Mayflower Compact Quotes

On their way to America, the Pilgrims argued about the best maximum length for a routine. After arguing about it for the entire trip, they arrived at Plymouth Rock and started to draft the Mayflower Compact. They still hadn’t settled the maximum-length question, and since they couldn’t disembark until they’d signed the compact, they gave up and didn’t include it. The result has been an interminable debate ever since about how long a routine can be.

Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, John Jay – and every U.S. president – have publicly recognized that America's destiny is the result of a covenant relationship with Almighty God beginning in 1620 when the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact off Plymouth Rock. "Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith. . .

Through a diversity of Bible-based beliefs, Colonial America firmly founded its culture, laws, and government on the Judeo-Christian worldview. That common faith was clearly expressed in the founding documents of all thirteen American colonies: The Massachusetts Bay Colony’s charter recorded an intent to spread the “knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of mankind, and the Christian faith,” much as the Mayflower Compact cited a commitment to “the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian faith.” Connecticut’s Fundamental Orders officially called for “an orderly and decent Government established according to God” that would “maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.” In New Hampshire, the Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter vowed to establish a government “in the name of Christ” that “shall be to our best discerning agreeable to the Will of God.” Rhode Island’s colonial charter invoked the “blessing of God” for “a sure foundation of happiness to all America.” The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England stated, “Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel …” New York’s Duke’s Laws prohibited denial of “the true God and his Attributes.” New Jersey’s founding charter vowed, “Forasmuch as it has pleased God, to bring us into this Province…we may be a people to the praise and honor of his name.” Delaware’s original charter officially acknowledged “One almighty God, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World.” Pennsylvania’s charter officially cited a “Love of Civil Society and Christian Religion” as motivation for the colony’s founding. Maryland’s charter declared an official goal of “extending the Christian Religion.” Virginia’s first charter commissioned colonization as “so noble a work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the…propagating of Christian Religion.” The charter for the Colony of Carolina proclaimed “a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith.” Georgia’s charter officially cited a commitment to the “propagating of Christian religion.”27

Our nation was established on principles that deliberately and expressly rejected the forced state-sanctioned religiosity that was attempted by fundamentalists who put together the “Mayflower Compact.

The Mayflower Compact is seen to contain the seeds of the democracy that would later be established as the United States, and some have referred to it as the world’s first written constitution.

forty-one of the 102 passengers signed the Mayflower Compact, agreeing to establish a colony dedicated to God’s glory and the advancement of the Christian faith.19

In the end, the Mayflower Compact represented a remarkable act of coolheaded and pragmatic resolve. They were nearing the end of a long and frightening voyage. They were bound for a place about which they knew essentially nothing. It was almost winter. They were without sufficient supplies of food. Some of them were sick and two had already died, Still others were clamoring for a rebellion that would have meant the almost instantaneous collapse of their settlement and, most likely, their deaths. The Leideners might have looked to their military officer Miles Standish, and ordered him to subdue the rebels. Instead, they put pen to paper and created a document that ranks with the Declaration of independence and the United States Constitution as a seminal American text.