How the Pilgrims' English Experience Shaped Plymouth's Government

Fleeing religious persecution under James I and Charles I, the Pilgrims (Separatists) carried two core convictions into Plymouth Colony (1620):

1. Self-Government by Consent: The Mayflower Compact—signed aboard ship—established a "civil body politic" where male signers enacted "just and equal laws" by majority vote. This direct democracy (town meeting) mirrored their congregational church polity and rejected the hierarchical English model they escaped.
2. Separation of Church and Civil Authority: Having suffered state-enforced Anglicanism, they made church membership voluntary and barred clergy from civil office. Civil magistrates enforced moral order but not doctrine.
3. Rule of Law & Property: Drawing on English common law traditions, they created courts, recognized private land ownership (after initial communal experiment), and codified offenses—aiming for the "common good" they felt denied in England.

Thus, Plymouth's government was a deliberate inversion of the English system: participatory, secular in structure, and covenant-based.