The correct answer is D. Each of them helped build the foundation for democracy and individual rights in America. Let's review one by one of these documents. 1. The Massachusetts General Court, established in December 1641, under the administration of Richard Bellingham, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties. It was the first code of about 98 articles that were established as the basis for justice in 17th century colonial New England. It comprised civil and criminal laws and protect individual rights that would later be included in the Bill of Rights, introduced in 1789 by James Madison. 2. The Mayflower Compact, signed in 1620 by 41 male passengers of the ship "Mayflower", was an attempt to establish a temporary, legally-binding form of self-government until the Virginia Company of London could get authorization from the Council of New England. These pilgrims had no intention of declaring their independence from England but the Compact expressed the idea of self-government for the first time in the New World. 3. The Fundamental Orders adopted by Connecticut Colony in 1639, contained some principles, individual rights, powers, and limits of the government, that were later applied in creating the United States government. 4. Finally, after two years of the return of Willliam Penn to Pennsylvania, in 1701, the Frame of Government or the Charter of Privileges strengthened the role of the assembly as the sole legislative authority and some constitutional privileges for the first time in the colony of Pennsylvania: prepare legislative bills, elect its own officers annually and by county, and impeach those elected officers. The Charter of Privileges was an important contribution of Quakerism to the development of democracy and constitutionalism in America.
