I continuing my study of the documents listed at USHistory.org I came to the conclusion that neither the Letter from Columbus announcing his arrival in the West Indies, nor The Mayflower Compact really qualify in my mind as founding documents. The letter from Columbus has no political content at all. I was not really surprised by that, I had simply not noticed it in the list before. I had expected to find some insights in the Mayflower Compact but the only idea worth thinking about is the basic idea of the compact which was that the signers pledged to work together for the good of the colony rather than seeking their own personal comfort at the expense of others. I would think that arriving in a foreign land with no hope of contact with civilization that idea would be human instinct 101.
Though I was less than impressed with those documents, I have now arrived at documents from the 18th century so I hope to see more ideas that influenced the development of the society that brought us the constitution upon which our government is supposed to be based.
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