The Mayflower Compact

This Thanksgiving post is a little bit different from recent ones where I posted presidential proclamations honoring our marvelous holiday.  And of course the presidents who wrote the proclamations.

This post is based on historical documentation presented in Professor Peter W. Wood's book, 1620 - A Critical Response To The 1619 Project, regarding "the proper starting point for the American story in 1620, with the signing of the Mayflower Compact aboard ship before the Pilgrims set foot in the Massachusetts wilderness."

The signing of the Mayflower Compact, on November 11, 1620, demonstrates how free people of all walks of life, real pioneers aboard ship, came together to create a society based on freedom & equality after they disembarked.

There were 102 passengers on the Mayflower - 50 men, 19 women, & 33 young adults & children.  There were 37 Separatists, later called Pilgrims, who were seeking freedom from the Church of England.  The Pilgrims called the nonreligious passengers "Strangers" - but they all came together out of the desire for self preservation in a new world looking to form "a civil body politic."

Of the 41 who signed the Mayflower Compact several were in the early 20s & some were underage.  But the signed document was "the first time in European settlement of the New World (that the) ideal of self-government based on justice" was attempted.  It "ignored class, wealth, & other marks of status" that were prevalent @ the time & as such showed the libertarianism of people who wanted to come to America.

Now the Mayflower Compact & the Declaration of Independence differ in many ways.  Jefferson's Declaration is "an explanation, a statement of principles, a list of complaints, & a bold assertion of a new authority of a new sovereignty," while the Mayflower Compact "is a bare statement of purpose" simply written for the people who signed it with a pledge to join together.

What both documents have in common is that they recognize that governments derive their just powers "from the consent of the governed."  

Professor Wood explains that the signing of the Mayflower Compact was "the moment when an idea of true self-government began to take root."

The full text of the Mayflower Compact is as follows:

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.:

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another; covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.