Thank God for our ancestors of blood and spirit who built this country, dedicated to freedom, equality and the rule of law. The Plymouth pilgrims wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact before landing. They faced a barren wilderness, no shelter, with winter coming on, and a hard and dangerous future. They had a lot to plan for. Yet the first thing they did is clarify the legal and political foundation of their colony. Liberty under law came first, and if that prevailed, prosperity would follow.
God bless America.
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, etc.
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor 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 politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, 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 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.
[Signed]
John Carver
William Bradford
Edward Winslow
William Brewster
Isaac Allerton
Myles Standish
John Alden
Samuel Fuller
Christopher Martin
William Mullins
William White
Richard Warren
John Howland
Stephen Hopkins
Edward Tilley
John Tilley
Francis Cooke
Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker
John Rigsdale
Edward Fuller
John Turner
Francis Eaton
James Chilton
John Crackstone
John Billington
Moses Fletcher
John Goodman
Degory Priest
Thomas Williams
Gilbert Winslow
Edmund Margesson
Peter Browne
Richard Britteridge
George Soule
Richard Clarke
Richard Gardiner
John Allerton
Thomas English
Edward Doty
Edward Leister
Amen
Happy Thanksgiving, and thank God for the last best hope of man on earth, America.
Enjoy.
Perhaps tomorrow we can earn it.
HUGH HEWITT: “Thanksgiving,” you write, “excepting the premature and somewhat undernourished Canadian version, is unique to America.” You write that Europeans really just don’t get this.
MARK STEYN: No, it’s very strange that Europeans don’t quite understand what the Thanksgiving holiday is all about. You know, holidays in countries tend to be ancient religious holidays, obviously Christmas and Easter, or ones named for battles, or dead kings or queens, or whatever. And what I like about Thanksgiving is it’s very small scale, very modest, very intimate, very American, and absolutely gets to the key of things, which is thanking God for the blessings of this great land. And it’s my favorite holiday, and I love it more each year I’m here.
HH: Listen to this.[MUSIC]
We know we belong to the land!
And the land we belong to is grand!