English and Colonial Roots

Magna Carta (1215)

In 1215 rebellious English barons forced King John to agree to the Magna Carta ("Great Charter") at Runnymede. It was a practical peace treaty, largely about the barons' feudal rights, and the pope annulled it within months. Later kings reissued it, though, and over the centuries it became a symbol of a powerful idea: the king is not above the law.

"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

Magna Carta, clause 39 (modern English translation)

"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice."

Magna Carta, clause 40

Legacy in America

• Rule of law and limited government: even the ruler is bound by law. See rule of law.
• Due process: "the law of the land" became "due process of law" in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
• Trial by peers: an ancestor of the jury trial.
• No taxation without consent: the charter required the "general consent" of the realm for certain levies. The colonists later made a similar argument against Parliament's taxes.

The Mayflower Compact (1620)

In November 1620, before leaving the Mayflower to found Plymouth Colony, 41 male passengers signed an agreement. They had landed outside the area their charter covered, and some passengers claimed no one had authority over them. The compact created a government by consent:

"[We] do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation … 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."

Mayflower Compact, 1620

Significance: it is an early American example of social contract thinking, self-government, and majority rule, written decades before Locke. Along with the Virginia House of Burgesses (1619), the first elected representative assembly in the English colonies, it began a tradition of colonial self-rule. Connecticut's Fundamental Orders (1639) is often called the first written constitution in the colonies.

The English Bill of Rights (1689)

In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parliament removed King James II. It offered the crown to William and Mary on condition that they accept a declaration of rights, enacted in 1689 as the English Bill of Rights. It established parliamentary supremacy over the monarch. Among its provisions:

• The monarch may not suspend laws or levy taxes without Parliament's consent: "levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament … is illegal."
• No standing army in peacetime without Parliament's consent.
• Free elections to Parliament and freedom of speech and debate in Parliament.
• Subjects have the right to petition the king.
• Protestant subjects may have arms for their defense "suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law."
• "That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Influence: The U.S. Bill of Rights borrowed from it directly. The 8th Amendment repeats its language, and the rights to petition (1st), to bear arms (2nd), and the Speech or Debate Clause (Art. I, Sec. 6) all have parallels. John Locke's Two Treatises (1689) was widely read as a defense of the Glorious Revolution's principles.

From Loyal Subjects to Revolutionaries (1763–1776)

After the French and Indian War (1754–63), Britain had large debts and began taxing and regulating the colonies more closely. The colonists claimed the "rights of Englishmen." They argued that only their own elected assemblies could tax them, since they had no representatives in Parliament.

Many of these grievances reappear in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Quartering soldiers led to the 3rd Amendment, writs of assistance to the 4th, and trials without juries to the 6th and 7th.