Constitutional History To 1776

The constitutional history of Connecticut divides nicely into four eras: the pre-constitutional or charter phase (1636-1776); the unconstitutional, or Revolutionary phase (1776-1818); the era of the first constitution (1818-1965); and the era of the second constitution (since 1965). These categories reflect my interpretation of the Fundamental Orders of 1639 and the Charter of 1662 as constitutional only in spirit, since those documents were written in an era when the word "constitution" had a meaning different from the modern one, which was not given definition until the late eighteenth century.

The principal historiographic controversies have focused on seven questions.

1) Were the Fundamental Orders the product of a constituent assembly and thus the act of the people; or were they written and adopted by deputies of the towns, thus creating only a "mere" confederation?

2) Did the towns retain plenary authority--if they ever had it--or did they transfer such authority to the General Court?

The answer to these questions would solve another:

3) Was the Connecticut system the prototype upon which the U.S. federal system was based in the "Great," or "Connecticut" Compromise of 1787?

4) Did, in fact, the Fundamental Orders constitute a real constitution, or we they merely an illegal stopgap measure, never legitimatized, and superseded (by the Charter of 1662)?

5) Could the Charter of 1662, whether or not it subsumed the Orders, be considered a constitution under any definition of the word?

6) What was the constitutional status of the Connecticut government after the General Assembly became independent of the Crown, the original source the Charter, in 177?

7) In view of all these questions, can it be said that Connecticut has had a continuous constitutional history since 1639?

These are all historical questions; no one has disputed the legitimacy, constitutionality, or continuity of the Connecticut government since 1818 except for the period in the 1950s which lead up to Butterworth v. Dempsey. General treatments of aspects of constitutional history are found in many works that cover the full sweep of Connecticut history, but they do not resolve the questions posed above. Some of these questions have been dealt with in Christopher Collier, The Connecticut Declaration of Rights Before 1818: A Victim of Revolutionary Redefinition," Connecticut Law Review (Fall, 1982). Our own appraisal of the controversy is given popular treatment in "Is Connecticut the Constitution State?" by Christopher Collier, in Boyle's Connecticut Almanac and Guide, 1983, and "Three and a Half Cheers for Connecticut: What the Scholar Might Tell the Public About the Semiseptcentennial" in Connecticut Humanities Council News. (Spring 1985).