Dear Member:
I want to extend my best wishes to all of our Queens Bar Association members for a Happy Thanksgiving.
I am sure that for many of us Thanksgiving 2020 will be far different than in past years and that some of us will be kept away from those that we love and care for due to this pandemic. Many of our traditions will be missed and as we sit down to our prayers before our meals we will find it hard to give thanks after the hardships of the past months. Sadly for some of us, there is the added loss of friends and family as it was for me in 2001 when I lost both parents. But we must remember that we do have thanks to give as we have all been made more aware of how fragile life can be and we will recognize what we have and the many gifts that we have been given. I hope that we all find time to give thanks for what we are most grateful for, our many blessings.
When the QCBA Board for the 2020-21 year was announced in those pre-covid days none of us had thought that we were to have one of the most challenging years in our 144 year history. There has been much that we attorneys have since dealt with and adapted to. Our Chief Judge and local Administrative Judges have done a good job in constructing a virtual court system that will bring us forward into the next century and I am hoping that they will seek comment and advice from our bar association going forward on how to fine-tune this new system just as our unique American legal system has been fine-tuned since the early1600’s.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims voyage aboard the Mayflower in 1620. The names of Miles Standish, John Alden, William Bradford and Edward Winslow were taught to many of us in Elementary School as the leaders of the Plymouth Colony. When the Pilgrims left England, they obtained permission from King James to settle on land farther to the south. Because they chose to remain where they landed in New England, they needed to obtain permission (called a patent) to remain and settle there. On November 11, 1620, while still aboard ship and needing to maintain order and establish a civil society while they waited for this new patent, the 41 adult male passengers signed what has since been known as the Mayflower Compact. The Compact was a legal instrument that bound them together as a single group and was the first document to establish self-governance in the new world. John Quincy Adams described the agreement that they drafted as “the only instance in human history of that positive, original, social compact." It was this agreement and its idea of self-government that evolved into the town meetings of New England and larger local governments in colonial America. It is significant also, because it recognized that from time to time our laws need to be adjusted for the good of the colony at large. In college I was taught that it influenced the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It reads:
“We whose names are underwritten…Having undertaken for the Glory of God … and Honour 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 of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together in 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 hereunder 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. Anno Domini 1620. (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison, 75-6)
I am thankful to be part of our Queens County Bar Association during this stressful time. I am thankful for our many members who have devoted many hours of their time to association meetings. I am thankful to be able to work with manyf of our members on pending litigation in a collegial manner and for our judges who are implementing and crafting the changes in our daily law practice. And lastly, I am also thankful for Arthur Terranova, Sasha Khan and Janice Ruiz and the staff of our Bar Association who perform so many duties that no one ever sees to keep our own Mayflower afloat.
On behalf of the QCBA Board of Managers I wish you all a most Happy Thanksgiving 2020!
Clifford Welden
