96
America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
town. This was the first representative assembly in the Western Hemisphere. It gave Virginians some measure of self-government almost from
the outset and established the principle of republicanism not only for Virginia but also for her future sister colonies along the Atlantic Coast. One
of the first steps taken by the assembly was to enact legislation prohibiting gambling, drunkenness, swearing, and idleness, and also requiring
every colonist to attend church regularly.
The second important event of this period was the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. Almost all of the New England colonists were Puritans who had a religious as well as an economic
interest in coming to the New World. They differed in outlook and behavior from their more orthodox Anglican neighbors situated in Jamestown, and brought with them a set of religious doctrines that anticipated
the founding of what John Eliot called the Christian Commonwealth, or
a blend of theocracy and pure democracy. Like the Jamestown colonists,
they came to the rocky shores of New England under the auspices of the
Virginia Company. The first inhabitants of Massachusetts were not simply Puritan Nonconformists but radical Separatists. Whereas the Nonconformists aimed to purify the Anglican church from within, the Separatists were determined to break away and worship as they pleased in
their own congregations. Before leaving Europe, they had tried and failed
to secure a guarantee of religious freedom from James I; but they learned
‘‘that he would . . . not molest them, provided they carried themselves
peaceably.’’ By virtue of this historic concession on the part of the monarch, British America was opened to settlement by all dissenting Protestants.
Before leaving ship, they entered into a solemn agreement for the formation of a government upon reaching land. This became the famous
Mayflower Compact, by which ‘‘in the presence of God and one another’’
they agreed to ‘‘covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil
Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation’’ and 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; into which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.’’ What the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony agreed to, in other words, was to form a government