The Mayflower

On this day in 1620 the Mayflower departed Plymouth with 102 passengers on board and landed in the new world in December. The Mayflower Compact was executed on November 11. They recognized that previous settlements had failed because they did not have a government in place. The Compact begins:

"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 advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virgina, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of 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 hereunder 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. Anno Domini 1620." Much of what was in this document was the foundation of the Constitution. It wasn't dreamy utopian idealism, but a structure for survival, and for relationships between God and Man, and man and man.