But they went a degree further than the precedents before them. They
believed the safest depository of power to be with the people
themselves, under constitutions ordained by those intending to live
under them and administered by persons of their own choice. "Where
the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws," was believed
to be the true ideal and realization of civil liberty--the way "to
support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people
from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just
obedience, and the magistrates honorable for their just
administration."
And with these ideas, "with reverence to God and good conscience to
men," the first General Assembly in 1682 enacted a common code of
sixty-one laws, in which the foundation-stones of the civil and
criminal jurisprudence of this broad commonwealth were laid, and a
style of government ordained so reasonable, moderate, just, and equal
in its provisions that no one yet has found just cause to deny the
wisdom and beneficence of its structure, whilst Montesquieu pronounces
it "an instance unparalleled in the world's history of the foundation
of a great state laid in peace, justice, and equality."