The ability to "govern" was one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit of God. Churches established their own rules for self-governance, electing leaders and appointing administrators with limited authority that were accountable to both God and the people of that church.
Self governence was practiced by the first churches found in the New Testament for they served the Son of God whose word said "the government shall be upon his shoulders". It may very well be that these charters were an expression of what was the "binding and loosing" authority that Jesus gave to Peter and the Apostles, Paul and the NT church.
Anyway, a constitutional or chartered self-government by those affected by that government came from self-governing churches of the Waldensians, Albigenses, some Greek churches, and the Reformation churches.
Lessons learned in these churches about how best to govern and administer were subsequently incorporated in the charters of all of the American colonies and then their later state constitutions, most of which required that officeholders pledge allegiance to the Christian religion and the Bible as the Word of God.
These state governments, descended from lessons of church governance in England and parts of Europe, were supposed to be the foundation of the new federal government of America -- and were -- but as people forgot their Bibles and what it t means, they have subsequently forgotten their Constitution and what it means.
The backbone of the Constitution is the Scriptures and the people who believe therein. As people have turned from the Scriptures, they have lost their backbone.