Repository: UIHistories Project: Convocation - 1896 (Forefathers' Convocation) [PAGE 14]

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!• :• i PI) mouth, thej had a new nation with them. •\">.. \ I id established II in the cabin of the Mayflower. 0 sapi >lnl l in ii"i reaching the Hudson or the Delaw;i! whei thej assumed their patent from the Virginia I 'tnpan\ would confer landed fights and Impos English law MHO of them reasoned that there would 1 no authority and no rights upon the soil of New England, and that the) must at once establish a gove r n nt >r themselves. Therefore they called all of the adult males to the cabin and adopted and subscril 1 i >a compact i > "solemnly and mutually, in the < ( pr - n of rod and one, of another, covenant and combine ours l> es toget her into a civil body politic, for our best orderiiiLT and preservation and the furtherance of the ends a -aid: and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and franc such just and equal laws, ordinances, a 5, nstitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall b mghi most meet and convenient for the genii good of the >lony, unto which we promise all due sal mission and ol dience." Then they made John ( rvei governor for a determinate time, to end with their calendar \ ear. H - a pure democracy with a written constituti pon tbe basis of manhood suffrage. It was the fi |co AII instance of the kind in human history. li • says II v i-the birth of popular constitutional lib y. Th limitations of the hour forbid that we shall folios th nar iti\ longer, and perhaps reveal the fact I li;iA alreadj yielded too much to my own interi u ,| | ( . detail? Of the fascinating story. But there .,„,. „ ,j ()f a general character which seem I ,,, t |,,. occasion, for which I must ask your ndlv pa ice. , , . . . ., „ yeai i he colony had,speaking roughr, . ,: to H < hundred souls, and In the following v ,, ;i ,,i;,ir more had been added. Itut In the , ,.|iieiiieni of the highest importance (lJ I | ughl) established on Massachusetts l; , i,, the north Of It, In that tine ml],

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