The Pilgrim Fathers perceived, long before it was generally appreciated, that equal laws might fall far short of political justice and liberty, and hence they provided for "just and equal laws." They realized, perhaps indistinctly, that equality in itself, without other elements, is not sufficient to guarantee justice, and that, under a law which is merely equal, all may be equally oppressed, equally degraded, equally enslaved. They well knew that equality is one of the pervading features of most despotisms, and that a law may be equal and yet be grossly arbitrary, tyrannical and unjust. Obviously, a law confiscating all property of a certain kind would be equal if it applied to all having that particular kind of property. The laws of England then in force providing for one form of worship, "for abolishing diversity of opinions," as the title of the act of 31 Henry VIII. recited, or compelling all to attend the same church and to take the same oath of religious supremacy and the sacraments of the same religious denomination, were all equal laws, because they applied to every one, no matter what his conscience might dictate. In the cabin of the Mayflower, the Pilgrim Fathers seem to have had a vision revealing to them the fundamental and essential political truth that equality is but an attribute of the liberty they were then seeking at the peril of their lives and the sacrifice of their fortunes, and that true liberty requires just as well as equal laws. To repeat, it was the Pilgrims who first sowed in our soil the seed of just and equal laws, and that seed has grown into the fixed rule of the American constitutional system, a rule which has spread through all our political and civil rights and duties until it reaches, pervades, unites and invigorates the whole body politic.
The history of the Plymouth colony from 1620 until its absorption by the colony of Massachusetts in 1691, teaches us many lessons in political philosophy. There are two which I desire to recall to you to-night: one as to the right to private property, the other as to pure democracy.
The Pilgrims began government under the Mayflower Compact with a system of communism or common property. The experiment almost wrecked the colony. As early as 1623, they had to discard it and restore the old law of individual property with its inducement and incentive to personal effort. All who now urge communism in one form or another, often in disguise, might profitably study the experience of Plymouth, which followed a similarly unfortunate and disastrous experiment in Virginia. History often teaches men in vain. Governor Bradford's account of this early experiment in communism in his annals of "Plimoth Plantation" is extremely interesting. The book is rich in political principles as true to-day as they were three hundred years ago. After showing that the communal system was a complete failure and that as soon as it was abandoned and a parcel of land was assigned in severalty to each family, those who had previously refused to work became "very industrious," even the women going "willingly into ye feild" taking "their litle-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie," Bradford proceeds as follows:
"The experience that was had in this com̅one course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos & other ancients, applauded by some of later times;—that ye taking away of propertie, and bringing in com̅unitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much imployme̅t that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For ye yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour & service did repine that they should spend their time & streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails & cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter ye other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, &c., with ye meaner & yonger sorte, thought it some indignite & disrespect unto them.... Let none objecte this is men's corruption, and nothing to ye course it selfe. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdome saw another course fiter for them."[9]
Although the colony of Plymouth began as a pure democracy under which all the men were convened to decide executive and judicial questions, the increase of population and its diffusion over a wider territory necessarily led to the transaction of official business through chosen representatives. The representative system was thus established by the Pilgrims in New England perhaps more firmly than elsewhere, and it became the cardinal principle of whatever efficiency, strength and stability our republican governments now have. This system is menaced by the enthusiasm for change and by the fads of recent years, such as the initiative, the referendum, the recall and direct primaries. In these political nostrums has been revived the crude notion that the masses, inexperienced as they are in the difficult and complex problems of government, are instinctively better qualified to guide than the educated few who are trained, instructed and competent, and who, acting as the representatives of all, are bound in good conscience and sound policy to consider and protect the rights of the minority, of the individual, of the humble and weak, against the arbitrary will or selfish interest or prejudice of the majority.
There is no time to-night, even if your patience would bear with me longer, to trace the growth of the political principles which we find in the history of the Plymouth colony and underlying the experiment in republican government there initiated under the Mayflower Compact. If the tree is to be judged by its fruit, the framing of that compact in 1620 was one of the most important events in the history of the American people, and the document itself is one of the most interesting and inspiring of American constitutional documents. But I feel that I may appropriately suggest to you questions which are of immediate and urgent concern to us all, and they are whether the quickening and stirring message of the Mayflower has really endured—whether the sterling qualities of the Pilgrim and the Puritan have survived—whether the descendants of the Pilgrims have inherited and can perpetuate the invincible spirit, the unconquerable moral energy, the indomitable steadfastness of their ancestors—and whether these qualities are available in our own day to guide the nation safely and wisely through the inevitable crisis which we are approaching as the whole civilization of Europe is being daily more and more engulfed in the abyss of this awful war. These are problems which our generation must face sooner or later. And who should be better qualified to guide us—for it is leadership that we need—than men who inherit the spirit and the traditions of the Pilgrim and the Puritan?
In this crisis, the greatest in our national affairs since 1861, I hope we shall profit by the example of the founders of Plymouth, who, as Palfrey wrote, "gave diligent heed to arrangements for the military defence of the colony." It may be also that Providence will give us, in the descendant of a Pilgrim, the captain who shall be both our shield and our weapon as Myles Standish was the shield and the weapon of your ancestors.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Remarks responding to the toast, "The Mayflower Compact," at the twenty-first annual banquet of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of New York, held at the Hotel St. Regis, New York, November 23, 1915.
[6] Lafcadio Hearn, Kokoro, pp. 289-290.