Opus 2012-234, Cornerstone Considerations: The Mayflower Compact, The Audacity

Then they had the nerve to write an agreement among themselves.  Sure, they gave lip service to the king, and some of them probably meant it.  But their agreement was based on the promise to “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic,....”  We do this all the time.  They were stepping out on a limb and cutting it off.

It gets worse.  They promised

“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.”

Notice that they were promising to submit and obey to the agreement, not to the king and his parliament.  They were going to “enact” the laws they felt were “most meet.”  They were not going to go to the king with hat in hand saying, “Massa, please.”  Just who did they think they were?

They were the beginning of what we call Americans.  They were binding themselves to the rule of law, agreed upon by the governed, not imposed by the crown.

It was a beginning.

homo unius libri