Colonial Governments
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for self-rule based on popular consent and rule of law. The Mayflower
Compact was like the church covenant by which Separatists formed congregations, except that it bound its signers to observe the ordinances of a
civil rather than a religious society, and professed allegiance to the King
as well as God. It marks the introduction into the American colonies of a
compact theory of government which would later serve as the basis for
both popularly based State constitutions and the United States Constitution, the latter being viewed as a compact among the States as well as
the people in the States.
Generally speaking, the Puritans subscribed to the view that a covenant was the necessary basis for both the church and the state. These two
classes of covenants were known respectively as the ‘‘church covenant’’
and the ‘‘plantation covenant’’—and there was a close relation between
the democratic method of forming a congregation or church and the democratic method of forming a state, both emphasizing the importance of the
individual. In time, the early tendencies in New England toward aristocracy and theocracy disappeared and there was a democratization of its
social and political institutions. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this
democratic spirit was the emphasis on local self-government, which found
expression in the New England town meeting. Puritan democracy, however, was reserved primarily for church members. The Puritans readily
embraced English common law and the English constitutional tradition;
and they accepted in principle equality of civil rights. But they did not
endorse the idea of political equality, and they did not believe that all
members of society should participate in the political process. In these
respects the New England and Southern colonists shared similar political
views.
Although the Catholics in Maryland, the Quakers in Delaware and
Pennsylvania, and the Dutch Reformed in New York and New Jersey
introduced even more religious diversity into North America, they nevertheless followed the same path of political development as the New
England and Southern Colonies. The middle colonies were more of a
melting pot of religious and national groups than any other part of America. From the standpoint of their evolving political institutions in the colonial era, however, all of the colonies, despite their ethnic and religious
and socioeconomic differences, tended to carry on the constitutional and