MAY THE SETTLERS FLOWER IN A NEW LAND

 

This blog is in the midst of telling a story – it began with the last posting and the reader is invited to go back and catch the first segment of this tale.  It has to do with the Puritanical origins of this nation.  And the story goes back to the disappointment Europeans felt over the discovery of the Americas.  During the 1500s, Europeans invested in western voyages so as to find a shortcut to the lucrative markets of the Far East.  No such route was found, but those voyages began the tumbling of various streams of “dominoes” that are still toppling today.   

          The last posting kept the reader in Europe, actually England, and this posting has a few more developments to relate emanating from that nation.  The previous posting left off with Elizabeth I’s (1533-1603) trying to handle the religious strife that befell her country.  Mainly there was the ongoing battle with Catholics who wanted to regain their prominence and that conflict even included an attempted foreign invasion from Spain – the Spanish Armada. 

This religious strife began before she was queen and was particularly intense during her predecessor’s reign, that of “Bloody Mary.”  Back then, religious disagreements could and were bloody indeed, and in those earlier years Catholics had a supportive queen, Mary I and her husband, Philip.  Her aim was to reestablish Catholic dominance after her father, Henry VIII, split with the Roman church and made the Anglican Church dominant.  Mary died in 1558 after a relatively short reign of about five years.  What one needs to remember, religion and political leadership of a country were highly interwoven with each other at that time.

          After Mary died and Elizabeth became queen, she, Elizabeth, established the Anglican Church as official and barred open membership to other religions; and that included not only Catholics, but other upstart Protestant sects such as the Calvinists.  The sanctions against the Calvinists were mostly mild but starting in the early 1600s, more radical forms of that religion’s beliefs (the last posting reviews its tenets) began to be promulgated.  

Eventually, and this transcends Elizabeth’s reign, the more ardent, radical Congregationalists or extreme Puritans made their presence known.  They took the Calvinist beliefs in the unconditional election; that is, humans are subject to God’s determination as to who is saved and who is not, and irresistible grace; that is, once chosen, a person will not reject God’s grace (the “U” and “I” of the acronym TULIP) up several notches.

          They, according to Guelzo, “… wanted membership in the[ir] church limited to only those who could give testimony and evidence of having received God’s grace, even if that meant separating … from the rest of England’s presumably impure society.”[1]  And the split with the crown grew after Elizabeth’s death in 1603.  Her successor, James of Scotland, intensified the government’s crackdown on these radicals. 

With his and his successor’s policies, the Congregationalists or Puritans started to look for escape from the island nation.  And one group of them first sought refuse in the Puritanical Netherlands. Donald S. Lutz,[2] described these people’s experiences before getting to their eventual destination, the New England coastline. 

He has extensively analyzed the connection between these Puritans and original constitutional formulations in American development by studying how early American settlers from England and then Holland went about organizing themselves.  Starting with the Puritans who landed at Plymouth in 1620, certain federalist elements were established.

Lutz points out that the Puritans (this group specifically known as the Pilgrims) were interested in simplifying the religious practices of the English churches.  Being persecuted in England, they sought to “create a new city of God – a society run according to the dictates of the Bible.”[3]

Adopting the notion of a covenant, originally from Hebraic tradition and law of the Old Testament, the Puritans established a society and a “politick” on the following elements: a bonding between the members of the covenant, a calling upon God to witness the bonding, and the consent of each member to join the resulting communal union.  This latter element is a basic component; each member was free to bond and did so of his own volition.

Of course, all of this was accomplished by the drawing up and signing of the Mayflower Compact.  He writes,

 

During the 1600s, over 100 other founding documents similar to the Mayflower Compact would be written by American colonists. Some of these agreements would create single settlements, while others (such as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut) would join several existing covenanted communities into a broader association. In each case the people created by the agreement would be identified by those who signed the document. It is a peculiarly American trait that founding documents like the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution have signatures at the end. This expectation is part of the legacy of early agreements like the Mayflower Compact; just as “We the People” is derived from “We the undersigned.”[4]

 

And the Mayflower Compact introduced several other important ideas basic to the nation's political perspective.

First, it established the principle of adding or admitting new members to a covenant. Not all the signers of the Mayflower Compact were Puritans. A non-Puritan, though, was not given subordinate status. A new addition was awarded equal status with every individual of the original group.

This provision was the beginning of a standard that led to the constitutional provision that all new states, as they joined the national union, would be granted equal status with the original thirteen states (as demonstrated, for example, by equal representation in the Senate and extends to new citizens as well).

The second significant aspect of the Mayflower Compact was its Lockean logic. Before John Locke ever wrote a word, Puritans in America were living out his prescriptions by creating a society first and then creating a “politick” to govern it. “On the Mayflower we find the colonists doing essentially everything that Locke would later recommend.”[5]

One last contribution of the Mayflower Compact was its clear statement of political values which included commitments to justice, equality, respect for law, and community. Not mentioned was individualism. Instead, the following language dominates the document:

 

… these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and of one another, convenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid … for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.[6]

 

Defined in religious contexts, the Puritans brought with them strongly felt values and principles that would evolve in the formative, colonial years and provide the basis of future bills of rights principles. 

This covenant did not present a model for governmental structure. As such, it was not the first formal constitution in America.  That distinction belongs to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639.  But it did contain important elements; they are the forming a union based on consent a priori to actual governance, formulation of a formal agreement based on a covenant (a promise which called on God as witness to the agreement), and an integral commitment to equality – which, by the way, appears before any commitment to individuality or individual rights.

But before this tale totally shifts to North America, there are still some important developments to relate that took place in England.  More would happen there that prompted further exodus from that nation to North America.  The events also affected the formal format by which these early settlers departed England and helped determine the formal arrangements the settlers had with the mother country.

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[1] Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I – transcript books – (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005), 25.  In the original, this quote begins with “The Separatists …” indicating the other term used to identify these believers.

[2]Donald S. Lutz, “The Mayflower Compact, 1620,” in Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted,” ed. Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1990), 17-23.  What this posting includes is an edited rendition of what this blog posted earlier in this blog.  See Robert Gutierrez, “At the Beginning:  Mayflower Compact,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics (January 13, 2012), accessed March 4, 2021, https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/preview/1954479639890698872/7769498729070174796 .

[3]Ibid., p. 18.

[4]Ibid., 19.

[5]Ibid., 21.

[6] Eric Bruun and Jay Crosby, “Combine Ourselves into a Civil Body Politick: The Mayflower compact,” in Our Nation's Archive: The history of the United States in Documents (New York, NY: Tess Press, 1999/1620), 46-47, 47.

A STREAM OF DOMINOES BEGINS TO FALL

 

The well-worn analogy of falling dominoes applies to just about all historical developments and the development of how Americans arrived at their view of governance and politics is no exception.  Where to begin?  One specific place can be when Europeans, in the 1500s, realized that by going west one was not going to find a short cut to the Far East and the promising trade routes European merchants were seeking.  There, smack in the way, were what came to be known as the Americas.  So, initially the investment in finding that route came to mostly zilch.

          But as with most historical events or developments, more than one result is possible and usually materializes.  In this case, these discovered lands – to Europeans – offered opportunities to certain groups.  One such group was Calvinists who were being hassled in England for not falling in line with that nation’s dominant religion, the Anglican Church.

          And that points to another line of dominoes, a stream of events falling from King Henry VIII’s split with Rome and his establishment of England’s own hierarchical church.  This latter factor seems to be often overlooked and disregarded, but it proved to be important in determining how this nation, the US, looks at governance and politics.  With its vertical structure, the Church of England mimicked how the Roman Catholic Church was/is organized and administered.

This, some years later, ran into another Protestant arrangement, that of the Puritans, a Calvinist group, and how they preferred to organize.  The Calvinists set about organizing their churches on a congregational basis.  That is, each church stood independently and was arranged by local worshippers. 

And this tradition added its name, yet another stream of dominoes, to what had been going on prior to King Henry’s split.  That is, starting in the early 1500s, a grand revolt within Christianity took place with the protestation against Catholicism initiated by Martin Luther in Germany.  Once that took hold, the legitimacy of falling away from Catholicism became recurring in certain European countries and various religious theologies and other resulting beliefs sprouted within those countries. 

And in terms of the story being told here, one was that of John Calvin in Switzerland.  Along with Calvin’s objections to Catholic theology was a rejection of the Roman church’s structure.  The historian Allen C. Guelzo describes this shift:

In Switzerland, a French protestant named John Calvin reconstituted the organization of the church.  The church had always been a hierarchy, with the bishop of a diocese at the top – with the Pope in Rome as the bishop of the bishops, the priests below, and the laypeople underneath.  Calvin refashioned this hierarchy into something more nearly resembling a committee, with priests redefined now as elders or presbyters, ruling the churches jointly with lay leaders.[1]

Of special note and of relevance to American civics instruction is the formation of the congregational structure which will prove highly influential in the development of the US government.

          While the above had lasting effect on how government should be structured, Calvin theology also had a strong influence on initial American attitudes as the early arrivals from Europe faced the challenges of a frontier environment.[2]  In that, Calvinism, through the Puritans, added a strong sense of discipline.  A quick review of that theology’s main tenets can portray this initial thinking that turned out to help those settlers meet the dangers and other challenges that the unforgiving wilderness presented.

          And here an acronym might assist one’s recall of those beliefs and that is TULIP.  Guelzo points out that this aid refers to the following:

 

“T” stands for total depravity; that is, humans are born highly deficient, sinful, and depraved and can only be saved – meaning eternal happiness in heaven and even a better life on earth – by God’s grace.

“U” stands for unconditional election; that is, humans are subject to God’s determination as to who is saved and who is not.  Humans, through their behavior, have no effect on those determinations.

“L” stands for limited atonement; that is, what grace God bestows on humans is a result of the freely given sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ.  But not all are recipients of this grace, it is limited to those God chooses.

“I” stands for irresistible grace; that is, once chosen, a person will not reject God’s grace.  And

“P” stands for perseverance of the saints; that is, the chosen people will be active in this grace and it will be apparent to all who encounter the elected that they are in a state of grace.

 

All this theology took some time to work out and a final theological system was mostly finalized fifty years after Calvin’s death, or the early 1600s.

          While at first glance this notion of grace-allotment by God and grace reception by humans sounds like a grand lottery, in effect, what became important for believers was demonstrating one was chosen for that grace.  Outwardly, one did so by exhibiting a strict moral code – one chocked full of what people should and should not do – so that others would conclude that they were among the chosen ones. 

Later, that was what encouraged the eventual Puritan settlers in America to exhibit the discipline demanded by the challenges these people confronted.  As it turned out, history illustrates that that approach, at least in North America of the 1600s, proved to be effective.[3]

          Now, back to England of some years earlier and the reign of Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth I, 1558-1603, where the government’s bestowal of legal authority to the Church of England – the Anglican Church – was firmly established.  Included in that authority were automatic membership to that church upon being born in England and the tithes (donations) and taxes English people were mandated to pay that church.

Structurally, the church just carried on the organizational elements inherited from Rome, but many Protestants in England saw all of this as being too Catholic and began demanding further departure from Roman ways.  And those groups included the Puritans, a Calvinistic sect.  Initially, while Elizabeth deemed these Protestants to be as treasonous as Catholics, her time was taken up with dealing with a Catholic rebellion against her religious policies. 

This gave the Puritans the opportunity to gain accommodations within the government, the English church, and universities.  As such, these other Protestants were able to exert various levels of influence within the institutions of England.  And this burrowing was assisted by the fact that their demands were, for the most part, relatively not so demanding.

          But as is often the case with such movements, there were those who sought more radical change or expressed heightened discontent with the established modes of religiosity.  These radicals began demanding wholesale “reforms” to the existing, established church including a heightened adherence to the theological beliefs (TULIP) reviewed above.  And this abbreviated story will be continued in the next posting with the addition of how some of these disgruntled believers decided to leave England and eventually arrived at their promised land, America.

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[1] Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I – transcript books – (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005), 23.

[2] While native Americans inhabited the Americas when the first Europeans showed up, the vast land mass was, by standards today, sparsely populated.  Estimates vary, but at the time of Columbus’ first voyage, 1492, they range from seven to ten million people.  Then, that population was seriously reduced due to the spread of diseases often originating from imported African slaves.  Again, estimates range as high as 90% of that indigenous population.  Those diseases included smallpox, measles, and the flu.  See “The Story of … Smallpox – and Other Deadly Eurasian Germs,” PBS (n.d.), accessed March 2, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html .

[3] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” in The Annals of America, Vol. 13 (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968/1911), 277-288.