by Judy Joyce

Created on: September 12, 2008

INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY - The Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower Compact of 1620 is the oldest document identified by the Yale Law School Project - Avalon as evidence of a social contract executed and signed by settlers on the shores of what later would become the United States of America.

The content of that compact is as follows:

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

While the Mayflower Compact established America's vision of citizens relationship to the "body politic" and laws yet to be enacted, the ideas embodied in the compact, once reduced to a writing, took on an identify of their own. By voluntarily signing a written agreement, the political theory of social contract was established for the governments to follow. That written document ideal assured that America was actually founded upon a contract. The philosophy that developed from our political theory attempted to explain and develop further why individuals should obey the law.

Adhering to and espousing this social contract theory later on, Alexander Hamilton said that:

"Civil liberty is only natural liberty modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact between the rulers and the ruled, and must be liable to such limitations as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter."

John

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