The Constitution of the United States | Page 7

Englishmen, but also the peculiar privileges of
pioneers in an unconquered wilderness?
This spirit of constitutionalism in America, which culminated in the
Constitution of the United States, had its institutional origin in the

spacious days of Queen Elizabeth. That wonderful age, which gave to
the world not only Shakespeare, Spenser and Jonson, but also Drake,
Frobisher and Raleigh, was the Anglo-Saxon reaction to the
Renaissance. The spirit of man had a new birth and was breaking away
from the too rigid bonds of ancient custom and authority.
Among the notable, but little known, leaders of that time was Sir Edwin
Sandys, the leading spirit of the London (or Virginia) company. He was
a Liberal when to be such was an "extra hazardous risk." He was the
son of a Liberal, for his father, a great prelate, had been sent to the
Tower for preaching in defence of Lady Jane Grey. The son, Sir Edwin,
was the foe of monopolies, and in the same Parliament that impeached
the great genius of this Inn, Francis Bacon, Sandys advocated the then
novel proposition that accused prisoners should have the right to be
represented by counsel, to which the strange objection was made that it
would subvert the administration of justice. As early as 1613, he had
boldly declared in Parliament that even the King's authority rested upon
the clear understanding that there were reciprocal conditions which
neither ruler nor subject could violate with impunity. He might not too
fancifully be called the "Father of American Constitutionalism," for he
caused a constitution--possibly the first time that that word was ever
applied to a comprehensive scheme of government--to be drafted for
the little colony of Virginia in 1609 and amplified in 1612. Speaking in
this venerable Hall, whose very walls eloquently remind us of the
mighty genius of Francis Bacon, it is interesting to recall that these two
charters of government, which were the beginning of Constitutionalism
in America and therefore the germ of the Constitution of the United
States, were put in legal form for royal approval by Lord Bacon himself.
Thus the immortal Treasurer of this Inn is directly linked with the
development of Constitutional freedom in America.
Bacon became a member of the council for the Virginia Company in
1609. His deep interest in it is attested in the dedication to him by
William Strachey in 1618 of the latter's _Historie of Travaile into
Virginia Brittania_.
In his speech in the House of Commons on January 30, 1621, Bacon

saw a vision of the future and predicted the growth of America, when
he said:
"This kingdom now first in His Majesty's Times hath gotten a lot or
portion in the New World by the plantation of Virginia and the Summer
Islands. And certainly it is with the kingdoms on earth as it is in the
kingdom of heaven, sometimes a grain of mustard seed proves a great
tree."
Truly the mustard seed of Virginia did become a great tree in the
American Commonwealth.
One of Bacon's nephews, also of the Inns of Court, Nathaniel Bacon,
became the first Liberal leader in the Colonies, and led the first revolt
against colonial misrule. He was probably of Gray's Inn, for it is
difficult to imagine a Bacon studying in any Inn than the one to which
the great Bacon had given so much loving care.
Due to these charters, on July 30, 1619, the little remnant of colonists
whom disease and famine had left untouched were summoned to meet
in the church at Jamestown to form the first parliamentary assembly in
America, the first-born of the fruitful Mother of Parliaments. It was due
to Sandys not only that the first permanent English settlement in the
Western World was planted at Jamestown in 1607, but that a later
group of "adventurers"--for such they called themselves--destined to be
more famous, were driven by chance of wind and wave to land on the
coast of Massachusetts. Thus was established, not only the beginning of
England's colonial Empire--still one of the most beneficent forces in the
world--but also the principle of local self-government, which, in the
Western World, was destined to develop the American Commonwealth.
The compact, signed in the cabin of the Mayflower, while not in
strictness a constitution, like the Virginia Charter, was yet destined to
be a landmark of history.
Sandys suffered for his convictions, for the party of reaction convinced
King James that Virginia was a nest of sedition, and the arbitrary ruler,
in the reorganization of the London company, gave a pointed
admonition by saying: "Choose the devil, if you will, but not Sir Edwin

Sandys." In 1621 he was committed to the Tower and only released
after the House of Commons had made a vigorous protest against his
incarceration. His successor as treasurer of the