The comparison of the Utah Compact to the Mayflower Compact has always seemed a bit "off" to me.
I now think I know why.
The Mayflower Compact was a document establishing a government for the Mayflower group:
"...in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation..."
In other words, the creation of a "civil body politic" and governing laws were seen as essential to the ability of the group to survive.
The Mayflower Compact also adds this:
"...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."
The signers pledged "all due submission and obedience" to the laws they would create.
The Utah Compact, for all its noble principles, can't escape the perception that it was created to be a cover for those who wish to negate the underlying principles and reasons for our immigration laws and to do an end-run around the representative governmental processes that created them.
In short, the Utah Compact is nothing like the Mayflower Compact.
