Mayflower Compact

We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord, by virtue of which we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good and of the whole, wrote John Robinson, a leader among the pilgrims who founded their tiny colony of Plymouth in 1620.

The Mayflower Compact, so famous in American history, was but a written and signed agreement incorporating the spirit of obedience to the common good, which served as a guide to self-government until Plymouth was annexed to Massachusetts in 1691.

Three other colonies, all of which retained their identity until the eve of the American Revolution, likewise sprang directly from the congregations of the faithful.

rhode island connecticut and new hampshire mainly offshoots from massachusetts they were founded by small bodies of men and women united in solemn covenants with the lord who planted their settlements in the wilderness Not until many a year after Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson conducted their followers to the Narragansett country was Rhode Island granted a charter of incorporation, 1663, by the Crown.

If they would've landed in V- Virginia, they would've been under c- the Crown, but they were blown off course, ended up in Plymouth where, where there was no law.

And so they wrote the Mayflower Compact.

"To the glory of God and the furtherance of the Christian religion, we hereby..." And they then began this place that's just been the hope for the, for the entire world.

And, uh, went ...

When someone says we, we never were a Christian nation, so depending on when you outline how America began, because whether you want to go to, uh, Jamestown 1607, Plymouth 1620, if you look at the founding charters, there is explicit Christian language in the founding charters.

Uh, the easy one to point to that I think, uh, most people could find readily is the Mayflower Compact- Mm-hmm ...

the first governing document written in America, because Jamestown's charter was written in England.

Uh, they brought it to America.

Again, e- e- explicit Christian ideals and even the Jamestown charter, why they're coming to America.

But the Mayflower Compact is the easy one, because in, in the opening section it says, "For the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith." Christian faith.

"We whose names are underwritten do mutually pledge to each other in this solemn assembly," and they go on to explain their government contract, but their op- their opening premise is, like the reason we made this journey, glory of God- Advancement of the Christian faith.

Th- and this is, by the way, in like virtually every one of the early founding col- colonial charters you will find this.

Wow, we're gonna get into a conversation now.

Now, if you're talking original intent, maybe the Mayflower Compact or in the 1600s, the, what was it called? It's the very first constitution that the Articles of...

New Haven, Connecticut, and the name of it actually escapes me right now, the title, but it says this, and this is not verbatim, this is a paraphrased quote.

It literally is referred to as the first constitution in the United States.

We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord, by virtue of which we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good and of the whole, wrote John Robinson, a leader among the pilgrims who founded their tiny colony of Plymouth in 1620.

The Mayflower Compact, so famous in American history, was but a written and signed agreement, incorporating the spirit of obedience to the common good, which served as a guide to self-government until Plymouth was annexed to Massachusetts in 1691.

Three other colonies, all of which retained their identity until the eve of the American Revolution, likewise sprang directly from the congregations of the faithful.

rhode island connecticut and new hampshire mainly offshoots from massachusetts they were founded by small bodies of men and women united in solemn covenants with the lord who planted their settlements in the wilderness Not until many a year after Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson conducted their followers to the Narragansett country was Rhode Island granted a charter of incorporation, 1663, by the Crown.

And I think in that sense, he was right about the Plymouth colony as a whole.

Those who look solely at the Mayflower Compact are going too far.

But those who look... that Plymouth colony, particularly in the first two decades, I think he was right about that, given the time that Plymouth was settled and given what was happening in England at the time that was still ruled by someone who believed he was part of the Godhead and still ruled by the Cavaliers.

So, yeah, I would agree with him about that.

They had to deal with the strangers.

And so before they went ashore, they drew up the Mayflower Compact, which was kind of a compromise thing saying, hey, let's establish a civil society based on mutual consent, based on popular consent.

Now, some people today say, oh, that was the forerunner of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution.

They make these grand generalizations.

The biggest divide, of course, being slavery.

those different interests were possible because starting with the Pilgrim's Mayflower Compact, each colony always enjoyed some degree of self-government.

Yeah.

but not enough.