Individual Rights
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is a short document, but contains some principles that were later applied in creating the United States government. Government is based in the rights of an individual, and the orders spell out some of those rights, as well as how they are ensured by the government. It provides that all free men share in electing their magistrates, and uses secret, paper ballots. It states the powers of the government, and some limits within which that power is exercised.
In one sense, the Fundamental Orders were replaced by a Royal Charter in 1662, but the major outline of the charter was written in Connecticut and embodied the Orders' rights and mechanics. It was carried to England by Governor John Winthrop and basically approved by the British King, Charles II. The colonists generally viewed the charter as a continuation and surety for their Fundamental Orders. Later on, the Charter Oak got gets its name when that charter was taken from Jeremy Adams's tavern and supposedly hidden in an oak tree, rather than it be surrendered to the King James II of England agents.
Yesterday, the individual rights in the Orders, with others added over the years, are still included as a "Declaration of Rights" in the first article of the current Connecticut Constitution, adopted in 1965.
Read more about this topic: Fundamental Orders Of Connecticut
Famous quotes containing the words individual and/or rights:
“There’s only one way for an individual to remain upright, not to fall to pieces, not to sink into the mire of self-oblivion ... or self-contempt. That’s calmly to turn away from everything, to say, “Enough!” and, folding one’s useless arms across one’s empty breast, to retain the ultimate, the sole attainable virtue, the virtue of recognizing one’s own insignificance.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“My dream is that as the years go by and the world knows more and more of America, it ... will turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the basis of all freedom ... that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights, and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)