MAYFLOWER COMPACT
Signed November 11, 1620
The Mayflower Compact was an aspirational document.
The concept of “just and equal laws for the general good” was embodied in the document, which was signed on board the Mayflower shortly after it arrived in Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod. Since the area was outside the lands controlled by the King, English laws did not apply. The Pilgrim leaders thus drafted the Mayflower Compact to establish basic order in their new colony.
A century later, another group of men were united by self-evident truths that “all men are created equal” and they wrote a document that began with the words “We the People” – the United States Constitution.
