Last Wednesday, November 11, was the 400th anniversary of something truly unique and amazing in all of history. It was a remarkable occasion that has greatly affected all Americans, even to the present hour.
Perhaps you missed all the fanfare in the media.
The occasion that occurred 400 years ago this week set into motion an extraordinary approach to human governance based upon the idea that a group of people could actually be self-governed under God through the rule of law with the consent of the governed.
Wednesday marked the 400th anniversary of the signing of the Mayflower Compact.
The Mayflower Compact was created by the Pilgrim Fathers, signed
aboard the ship that carried 102 Pilgrims (in families with children, including
three pregnant women), to the New World in 1620. Within 3 months, half of this
group was dead.
The Mayflower Compact established a remarkable form of human government. It got the ball rolling toward the establishment of a new nation’s way of governance, whereby the players in governmental roles would be held in check by the rule of law with the consent of the governed, and no human King on hand to direct and control things.
But the Pilgrims clearly had a King in mind.
Self-governance under God through the rule of law with the consent of the governed was a radical idea in 1620, and it is still a radical idea today.
It is clearly an idea we need to recover.