On this day in 1620 – Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact which was written by the male Separatist Puritans on the ship from England, originally bound for Virginia.
It was their aim to form a colony based on religious principles rather than on the concept of religious freedom.
The freedom they sought was initially to build a community where church and state were intertwined and where there was no line of demarcation between civil authority and ecclesiastic authority.
Thus, rather than the King calling the shots over the church, the local civil government could enforce its principles such as church attendance, government licensing of preachers, church "taxes," and Sunday laws.
The downside was that this sucks the life out of the church, the individual and a spiritual being before God, and of society. The upside is that they meant well and their initial piety was very real – and born out of a persecution … that they would later inflict on others who dissented.
Also, it set the stage for the sort of decline that brought forth thinkers like Roger Williams and the Rhode Island experiment and later, the Great Awakening, which. along with the secular ideas of the Enlightenment gave birth to the revolutionary fervor to come and the concepts of soul freedom and freedom of religion.
The document as we have it is worth reading and contains some great ideas.
Modern version:
"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, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour 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 Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, 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 eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620."
Artwork: Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris 1899
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