The formal written political constitution is peculiarly an American institution, and is correspondingly dear to the American heart. It is the fundamental law of the land, the ultimate authority, which the legislative power must respect, and its provisions are set forth in explicit language. In its supreme character it was the offspring of the old charter, only, as Fiske says, "instead of a document expressed in terms of a royal grant it was a document expressed in terms of a popular edict." The "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," of 1639, is cited as the first written constitution known to history. Similar instruments were adopted in America before the formation of the Federal Union, and the full flower of the process was the work of the Federal Convention when, in 1787, it framed the Constitution of the United States, which instrument William E. Gladstone has designated as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."