mark the peculiar history of the Plymouth settlers, may
properly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this
auditory, must be superfluous.

One of these remarkable incidents is the execution of that
instrument of government by which they formed themselves
into a body politic, the day after their arrival upon the coast,
and previous to their first landing. That is, perhaps, the only
instance in human history of that positive, original social
compact, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the
only legitimate source of government. Here was a unanimous
and personal assent, by all the individuals of the community, to
the association by which they became a nation. It was the
result of circumstances and discussions which had occurred
during their passage from Europe, and is a full demonstration
that the nature of civil government, abstracted from the
political institutions of their native country, had been an object
of their serious meditation. The settlers of all the former
European colonies had contented themselves with the powers
conferred upon them by their respective charters, without
looking beyond the seal of the royal parchment for the measure
of their rights and the rule of their duties. The founders of
Plymouth had been impelled by the peculiarities of their
situation to examine the subject with deeper and more
comprehensive research. After twelve years of banishment
from the land of their first allegiance, during which they had
been under an adoptive and temporary subjection to another
sovereign, they must naturally have been led to reflect upon the
relative rights and duties of allegiance and subjection. They
had resided in a city, the seat of a university, where the