Speaking before the first convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), then California Governor Ronald Reagan began his road to the White House by reminding listeners that the American story was a journey expressed in written documents that formed a roadmap to liberty. The date of his speech was January 25, 1974, but Governor Reagan brought listeners to a sermon penned and delivered aboard a ship which had arrived in New England some 344 years prior:
"Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said: ‘We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.’ Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom... We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.”
The John Winthrop referenced by Reagan was the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. He would ultimately be elected twelve times to the position, but in 1630, he was leading “the Great Migration” of ships carrying more than 700 settlers who would arrive over the year. These settlers were united in the common cause of forging a society of individuals in covenant one with another and under God.
On board his vessel, he delivered a sermon presenting the vision for a “City on a Hill” and adapted from the biblical passage of Matthew 5:14-15 as the vision for the colony:
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.”
Though the original document is lost, the message was transcribed and has become a seminal historical text of American history. Winthrop’s message came at the tail end of the formational decade of the American journey. Between 1620 and 1630, from Plymouth to Salem to Boston, Americans charted a course which would influence for four centuries, based on spiritual resolve, fidelity to law, and determination to honor a covenant with God regardless of difficulties.
The Mayflower Compact
The first great declaration of this emerging vision was drafted aboard the Mayflower in 1620 as a compact. A compact is a covenant made between individuals and under God. It had as its object the establishment of a society “…for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith.”
The Mayflower Compact was the gold standard for the budding nation’s test of spiritual fortitude. (It was later confirmed and incorporated by reference into The Pierce Patent of 1621.) The Compact not only established Plymouth as a society to be governed under the laws of God through a republican representative government, but it declared the purpose of the colony in “advancing the Kingdom for the Glory of God.“
Salem - City of Peace
A second great declaration emerged through the birth of Salem, the “City of Peace.” Founded by Roger Conant in 1626 as “Naumkeig,” the name was changed by their Pastor Higginson in 1629 when he considered Psalm 76:2 – “in Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion.”
“We that are settled at Salem make what hast we can to build Houses, so that within a short time we shall haue a faire Towne. We have great Ordnance, wherewith we doubt not but we shall fortifie our selues in a short time to keepe out a potent Aduersarie…Thankes be to God, we haue plentie of Preaching, and diligent Catechizing, with strickt and carefull exercise, and good and commendable orders to bring our People into a Christian conuersation with whom we haue to doe withall. And thus we doubt not but God will be with us, and if God be with us, who can be against us?”
Governor John Winthrop, National Portrait Gallery
Pastor John White, the “father of Massachusetts,” predicted that Salem “would be a bulwark against the kingdom of Anti-Christ.” Such a declaration became a challenge, as if a bullseye had been painted on Salem, making it the focus of one of the great tests of American history - the Witchcraft Trials of 1692.
The Winthrop Sermon
The third document was Winthrop’s “A Modell of Christian Charity.” More than any document emerging from the American experience before 1776, Winthrop’s call for America to be a “City on A Hill” shaped the American identity.
The success of civilization depended on unity under God. In the New World, Christian citizens were to be “knit together in this work as one man.” Each person was called to solidarity with others united in a common purpose. For Pilgrim and Puritan, God had given them the vision, the land, and the people to perfect the work of the Reformation and faithfully advance the Kingdom of God.
Winthrop explained to those immigrating to the colony that “the eyes of the world would be upon them.” They would be “as a city set upon a hill for all to observe.” Greatness would emerge with the blessing of God on a great purpose, even as the loss of such a purpose would signal its decline.
For centuries, Winthrop’s message seeped into sermons, political messages, and the collective consciousness of the American people. Its impact on American literature was not small. Notably, by the 1980s, the Winthrop text even opened the most influential anthology in the United States, The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world…if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it. Therefore, let us choose life, that we and our seed may live, by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity.
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America - A Great Light in a Dark World
When Reagan quoted Winthrop in 1974, he was reminding his audience of a centuries-old perspective on the origins and destiny of America. It was a reference point and perspective that Americans of both major political parties understood and accepted.
Reagan was certainly not the first to remember Winthrop’s legacy bequeathing future generations a roadmap for a just civil society and establishing its legacy as light-bearers to the world. Thirteen years earlier, on January 9, 1961, President-elect John Kennedy quoted Winthrop when he addressed the Massachusetts Legislature with a message known as the Kennedy “City on a Hill” speech:
“The enduring qualities of Massachusetts - the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant - will not be and could not be forgotten in this nation's executive mansion…But I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arabella three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier…
"We must always consider," he said, "that we shall be as a city upon a hill - the eyes of all people are upon us…and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill - constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities…
“For we are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arabella in 1630. We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less awesome than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within.”
By 1982, Reagan was President of the United States. In his second Thanksgiving Address to the people, he invoked the Pilgrims and the vision of Winthrop as formulative to his own view of the exceptional place of the United States in the world:
“I have always believed that this anointed land was set apart in an uncommon way, that a divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the earth who had a special love of faith and freedom. Our pioneers asked that He would work His will in our daily lives so America would be a land of morality, fairness, and freedom.” Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1982
There it was - Reagan’s understanding of America’s roadmap to blessing. It began with a recognition of the exceptional quality of the American experiment in liberty, including “a divine plan” recognized throughout the world such that this nation would be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.
Nearly 16 years after he famously pointed Americans to the covenantal foundations of life and liberty under God at CPAC 1974, President Reagan departed office with the same reminder:
"I’ve spoken of the Shining City all my political life. … In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.’” Ronald Reagan Farewell Address, 1988
