There are good reasons, of course, we may wish to forget the year 2020, which need not be recited here. Indeed, the jokes about ushering 2020 out the door are already legion, like this one: "I'm going to stay up on New Year's Eve this year. Not to see the New Year in, but to make sure this one leaves." Or this one: "The dumbest thing I ever did was to purchase a 2020 planner."
But Thanksgiving, by definition, is not a time of forgetting, but rather of remembering. The act of giving thanks – and counting blessings – necessarily requires remembrance.
On this particular Thanksgiving, especially in the midst of our current travails, we should not forget that this is the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, the founding of Plymouth Colony, and the signing, on November 11, 1620, of the Mayflower Compact. Less than half of the 102 passengers aboard the Mayflower were members of the English separatist group that earlier had fled to Leyden in the Netherlands in search of religious freedom. It was only later that the entire group became known as Pilgrims.
The Mayflower Compact, brief as it is, is worthy of more attention than it has received on this 400th anniversary, during a year in which so much attention has been focused on America's supposed ills rather than the ideas and ideals embodied in its foundational principles. The Mayflower's original destination was near the mouth of the Hudson River. But when rough seas blew the Mayflower off-course and the Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, they understood that they were in territory beyond the authority that they had been granted. Hence the need for an agreement – which we now call the Mayflower Compact and which the Pilgrims called a "covenant" – to govern their affairs. The covenant was signed by all 41 of the male passengers aboard the Mayflower.
The agreement declares the Pilgrims' purpose "to covenant & combine ourselves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering, & preservation & furtherance of the ends" of planting a colony. And it continues, "to enacte, constitute, and frame shuch just & equall lawes, ordinances, Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for the generall good of the Colonie: unto which we promise all submission and obedience." I've retained the original spelling here, but hopefully the meaning is clear.
The Compact is simple but nevertheless foundational as a declaration of self-government. Those combining together in a "civil body politic" agree to submit to the rule of law under "just and equal" laws, not merely any laws.
The Compact was not a full-blown plan of government. That would await the Constitution of 1787. But it was a foundation upon which future advances in self-government would be built. And in light of the principles established in November 1620 on the Mayflower, the Compact is an important part of the American story.
Fully half of the Mayflower's Pilgrims died of disease and starvation in their first winter in the New World. So there was reason enough for those who survived to assemble in the autumn of 1621 for a feast of "Thanksgiving" with the Pokanoket Wampanoags, who had shared advice on planting and harvesting.
The year 2020 will always be associated with this pandemic, which has caused so much suffering. But in America, as always, we have much for which to be grateful on this Thanksgiving. The prospect of a highly effective vaccine developed in record time, along with the quickening availability of more proven therapeutics, is reason enough to be hopeful – and thankful.
Of course, for many, our Thanksgiving holiday necessarily will be much different this year than ever before, or even than we had envisioned a couple of weeks ago. But amidst whatever other thoughts we entertain this Thanksgiving, recalling the Mayflower Compact should be cause for celebrating the 400th anniversary of an agreement articulating what became fundamental American principles – rule by consent of the governed under just and equal laws.
In closing, it is worth recalling this Thanksgiving, as much now as when James Madison published Federalist No. 14 on November 30, 1787, his plea to his fellow countrymen: "Harken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family."
May this Thanksgiving help bring us all closer to our families, friends, and countrymen, bound together by what Madison called our "many cords of affection."
With best wishes,
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