The Founding of American Local Communities: A Study of Covenantal and Other Forms of Association

Abstract

The political application of the covenant idea is most clearly apparent in the process of founding and refounding political associations. As a political act, covenanting suggests a voluntary agreement among parties, who are equal before and enjoined by some moral force, to enter into a lasting political association that is both morally and legally binding on its members. In this sense, a political covenant serves the function of setting out and subscribing to the of association through some explicit agreement, which normally represents the first stage in the political founding or refounding process. As a form of political association, covenantal polities and relationships suggest a species of commonwealth association, in which commonwealth principles of sharing and equality are defined in moral as well as legal terms. In this sense, it is possible to distinguish covenantal forms of political association from (1) other morally-bound political associations, which are founded and sustained by grant and decree; and (2) other commonwealth associations, which are founded by compact and sustained more by legal than by moral ties.' Various political manifestations of the covenantal idea can be found throughout American history. The most incontrovertible example is the continuous and widespread use of church covenants, in the generic sense of that term, to establish and maintain congregational and denominational bodies. Perhaps the most dramatic political manifestation of the covenantal idea, in an unadulterated form, was the seventeenth