The Mayflower Compact
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The Mayflower Compact signed on November 21, 1620 by 41 of the male passengers on the Mayflower prior to their landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts demonstrated the early colonists belief in the tendency of men to gravitate toward a natural, independent state. But what is also implicit in the Compact is the signers' belief that man has the right to seek such a state if he desires and that he should not be prevented from seeking such a state unless by his own consent. Consequently, the Compact, although not a constitution of any sort, bound company members into a political body that forced each of them to abide by any laws and regulations that would later be established. Eventually, it would provide the foundation for Plymouth's government. The significant parts of the brief document declare that the signers "solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation [] 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" (Mayflower Compact).The idea that each man has the right to govern himself is based in a belief in the primacy of the laws of Nature. In his essay concerning civil government, John Locke analyzes the variou
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evolution was the determination of the American colonists not to be subject to a government that they felt they had not chosen and that did not represent their needs.
While natural law is based on the premise that primitive man existed in a state of equal freedom limited only by his own physical characteristics, positive law refers to the codes and statutes enacted to govern civil society. Thus, there could have been no positive law until men abandoned their natural state and gathered into communities from which they sought protection of their individual liberty and property rights. However, in a state of natural law, while men enjoyed equal freedom, their quality of their existence would have been unequal based on their natural talents. A stronger man would likely have been able to gather more food than a weaker man would, for instance. In his Discourse on Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau elaborates upon Locke's analysis of a government based on tenets of natural law to demonstrate that the inherent inequality in a state of nature necessarily becomes ingrained in the positive law based on such natural law.
Rousseau agrees with Locke that men formed into communities and selected governmental representatives in order to de
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Approximate Word count = 1626
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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