What was the true first Constitution of the United States?

Quick answer: which document is the “first constitution”?

The short, careful answer is twofold: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is often described as the earliest written constitution in the English North American colonies, and the Articles of Confederation functioned as the first national constitution of the United States.

Readers who mean a colony or state-level written charter will usually point to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. Readers who mean a compact that governed the independent states together will point to the Articles of Confederation, which operated as the national governing compact until the U.S. Constitution took effect.

Both claims are recorded in major archival and reference collections; for the Orders see institutional descriptions of Connecticut holdings ConnecticutHistory and for the Articles see the National Archives overview.

These two senses of “first” reflect different legal scopes and different historical questions rather than a single competing claim to precedence.

What do historians and archivists mean by a “constitution”?

When scholars ask whether a document is a constitution they typically look for a written establishment of governmental institutions, a clear allocation of authority among offices or bodies, and public promulgation that binds a defined political community.

That criteria set explains why some colonial compacts or charters are called constitutions in historical descriptions while other documents are treated as charters, commissions, or ordinances; the terminology depends on institutional form and the document’s intended legal scope, as discussed by constitutional scholars and museums.

Definitional discussion is not merely semantic. The way historians apply the term affects whether a document is treated as an early constitution in a colonial or a national sense.

Colonial written charters and early state constitutions: background

Colonial governments in English North America took several legal forms, including royal charters, proprietary grants, and local compacts drafted by settlers. These documents established local institutions for law, courts, and public administration, and some evolved into state constitutions after independence.

After the Revolution, many states adopted written constitutions that created sovereign state governments. Examples include the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 and the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, which served state-level governance roles distinct from any national compact.

Because colonies and states addressed governance at different territorial levels, comparing them requires attention to who the document bound and what powers it allocated.

Deep dive: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were adopted on January 14, 1639, and they set out a structure for local government, including provisions for regular elections and the organization of magistrates and magistracies, which is why many state archives and historians describe the Orders as an early written constitution of the colony. See our overview.

The document is reproduced and described in Connecticut archival collections and in academic transcriptions for researchers who want the original phrasing and context, which help explain why the Orders are often called the earliest written colonial constitution in English North America.

Readers looking to review the Orders themselves can consult the institutional transcription and editorial notes to see how seventeenth-century phrasing was recorded and later interpreted.

The Articles of Confederation: the first national constitution

The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777, and the Articles became effective once states completed ratification, a process that concluded on March 1, 1781; in practice the Articles then served as the national governing compact until the U.S. Constitution replaced them in 1789.

The Articles defined the relationship among the states, the powers delegated to a central Congress, and the enduring idea of a perpetual union among the states, but historians note that the Articles created a relatively weak central government compared with the later Constitution.

For readers wanting to consult the original manuscript or a careful institutional overview, archival reproductions and commentary in national collections provide authoritative context on drafting, approval, and ratification.

Comparing the Fundamental Orders and the Articles: scope and authority

At a basic level the difference is territorial and legal: the Fundamental Orders established governance for a single colony, while the Articles of Confederation were a compact among multiple states designed to coordinate common concerns at the national level.

The Orders invested local institutions with authority to manage internal affairs, whereas the Articles distributed specific powers to a national Congress and left many powers to the states, which is why the two documents meet different constitutional criteria and sit in different scholarly categories.

Where the originals and authoritative copies are kept

The National Archives holds the original manuscript of the Articles of Confederation and provides detailed editorial context for researchers who want to read the text within its documentary history.

How historians decide: methods and open questions

Scholars use several methods to assess whether a document merits the label constitution, including textual analysis of provisions that create or constrain institutions, provenance research that checks dates and manuscript origins, and consideration of how contemporaries treated the document.

Open questions that prompt deeper archival work include the survival and chain of custody of early manuscripts, editorial decisions behind modern transcriptions, and the evolving standards scholars use to judge what counts as constitutional language.

Common mistakes and misconceptions to avoid

A common error is to call the Fundamental Orders the first constitution of the United States without qualifying whether one means a colony-level or a national document; that conflation obscures the important legal distinctions between local charters and national compacts. See our constitutional rights guide for related state-federal issues.

Another mistake is to read modern constitutional concepts, such as judicial review or federalism as understood today, back into seventeenth-century documents; those ideas developed over time and may not map directly onto earlier texts.

Practical examples and short scenarios for classroom use

Classroom prompt: ask students to compare a short excerpt from the Fundamental Orders with a comparable article of the Articles of Confederation, and assign them to list what each text says about who chooses leaders, how laws are made, and how disputes are handled.

Suggested primary excerpts for close reading include a short ordering provision from the Orders and the Articles clause that allocates powers to Congress; presenting both texts side by side helps students see differences in audience, scope, and intended permanence.

Summary and further reading

In summary, the answer depends on definition: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut are often cited as the earliest written colonial constitution in English North America, while the Articles of Confederation served as the first national constitution of the United States until the 1789 Constitution took effect.

Readers who want next steps should consult institutional transcriptions and archival descriptions from Connecticut holdings and the National Archives, and then follow scholarly overviews that discuss criteria for calling a document a constitution. You can also read the Constitution text.

Appendix: primary source links and archival notes

Key primary resources include the Connecticut State Library copy and transcription of the Fundamental Orders, transcriptions hosted by university projects, and the National Archives reproduction of the Articles manuscript; each source provides different editorial notes that matter for detailed study.

Note on transcription reliability: editorial choices about spelling, punctuation, and dating can vary across editions, so verify claims by consulting the archival reproduction and its notes rather than relying solely on secondary summaries.