PENNSYLVANIA COLONIAL CHARTERS (April 25, 1682; October 28, 1701)

william penn, the proprietor of Pennsylvania, was a Quaker, a humanitarian, a champion of religious liberty, and a stalwart advocate of civil liberties. His two charters for his colony gave it representative institutions of government and bills of rights far in advance of the times. The 1682 Frame of Government called itself a "charter of liberties" that had the character of fundamental law. Any act of government that "infringed" on the designated liberties, said the Frame, "shall be held of no force or effect." Inhabitants possessing one hundred acres of land "at one penny an acre" were declared "freemen" capable of electing or being elected representatives, including members of the upper house—an innovation. The Frame separated church and state and guaranteed religious liberty by its provision that all persons professing God should be free to worship as they pleased and not be compelled to frequent or maintain any worship or ministry. fair trial, which Penn and the Quakers had been denied in England, was here protected. At a time when defendants could not testify on their own behalf, the Frame allowed all persons to plead their own cases. Trial by a twelve-member jury of the vicinage, whose judgment was to be "final" (see bushell ' scase, 1670) and indictment by grand jury in capital cases were guaranteed. The right to bail was recognized and excessive fines were banned.

The 1701 Charter of Privileges, which replaced the Frame and remained the basis of government in Pennsylvania until 1776, also had the character of a constitution to which ordinary legislation must conform or be of no effect. Its provisions for the "Enjoyment of Civil Liberties" and for religious liberty, and its ban against an establishment of religion extended to all inhabitants "for ever." Among their innovations was a guarantee that "all criminals shall have the same Privileges of Witnesses and Council [sic] as their Prosecutors," the source of the comparable clauses in the sixth amendment. England did not allow counsel to all defendants until 1836. Pennsylvania's colonial charters had a marked influence on the development of the concept of a bill of rights in America.

Leonard W. Levy
(1986)

Bibliography

Perry, Richard L., ed. 1959 Sources of Our Liberties. Pages 204–221, 251–260. New York: American Bar Foundation.