for a period of forty
years. Not till the Indians became trained in the use of fire-arms
were they again matched against the whites on anything like equal
terms. Among the Indian tribes, the result of the Pequot War was to
elevate Uncas and his Mohegans into a position of rivals of
Miantonomoh, and his Narragansetts, with the result of the overthrow
and death of Miantonomoh. In the subsequent years war broke out
several times, but by the intervention of the federal commissioners,
who bolstered up Uncas, hostilities did not proceed.

On the conclusion of the Pequot War the freemen of the three towns
upon the Connecticut convened at Hartford, January 14, 1639, and
adopted "the Fundamental Orders," a constitution which has been justly
pronounced the first written constitution framed by a community,
through its own representatives, as a basis for government. This
constitution contained no recognition whatever of any superior
authority in England, and provided[15] that the freemen were to hold
two general meetings a year, at one of which they were to elect the
governor and assistants, who, with four deputies from each town, were
to constitute a general court "to make laws or repeal them, to grant
levies, to admit freemen, to dispose of lands undisposed of to several
towns or persons, call the court or magistrate or any other person
whatsoever into question for any misdemeanor, and to deal in any other
matter that concerned the good of the commonwealth, except election of
magistrates," which was "to be done by the whole body of freemen."

Till 1645 the deputies voted with the magistrates, but in that year
the general court was divided into two branches as in Massachusetts.
In one particular the constitution was more liberal than the unwritten
constitution of Massachusetts: church-membership was not required as a
condition of the suffrage, and yet in the administration of the
government the theocracy was all-powerful. The settlers of Connecticut
were Puritans of the strictest sect, and in the preamble of their
constitution they avowed their purpose "to maintain and preserve the
liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus, which we now
profess, as also the discipline of the churches, which, according to
the truth of the said gospel, is now practised among us." In 1656 the
law of Connecticut required the applicant for the franchise to be of
"a peaceable and honest conversation," and this was very apt to mean a
church-me