"The Unwritten Rules Aren't Cutting It Anymore"

"For the company's founders and the residents of New England, the text of the corporate charter served a dual purpose: as a consensual source of sovereign authority that safeguarded them from English rule and as a constitution of their civil government. The charter gave the corporation 'full and Absolute power and Authoritie to correct, punishe, pardon, governe, and rule' all New England residents, granted the authority to pass 'Lawes and Ordinances,' and bestowed upon British residents in the colonies 'all liberties and immunities of free and naturall Subjects … as if they and everie of them were borne within the Realme of England.' As the colonists faced greater threats of dissolution from the crown, the 'Charter Constitution' gained increasing importance in the social and political culture of New England. And although the Massachusetts Bay Company charter was unique in its independence from the crown, by the 1760s, almost all the colonies were governed by 'charter governments.' Bowie shows that these charters provided the templates for America's first written state constitutions, and the modern U.S. Constitution as it exists today."

Danny Li at Slate argues that Britain needs a written constitution.