The Magna Carta and its Application in the New World

The 1297 version of Magna Carta, one of four originals of the document. 

Without exaggeration, it can be plainly asserted that the American Bill of Rights is the crown jewel of the United States Constitution and guarantee of the rights of man outlined in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, many of our founding fathers refused to support the ratification of the Constitution without the inclusion of the Bill of Rights.  That said, the American Bill of Rights is not only a creation of our founding fathers. The genesis of the American Bill of Rights is not found in the western hemisphere but instead is found in the Old World of England beginning with Magna Carta and culminating with the Petition of Rights of 1689. The fact of the matter is English law in connection with the rights of Englishmen inspired and mirror the American Bill of Rights.

During the Dark Ages, England was a lawless place. The sovereign monarchs of England had absolute power and authority over the people in England. At this time, people believed that monarchs were chosen by God to rule over the people, and for this reason, it was believed that rebellion against the monarch was not only a crime but a sin. By the beginning of the 12th century, kings in England began to contemplate and provide some limitations to their absolute power. Upon his ascension to the throne in 1100, Henry I issued his Charter of Liberties (also known as the Coronation Charter). The Charter of Liberties provides as follows: “Know that by the mercy of God and by the common counsel of the barons of England I have been crowned king of this realm. And because the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust exactions, being moved by reverence towards God and by the love I bear you all, I make free the Church of God…I abolish all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England has been unjustly oppressed.”  The Charter of Liberties provided also for limits on the sovereign in regards to taxation and other arbitrary abuses of monarchical power, but while Henry I largely ignored the Charter of Liberties during his reign, the Charter of Liberties began a slow and steady march towards limits on the power of English monarchs.

In the beginning of the 13th century, King John (1199–1216) rose to power as a tyrant who ignored feudal law and was actually excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. With his exorbitant increase of taxes, extortion of the people and nobility, and multiple military excursions to recapture lands in France, King John alienated many of the nobles in England and a civil war broke out. By 1215, the nobility grew more tired of King John and, on June 15, 1215 at Runnymeade, these nobles led by Robert FitzWalter forced King John to except Magna Carta Liberatum in order to secure some of the rights and privileges of the nobility.

Magna Carta, a document written in Latin and negotiated between King John and the nobles at the time, provides, inter alia, for the church to be free and for the church’s elections to be undisputed by the crown.  Magna Carta also granted certain property rights to the class of elites in England and its barons. Magna Carta, in its simplest terms, was a very specific peace treaty between the monarch and the nobility which contained 63 specific paragraphs regarding the future relationship between the parties thereto.  Three months after the execution of Magna Carta and despite said peace treaty, civil war broke out again.  After King John’s death in 1216, Magna Carta was modified and re-issued in 1217 with the final version being issued in 1225 by Henry III.

Magna Carta introduced important principles in connection to the political institutions in England.  Simply put, monarchs no longer possessed absolute and arbitrary power to rule over the nobles and elites in English society but instead the nobles and elites maintained certain rights.  That said, Magna Carta did not extend any rights to the common people and peasants in English society.  Such extension of certain rights to the non-elite in English society was not accomplished until the 17th century as discussed hereinbelow.  

According to Robert Blackburn in his article titled, “Magna Carta and the Development of the British Constitution” (Historian London 125, Spring 2015), Blackburn asserts that the nobility revolted against King John because of King John’s violation of “conservative assertion of traditional customs and ancient liberties,” and not because of some “progressive political ideology.”  Blackburn posits that Magna Carta was simply the result of the advancing of the interests of the nobility in England which King John usurped by his abuses of “customs and incidents of feudal society.” Further and as a direct result of King John’s unpopularity due to his failure in the Spanish war, his conflicts with the church, and “high taxation at a time when inflation was rife,” Blackburn asserts that, if there was a viable alternative to King John by way of coup, “Magna Carta might never have happened.”