‘No Common weale but by Common Consent’: Governance in Puritan New England

Imagine a world in which political leaders retire gracefully after electoral defeat, in which voting rights are expanded, not restricted, where there’s free and vigorous debate. Welcome to 17th century New England, where the Puritan colonists developed, for the majority of free white men but not women, Natives or Black people, the most radical society in the English world. As Americans prepare to go to the polls, what legacy did the Puritans leave us?

Speaker Francis J. Bremer is professor emeritus of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He has served as editor of the Winthrop Papers for the Massachusetts Historical Society and is a member of the board of the Congregational Library and Archives. He has published 17 books exploring puritanism in the Atlantic world, including the prize-winning John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father (2003) and Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds (2012), the popular Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction (2009), and more recently Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism (2015) and One Small Candle: The story of the Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England (2020).

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Part of the Tyranny vs Liberty: 17th C. New England Politics collection.

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