William Penn's term for an ideal government was?

• A. Holy Experiment
• B. Commonwealth Ideal
• C. Charter Theory
• D. Frame of Government

Answer: (A)

Holy Experiment describes William Penn's plan for governing Pennsylvania. It captures his belief that a new colony could model religious tolerance, civil liberty, and peaceful, fair treatment of Indigenous peoples—a moral test of how society should be organized. Penn saw Pennsylvania not just as a place to settle, but as a test bed for Quaker ideals about liberty and virtue put into practice through representative government and tolerant laws.

The other terms refer to different things. Frame of Government is the actual governing framework Penn helped establish, a concrete constitution for how the colony would run, rather than the aspirational label of the project. Charter Theory isn’t the standard way historians describe Penn’s vision, and Commonwealth Ideal doesn’t carry the specific connotation Penn used about a moral, experimental community.