicit covenants probably prompted Connecticut's leaders to organize the colony's government by drawing up a social compact, regarded by some historians as the first written American constitution, known as the fundamental orders. This document mirrored Hooker's beliefs that civil government should be a covenant between citizens for the promotion of peace and unity; that political authority should reflect the free choice of the people; that rulers were responsible to those they ruled; that the people, as the source of government's existence, had the right not only to choose magistrates but specifically to limit their powers; and that magistrates should consult with the people on issues involving the common good and heed popular judgment in such matters.

Thomas Curry
(1986)

Bibliography

Miller, Perry 1956 Errand into the Wilderness. Pages 16–47. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.