Through the Woods to Grandmother’s Charter We Go

That tradition of consent and self-government includes a lot of high moments, from the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut to refusal to comply with Governor Andros’s revocation of the charters of the Dominion of New England leading to Andros’s arrest. It includes the Lee Resolution, the subsequent rationalization in the Declaration of Independence, and the particularization in the Articles and then the Constitution of 1787. This is the sacred American heritage of consent. As it was for our separatist Pilgrims forefathers, it is, in a certain way, a religious calling. To neglect it, especially out of fear, is for lack of a better word un-American, and even impious, because it is, after all, a God-given right.