As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the sagacious political virtues enshrined so eloquently in that eternal document, let us remember the Town of Plymouth’s 400-year experiment with democracy and its founding document, “The Mayflower Compact,” and how much Plymouth influenced our nation’s founding.
That experiment began when 102 of our Plymouth ancestors braved the mid-Atlantic in the Autumn of 1620 aboard a cramped vessel stocked with bare essentials. They sailed from England to earn their religious freedom.
The vessel’s main beam cracked. The food went bad. Rough seas, low ceiling space, cramped quarters, and rotten food created a plague of seasickness that the Pilgrims suffered from throughout the entire voyage.
Fortunately, the Pilgrims landed in Cape Cod, but the corporate charter they held with The Virginia Company designated the Hudson River estuary as their destination. When they arrived at Provincetown, they knew they were outside the Virginia Company’s legal jurisdiction. However, the Mayflower was no longer seaworthy, and the provisions were too low to risk sailing any further. They searched for the best place to settle, which led them to Plymouth. The original stewards of the land, the Wampanoag, formed fertile fields for better farming, which saved the Pilgrims.
However, without the authority of the Virginia Company, the leaders of the Pilgrims—and the other folks who sailed with them, called “strangers”—needed to create a new governing document. Bradford and the leading Pilgrims promulgated the Mayflower Compact.
The Mayflower Compact of Plymouth became the first written proto-constitutional style of self-governance in the New World. It guaranteed majority rule, equality under the law, and government by consent. Political scientists and historians point to the Mayflower Compact’s influence on the federal constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Plymouth’s town government is considered one of the oldest Western-style democratic governments in the world.
The Town of Plymouth, as a jurisdiction, is the oldest living direct democracy in America. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from Great Britain, let us recognize that the Town of Plymouth is around 400 years old and existed independently of a royal charter for the first few years after its founding. Moreover, Plymouth and the Mayflower Compact guaranteed self-government, democracy, and equality under the law 150 years before Independence Day. As one of the oldest democracies in the Western world, our historic, idyllic, 400-year-old Town of Plymouth plays an essential role in America’s 250th Independence Day.
– Paul Adams