The Principles of Civil Union and Happiness Considered and Recommended

A Congregational pastor in Connecticut, Elizur Goodrich (1734-1797) was also a biblical scholar with mathematical and scientific interests, so respected by colleagues that he was frequently called both to sit as a representative on religious bodies and to preach on public occasions. Not only had working for the revolutionary cause been religiously justified, but in 1787, he argued, the new Federal Constitution was to be celebrated as the framework of a new Jerusalem embodying sanctified principles.