"  Elections  cannot  be  safe  there  long,"  said  the  lawyer  Lech-
ford.  The  same  prediction  has  been  made  these  two  hun-
dred and  fifty  years.  The  public  mind,  ever  in  perpetual
agitation,  is  still  easily  shaken,  even  by  slight  and  transient
impulses ;  but,  after  all  vibrations,  it  follows  the  laws  of  the
moral  world,  and  safely  recovers  its  balance.
To  limit  the  discretion  of  the  executive,  of  which  the  peo-
ple were  persistently  jealous,  they  next  demanded  a  written
constitution ;  and,  in  May,  1635,  a  commission  was  appointed
"  to  frame  a  body  of  grounds  of  laws  in  resemblance  to  a
magna  charta,"  to  serve  as  a  bill  of  rights,  on  which  the  min-
isters, as  well  as  the  general  court,  were  to  pass  judgment.  A
year  having  passed  without  a  report,  the  making  of  a  draft  of
laws  was  intrusted  to  a  larger  committee,  of  which  Cotton  was
a  member.  His  colleagues  remained  inactive,  but  Cotton  com-
piled in  an  exact  method  "  all  the  judicial  laws  from  God  by
Moses,  80  far  as  they  were  of  moral,  that  is,  of  perpetual  and
universal,  equity;"  and  he  urged  the  establishment  of  a  "the-
ocraty,  God's  government  over  God's  people."     But  his  code


2i8  ENGLISH  PEOPLE  IN  AMERICA,    pabt  i.  ;  oh.  xit.
was  never  adopted.  In  March,  1638,  the  several  towns  were
ordered  before  the  coming  June  to  deliver  in  writing  to  the
governor  the  heads  of  the  laws  which  they  held  to  be  neces-
sary and  fundamental ;  and,  from  these  materials  and  their
own  wisdom,  a  numerous  body,  of  whom  Nathaniel  Ward  was
one,  were  instructed  to  perfect  the  work.
