(July 7, 1586–July 7, 1647), was the founder of Hartford, Connecticut in 1636. A Cambridge University graduate, Thomas Hooker was persecuted in England after having gotten involved with the Christian movement known as the Puritans. Exiled from England for his religious beliefs, he fled first to Holland, then to Massachusetts (1633), where he became the minister at the Cambridge (formerly New-Town) settlement. Disputes with the Massachusetts leadership drove him and his congregation to Connecticut (1635–36). In 1638, he stated to the Connecticut General Assembly that he believed people had a God-given right to choose their magistrates. He was a principal organizer of the New England colonies into the defensive confederation, known as the United Colonies of New England, 1643. In 1648, he wrote A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline.
An influential leader, Thomas Hooker’s sermon before the General Court of Connecticut put forth such unprecedented democratic principles, that it inspired the writing of the Fundamental Constitutions of Connecticut, 1639. This constitution inspired ideas of individual rights, such as: “due process of law,” “trial by a jury of peers,” “no taxation without representation” and prohibitions against “cruel and unusual punishment.”183 It later became a model for all other constitutions in the colonies, including the United States Constitution.
Thomas Hooker explained:
Mutual covenanting and confederating of the saints in the fellowship of the faith according to the order of the Gospel, is that which gives constitution and being to a visible church. … Mutual subjection is the sinews of society, by which it is sustained and supported.184
In 1638, Rev. Thomas Hooker accentuated:
The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people, by God’s allowance. … (T)he privilege of election, which belongs to the people, therefore must not be exercised according to their humours, but according to the blessed will and law of God.185