Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/116

 76 running from east to west, that from Narraganset bay to the South sea, was granted and confirmed to the colony. The charter is silent in regard to religious rights and privileges.

§ 88. In 1685, a quo warranto was issued by king James against the colony for the repeal of the charter. No judgment appears to have been rendered upon it; but the colony offered its submission to the will of the crown; and Sir Edmund Andros, in 1687, went to Hartford, and in the name of the crown, declared the the government dissolved. They did not, however, surrender the charter; but secreted it in an oak, which is still venerated; and immediately after the revolution of 1688, they resumed the exercise of all its powers. The successors of the Stuarts silently suffered them to retain it until the American Revolution, without any struggle or resistance. The charter continued to be maintained as a fundamental law of the State, until the year 1818, when a new constitution of government was framed and adopted by the people.

§ 89. The laws of Connecticut were, in many respects, similar to those of Massachusetts. At an early period after the charter they passed an act, which may be deemed a bill of rights. By it, it was declared, that "no man's life shall be taken away; no man's honour or good name shall be stained; no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished; no man shall be deprived of his wife