Current Lessons
Principles of Good Government No. Ten
A Reason to Be Thankful -The 400 Year Anniversary of the Mayflower Compact
As we prepare for Thanksgiving we have reason to be thankful that God directed the Pilgrims and gave them strength to fulfill His purposes – “And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters” (1 Nephi 13:13). Like many Americans our family has ancestors among the Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock on board the Mayflower, and who consented to the Mayflower Compact.
One of our ancestors, Mary Chilton, was orphaned at the age of 13 when both her parents died soon after arriving at Plymouth. Mary is traditionally given the honor of being the first woman to step ashore at Plymouth Rock. Mary had 10 children, nine of whom survived and became contributing citizens.
One of the first things the Pilgrims did when they arrived at Plymouth was to sign the Mayflower Compact 400 years ago on November 11, 1620. The importance of the Mayflower Compact is not understood by most Americans. It is especially important to teach these truths in our families because they will not be taught in schools.
In this regard I had a memorable personal experience in 1987 I accompanied William Bennett, then Secretary of Education and a well-known author, to a meeting with President Gordon B. Hinckley. Secretary Bennett described to President Hinckley a history book, widely used in elementary schools, which described pilgrims “as people who take long trips.” President Hinckley responded that we believe that the Lord directed the founding of America, and he hoped this was being taught in our families.
The importance of the Mayflower Compact – For the 102 men, women, and children who traveled from Europe on the Mayflower the world they encountered was not what they expected. William Bradford, who later became governor of the colony, described “a hideous and desolate wilderness.” The first bitter winter brought death — from disease, malnutrition, and exposure — to more than half of the company. Without help from the native population probably none of the colonists would have survived.
There were also threats from within: Only 41 of the company were Protestant separatists or “saints,” those fleeing religious persecution and seeking freedom of worship outside the Church of England. The remainder, called “strangers,” were a mix typical of the middle and lower classes of 17th-century English society. Many came for purely commercial reasons; others may have been trying to escape their past.
The long, miserable journey across the Atlantic did not create a unified body of pious believers. Bradford saw trouble brewing when “several strangers made discontented and mutinous speeches.” Because they had landed hundreds of miles north of their destination in Virginia — outside of the territory under charter by King James I — the colonists did not have a clear understanding of what laws would guide them. They faced the real possibility that factionalism would destroy their community.
Yet their differences impelled them to reach for a radical solution to hold the company together. The Mayflower passengers decided that their freedom and security would not depend upon an all-powerful government. It would depend upon their ability to govern themselves, to submit to laws that they themselves had written. The Mayflower Compact broke with most of the world’s history where unelected rulers issued decrees by divine right or absolute tyranny.
The Mayflower Pilgrims were committed to “the advancement of the Christian faith” and designed and signed their compact “in the presence of God.” But no one had a theocracy in mind; rather, they sought to form “a civil body politic.” Importantly, their new political community would be framed by “just and equal laws” — laws that would apply without discrimination to all their members. Here, at the very beginning of the American story, one can discern the concepts of equal justice and government by consent of the governed.
Although by tradition only men signed the Compact, but both men and women participated in the civic affairs of the colony. They created a largely self-sustaining economy. Their faith gave them a raw determination to succeed, and the political consensus held: Plymouth became the first permanent European settlement in New England. More importantly, the Pilgrims introduced into the West an unprecedented experiment in consensual government, involving not a monarch but individuals acting on their own initiative. (See Joseph Loconte, Resisting the Leviathan, National Review, November 11, 2020)
We must actively resist the increasing effort to reframe our national history – In October 1992 I visited a great national celebration of the Five Hundred Year Anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. Appropriately, it was held in Columbus, the capital city of Ohio, and it continued for most of a month. Columbus was recognized as an inspired, yet imperfect, hero with determination and foresight.
Now, only 28 years later, there is a widespread effort, designed especially to indoctrinate young people, which slanders Columbus, the Founders and their accomplishments. Columbus is held personally responsible for centuries of mistreatment of Native Americans. The Founders are portrayed as being greedy and motivated by selfish interests. All of this is as astonishing as it is misleading.
Equally astonishing and misleading is The 1619 Project initiated by the New York Times in August 2019 the 400 year anniversary of the introduction of slavery in America. The New York times describes its project:
“The goal of The 1619 Project is to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year. Doing so requires us to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country.”
Most Americans deplore slavery and sincerely regret our country’s history of racism. But they do not want to reframe our national history. They agree with President Dallin H. Oaks who recently spoke about the importance of looking at the past in its proper context. President Oaks quoted Winston Churchill who in June 1940, at a pivotal time in the history of the world, spoke in the House of Commons: “Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future” (Racism and Other Challenges, BYU Devotional, October 27, 2020).
At this time of Thanksgiving we are very grateful for the blessings of freedom, but we should remember that freedom is only one generation away from extinction. Therefore, we should actively resist movements like The 1619 Project. We can do this by emphasizing to our children and grandchildren that the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 continues to be a great reason for celebration. Furthermore, we should teach them to be thankful that the seeds of that Declaration were planted 400 years ago, in November 1620, by an inspired group of men and women, who in a moment of existential crisis, adopted the Mayflower Compact, and thereby put their trust in God and in self-government.