by Wayne Dyer
The Library of Congress website tells us, “Each year on May 1st, Law Day provides an opportunity for everyone to reflect on our legal heritage, on the role of law, and on the rights and duties which are the foundation of peace and prosperity for all mankind.”
The First Amendment to the US Constitution reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
William Brewster of the Mayflower and the First Amendment are tied together in history. William Brewster was born in 1567 in Scrooby, Nottingham shire, England. He was the son of William and Mary Brewster, attended Cambridge University and later became an assistant secretary of state to Holland for Queen Elizabeth I. He returned to Eng-land and took over for his father as postmaster and bailiff in Scrooby.
By the time Queen Elizabeth took the throne in 1559 printing had become important as documents were reaching the common people and ideas were expanding. There was a great struggle between Protestants and Catholics with persecution against both sides as one monarch favored one religion and the next another. Stopping publications representing the views of opposing groups was common practice of the current monarch.
In the 1550’s a printing monopoly was given to the Stationers’ Company. Authorized printing presses were allowed only in London, Edinburgh, Dublin and universities. The Oxford University Press still exists today. In 1559 the queen or Star Chamber or university chancellors licensed all publications. The Stationers’ Company evolved over time into the governmental agency charged with controlling printing in England. On the surface it was a London based guild of approximately ninety-seven printers, bookbinders and booksellers. But the participants worked with the approval of the crown and its charter gave it a monopoly over what was published in England.
One of the obligations of the Stationers’ Company was to control the publication and distribution of “blasphemous” materials in England. This meant, of course, any publication that the crown disapproved of. Also, the Stationers’ Company in effect owned the printing. As a practical matter, the printers approved each other’s projects and the ownership of those projects came under the umbrella organization, the Company of Stationers. In this form the Stationers’ Company lasted for 150 years. It came to an end in 1694 when Parliament allowed the last of the licensing acts to expire.
In 1576 the Stationers’ Company started conducting weekly searches for unlicensed books. Severe penalties were imposed for violations. Admonition was backed up by example, and the severity with which offenders were occasionally treated served as a reminder of the risk involved in meddling with such matters. William Carter, a printer who had been imprisoned on several occasions for printing “naughtye papysticall books,” found that these were no empty threats. On January 10, 1584, he was condemned for high treason as having printed a seditious book entitled, A treatise of schisme, and, “on the morrow, he was drawn from Newgate to Tyburn and there hanged, bowelled and quartered.”
Various religious groups grew in England during this same time. The Puritans hoped to “purify” the Church of England. Separatists groups, mostly from northern counties like Lincoln, York and Nottingham, wanted to separate from the church. A group who eventually evolved into the Mayflower pilgrims tried to leave once but were blocked and sent back amidst mocking and harassment. One of their complaints was that they could not defend their positions without printed documents. They did successfully leave for Holland in 1609.
The only printing restrictions in Holland concerned private character and public morals. Many religious groups had presses there especially in Leyden where the pilgrims settled. Three main people led the pilgrim group. John Robinson was the minister. Thomas Brewer was a rich landowner from Kent who financed much of the printing. William Brewster was the printer. They studied many printed documents and decided to establish Pilgrim Press in Brewster’s home. Pilgrim Press produced about twenty titles with many copies of each.
Back in England printing restrictions were causing much persecution and redress in the courts. In 1614 King James I dissolved Parliament and it did not return for seven years.
In 1618 there was a big uproar over a document known as Perth Assembly. King James called church leaders together and thrust ceremonies into church services. Five of the ceremonies were very distasteful to Presbyterians in Scotland. David Calderwood, minister in Crailing, wrote his own version of Perth Assembly and got it to Brewster, Brewer and Robinson. They printed it and returned it to Scotland in wine vats and it was widely distributed. This enraged King James. He described Calderwood as “a very knave.” Calderwood was hunted from house to house and town to town. He managed to escape to Holland and did not return until after King James died in 1625.
Thomas Brewer was brought back to England with the understanding he would be questioned, confess and be released. This was arranged by Cambridge University. He was questioned by King James for two months and released. After the death of pilgrim minister John Robinson in 1629 he returned to England, where he was arrested and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He lived for six months after his release.
William Brewster was the most wanted of the group. The English search for him went beyond its jurisdiction to include his own house in Holland. He escaped and no one knew where he hid until the Mayflower voyage. He was aware of the fate of another Scottish minister, Alexander Leighton, in 1619. Leighton had published a book found to be libelous against the Church of England. He was fined 100,000 pounds, (approximately $5,000,000 today) whipped, pilloried, and had one ear cut off. Branded “SS” (stirrer of sedition) on his forehead, he was put in prison “until a convenient time.”
Whipped and pilloried again, his other ear was cut off, and he was imprisoned for life in Fleet prison.
At the same time the separatist pilgrim church was not happy with life in Holland. Their children were leaving the church for the more liberal society there. They made arrangements with English businessmen for two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, to take them to Virginia in the New World. Minister John Robinson was not allowed to get a passport by order of King James.
It is believed that English authorities were hoping to capture William Brewster in Plymouth, England before the ships left if he dared try to escape with the group. Brewster was a learned man greatly admired by the Pilgrims. The list of Mayflower passengers includes the alias, Master Williamson. This is thought to be William Brewster the son of William. Mourt ‘s Relation, a journal of pilgrim history, refers to Captain Standish and Master Williamson. William Mullins’ will, dictated just before he died the first winter in February 1621, named Governor Carver and a Master Williamson. Brewster remained the church elder of the Plymouth church until a minister arrived in 1629. He died in Plymouth in 1644.
Before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth they realized they were physically outside the geographical area controlled by England since they arrived at Cape Cod and not Virginia. Cherishing freedom but realizing they needed some form of government, they composed and signed the Mayflower Compact, calling themselves “loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James.” They hoped for basic freedoms in the New World.
It is not by mistake or coincidence that the first amendment bundled freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and petition of grievances. The Bill of Rights protects US citizens from its own government. The framers, some of whom were from Massachusetts, knew of past abuses based on religious beliefs, speech, assembly, printing and seeking relief from government wrongs. They went on with amendments about firearms, search and seizure, trials, arrests, legal representation, confessions, bail, punishment, and property rights. People like William Brewster, John Robinson, Thomas Brewer, David Calderwood, William Carter and Alexander Leighton were willing to establish the principles that we take for granted. President Dwight Eisenhower knew it was important to remember and reflect on our legal heritage when he proclaimed Law Day in 1958.
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Categories: History
…and no person is above the law, including former Presidents.
Like Barack Obama: The original social engineer, self-proclaimed “community organizer” & socialist: i.e. Communist.
————— Happy May Day ——————
That is if they can stay awake without their Diet Coke and Adderall
You mean we can’t hang draw, bowel or quarter anymore? Seems like a reasonable approach to get some of these non compliant people’s attention
Today is also May Day…..Originating in & observed primarily in locales like Russia, the former USSR, to “celebrate” the Labour Movement, aka the Labor or Communist movement and party. PBS itself has even termed the movement’s meaning: “The opposite of Capitalism” – in a rather revealing descriptive.
In Vermont, those who know history denounce the “celebration” of a movement which has led to the deaths of over 200 million peoples worldwide since the beginning of the 20th century & continues throughout the present day in countries such as Communist China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.
Instead, on May 1, US patriots who realize that the enemy is again within and know that they are here encroaching upon our intrinsic freedoms & liberty – instead proclaim: Mayday! – The international distress call to emergency responders meant to alert others to a life-threatening emergency. Today, we are the emergency responders & today we must go forth to save the souls of this USA from the Communist revolutionaries embedded in Vermont’s Capital & throughout its union states.
may first is the day i renew my camp lease with the silvio conte refuge//// this was not the smartest thing i ever did/// i was much better off having the lease with the paper companies/// the goal of silvio conte is to remove all of the camps in the refuge/// this fits the pattern of agenda 2030/// now the question is who is behind all of this land control/// i did question why may first was the lease renewal date///
ops, i almost forgot/// my deploy malloy sign was stolen off the leased right of way going into my camp//// yes, and i know who took it////
Wow ! Thank you, Guy. I have not heard Law Day mentioned since i was a kid ! No one remembers it.
Ahh, the Pilgrims and the Mayflower Compact. Not quite the homogeneous group or governance we are often taught to consider.
Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, only 41 were ‘Pilgrims’ (the religious separatists from the Church of England). And while pastor William Brewster is often credited with writing the ‘Mayflower Pact’, as a rule of law it was in flux from the get-go. The pact was religiously intolerant. Christians only. And the notion of ‘self-government’ and ‘common consent’ were fledgling, undefined concepts.
One of the most interesting prospects of Plymouth Colony politics is written by William Bradford, Plymouth Governor, as he recounted the initiation of one the most significant human rights considerations in the history of western society.
“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.“
“So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content.”
So, on this ‘Law Day’, let us not ignore one of the most important inalienable rights that was first established in 1623 and, 164 years later, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution… the right to own property and practice free enterprise.