[Footnote 4: Gardiner, _Constitutional Documents of the Puritan
Revolution_, p. lx.]
[Footnote 5: See Hosmer's _Young Sir Henry Vane_, pp.
432-444,--one of the best books ever written for the reader who wishes
to understand the state of mind among the English people in the crisis
when they laid the foundations of the United States.]
[Sidenote: The Mayflower compact(1620).]
In America the first attempts at written constitutions were in the
fullest sense made by the people, and not through representatives but
directly. In the Mayflower's cabin, before the Pilgrims had landed on
Plymouth rock, they subscribed their names to a compact in which they
agreed to constitute themselves into a "body politic," and to enact such
laws as might be deemed best for the colony they were about to
establish; and they promised "all due submission and obedience" to such
laws. Such a compact is of course too vague to be called a constitution.
Properly speaking, a written constitution is a document which defines
the character and powers of the government to which its framers are
willing to entrust themselves. Almost any kind of civil government might
have been framed under the Mayflower compact, but the document is none
the less interesting as an indication of the temper of the men who
subscribed their names to it.
Pages:
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317