Saturday, September 8, 2012

LAD #1 Mayflower Compact & Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

1. The Mayflower Compact states that the men who signed the document are going to combine to create a civil "Body Politick"(Mayflower Compact), or government. The government was to be for there for the sake of having an order to the new colony and preserving the colony. They were to have fair and "equal laws, ordinaces, acts, constitutions, and officers...as shall be thought...convenient for the general good of the colony" (Mayflower Compact). The general concept was to create a government that gave order to the settlement and was fair and just. Another concept of the government was that it had to preserve the colony and be for the good of the colony.

2. The Mayflower Compact frequently mentions the "Old World" and King James. The compact says that the men have come for the glory of God, advancement of the Christian faith and for the honor of their king. This would connect the compact to the old world because it states that they have come for the honor and on behalf of the old world. King James can be considered a part of the old world because he was the kind of England at the time of the signing of the compact. The complact reflects the "New World" by stating what the men want to create, which is a government that is for the good of the colony. They lay out what they want to establish and what the government will preserve for the new colony. The fact that they are setting up a government that is going to give order to the people shows the connection to the new world because they are focusing on how they are going to survive in the new world.

3. The Mayflower Compact only stated that a government would be set up to keep order and preserve just and fair laws while the Fundamental Orders is basically a rule sheet on how the government will be set up and what kind of acts it will approve. The Fundamental Orders has laws written in while the Mayflower Compact is only an agreement that fair and just laws, and a government will be set up.

4. The areas of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield were going to combine on the River of Connectecotte. The belief was that since these areas were combining there should be peace among everyone. The people believed that according to God in order to maintain peace and union there should be a government that would handle the affairs of the newly combined area. In order to create the government and set rules on how the government should work the colonists had to write rules that came out in the form of a constitution.

5.  There are many rules as to how the government is set up. There are two general assemblies and they each meet on different days. Everyone in the first assemby is yearly chosen "from time to time". This would make it seem that the members of the assembly are not very well trusted if tehy are reelected yearly. Someone cannot be chosen newly into the Magistracy which would mean that a person would probably have to be approved by another assembly of sorts. The Governor always has to be a membor of some approved congregation. All of the requirements that are put on Magistracy and being a governor is set up because members of the new union do not want any one side or group to have too much power. These requirements, in their minds, would prevent this because anyone who wanted to a part of the government had to belong to mutiple approved congregations and had to be elected by approved peoples among other requirements. If one person from a certain group that may have wanted all the power got into office there was not a great chance that more members from that group would be elected because of the complicated voting process.

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