Trained in Emmanuel
College of the old Cambridge, he arrived in the new Cambridge in
1633. He grew restless under its theocratic government, being, it
was said, "a person who when he was doing his Master's work,
would put a king into his pocket." So he led the famous migration
of 1636 from Massachusetts to Hartford, and there helped to
create a federation of independent towns which made their own
constitution without mentioning any king, and became one of the
corner-stones of American democracy. In May, 1638, Hooker
declared in a sermon before the General Court "that the choice of
public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own
allowance," and "that they who have the power to appoint officers
and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds
and limitations of the power and place into which they call
them." The reason of this is: "Because the foundation of
authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people."
This high discourse antedates the famous pamphlets on liberty by
Milton. It is a half-century earlier than Locke's "Treatise on
Government," a century and a quarter earlier than Rousseau's
"Contrat Social," and it precedes by one hundred and thirty-eight
years the American Declaration of Independence.
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