Replies

This is intriguing.

The Pilgrims were meant to be a contractor of the Virginia Company of Plymouth. They rejected the contract and, prior to landing outside of the Company's chartered lands, formed a civil government by "compact."

The Mayflower Compact reads: "...doe by these presents solomnly and mutualy in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names...

In 1626, the Pilgrims also signed a written agreement among themselves to form a joint-stock corporation, corporately holding the combined assests, profits and debts of the colony. The corporate holdings were assigned to Isaack Allerton as agent to pledge them as bonds or security on annual payment of notes to the Council for New England to obtain goods and necessities for the new colony on credit to be repayed through commodities produced such as fur, dried fish and corn.

[This hometown civil government operated under a new charter granted by the king to 40 noblemen comprising the "Plymouth Council." Although the Council kept reins over gross disposition of the chartered lands, they delegated powers of civil government to the colonists through contract: ..."to establish such Lawes and ordynaunces as are for their better government, and the same by such Officer or Officers as they shall by most voices elect and choose to put in execution."]

Within the corporation, single free men had a single share and every father of a household had as many shares as there were people in his family. Ownership of the cattle was proportionatly divided -so at the time one cow was "owned" by six persons or shares. 20 acres of arriable land, with five acres abutting a watercourse, was alloted to each share. The remaining land was to be held communally and each, according to his share in cattle, could mow the grass.

We have three elements - the concept of a "compact," an economic form of socialism, and the notion of direct democracy (for men.)

Although the notions of socialism and direct democracy are akin to modern liberal thought, the notion of compact is not.

Reference: Blackstone's Commentaries, "View of the Constitution of the United States," Section 1 - Nature of U.S. Constitution; manner of its adoption as annotated by St. George Tucker, William Young Birch and Abraham Small, c1803, on the nature of a "compact":

"It is a compact; by which it is distinguished from a charter, or grant; which is either the act of a superior to an inferior; or is founded upon some consideration moving from one of the parties, to the other, and operates as an exchange, or sale: but here the contracting parties, whether considered as states, in their politic capacity and character; or as individuals, are all equal; nor is there any thing granted from one to another: but each stipulates to part with, and to receive the same thing, precisely, without any distinction or difference in favor of any of the parties....."

In other words, the majority of a democracy cannot gang up to divest an individual of his life, liberty or property. It is why the fifth amendment states that a property "takings" must be compensated. All must remain whole in their estate to maintain the compact's parity.

This was restated in the 1876 U.S. Supreme Court case of Munn v. State of Illinois, 94 U.S. 113:

"...When one becomes a member of society, he necessarily parts with some rights or privileges which, as an individual not affected by his relations to others, he might retain. 'A body politic,' as aptly defined in the preamble of the Constitution of Massachusetts, 'is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.' This does not confer power upon the whole people to control rights which are purely and exclusively private, Thorpe v. R. & B. Railroad Co., 27 Vt. 143; but it does authorize the establishment of laws requiring each citizen to so conduct himself, and so use his own property, as not unnecessarily to injure another. This is the very essence of government, and has found expression in the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. From this source come the police powers, which, as was said by Mr. Chief Justice Taney in the License Cases, 5 How. 583, 'are nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty, . . . that is to say, . . . the power to govern men and things.'

The subtulties of the compact were never appreciated by the Europeans in their form of democracy where the individual is presumed to have surrendered individualism to the good of the whole. It is not appreciated by today's American "Progressives," who, for instance, feel that property should be held as a privilege, subservient to the common good.