Robert Urbanek
Platinum Member
The Puritans of colonial America have a reputation for being finger-wagging prudes, conducting witch hunts and being the template for The Handmaid's Tale. Yet, “The word ‘puritan’ smothers what might otherwise be a natural interest in colonial New England as the most progressive society in the world at the time,” argues Marilynne Robinson in her article “One Manner of Law” in the August 2022 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, drafted in 1641, “substantially anticipated the Bill of Rights.” Provisions of the Body of Liberties included the phrase “Every person within this Jurisdiction whether inhabitant or foreigner shall enjoy the same justice and law”.
A notable Puritan of the time, chaplain Hugh Peters, argued that the state should “have a stock readie” to protect the poor from rising prices so that the “laborer . . . may live comfortably,” Care must be taken, “that poor men especially, may not bee . . . clapt up in prison . . . because hee is not able to put in Bail.” Peters also wanted to exclude poor artisans from taxation, and he proposed that there be peacemakers appointed to settle disputes before anyone could be arrested or imprisoned.
Robinson said the chaplain’s’ “political views were so advanced as to embarrass us in the inconceivably wealthy and comparatively stable twenty-first century.”
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, drafted in 1641, “substantially anticipated the Bill of Rights.” Provisions of the Body of Liberties included the phrase “Every person within this Jurisdiction whether inhabitant or foreigner shall enjoy the same justice and law”.
A notable Puritan of the time, chaplain Hugh Peters, argued that the state should “have a stock readie” to protect the poor from rising prices so that the “laborer . . . may live comfortably,” Care must be taken, “that poor men especially, may not bee . . . clapt up in prison . . . because hee is not able to put in Bail.” Peters also wanted to exclude poor artisans from taxation, and he proposed that there be peacemakers appointed to settle disputes before anyone could be arrested or imprisoned.
Robinson said the chaplain’s’ “political views were so advanced as to embarrass us in the inconceivably wealthy and comparatively stable twenty-first century.”
