Magna Carta Argumentative Essay

The Magna Carta, meaning a “great charter”, is one of the most famous documents in the world. It has inspired people across the centuries from Thomas Jefferson to Mahatma Gandhi. It has also shaped most the general principles in England and around the world. In this paper, I will be explaining the story of the Magna Carta and the impact it has on our modern world.

The tyranny of England was not the sole power that led to the rights and liberty declared in the Declaration of Independence. Instead, it was Britain’s own Bill of Rights which acted as a precursor to America’s document of freedom. Although there are a vast amount of similarities between the two documents, I will argue that they are different in stated grievances, remedies, views on sources of political power, models of governance, and of rights and government.

In the 1200s, the Magna Carta was written to satisfy the demanded rights the people of England wanted at the time in order to make things more peaceful for the people. Rights in the Magna Carta included, but were not limited to right to jury by trail, limits on taxation, the protection of private property and also certain religious rights. The U.S. Constitution, a document created in the 1700s, became a new creation to help protect Americans from a government that seemed to be too powerful. Both are documents that are similar in so many ways, although they appear to be different in other ways as well. Likewise, the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution both were created to so strike down a government that was too dominant.

It is commonly believed that after the onset of the Civil War, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was the key driver to freeing the slaves of the south. After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional amendments were passed which aided newly freed slaves in being equally treated under the law, or so the story goes. The fact of the matter is that even after the Emancipation Proclamation and after the amendments, slavery in the United States was still “legal” and not only that, but it took on a much different form. The institution of slavery changed from having the direct enslavement of blacks, to the United States legal and prison system enslaving blacks. Yet, the enslavement itself was changed as black convicts

The seventh section of these black codes allowed for the return of freed blacks to their employers if they were to quit “the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause.” What a blacks’ term of service and what defined just cause for ending that term of service, would likely be left up to the employer, creating a system which virtually defined slavery itself. Since blacks were required to be employed, this meant that they could be held in slave-like conditions to white employers.

The paper confronts assumptions about the English and UK constitutional framework leading up to the Magna Carta and other documents that both lead up to, and follow it. Our constitution has roots in English common law and written law. Common law was in place and used before written laws were created. The Magna Carta was emplaced to end common law in England. The Manga Carta was the first written laws that shifted the English political system to something

Thomas Paine’s ideal future for America is the “Charter of the United Colonies”, a form of representative government that the colonists

Another man named Sir William Blackstone wrote “Commentaries on the Laws of England”. This became very popular to America because we didn’t have these kind of laws or structure. The British didn’t have an actual written Constitution, but everyone knew by tradition. If you wanted to be a lawyer back in those years, you wouldn’t go to law school. Instead you would have

The United States was created by the separation from a tyrannical king. A new colony formed in pursuit of one topic; religious freedom. The founding fathers were arranged to present relief from the king’s ruling. In a time of desperation, the founding fathers were pushed into creating a new form of government that would meet the needs of the people, yet still maintain ordinance. The Mayflower Compact was the first blueprint for the establishment of democracy used present. However, John Locke’s second treatise of government and the Magna Carta is what really gave the founding fathers the foundation that shaped the government known today.

Britain, itself a landed aristocracy (Bailyn 186), alienated land owners in America by regulating currency toward the advantage of the British real estate company London Agents, Robert Cary & Co (Johnson 131). Any serious British legal matter onerous and intolerably slow to resolve. Britain’s bureaucracy was a behemoth in the eyes of commonsensible Americans. To add to this toil was the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean.

On January 1st of 1649, the Rump Parliament of England passed a mandate for the trial of King Charles I to which he would be charged with “subverting the fundamental laws and liberties of the nation while maliciously making war on the parliament and people of England.” After years of civil war and various failures in fulfilling kingly duties, Charles faced a trial against a strategically assembled English court that would choose his fate. This stands out in history as one of the most noteworthy and dramatic events in early modern England- a domestic political crisis unlike anything that had ever been seen before. Over the years historians have debated in how they characterize the king’s trial and its end result, referring to the execution as “a crime of the worst magnitude, a regrettable necessity, or a laudable challenge to either an individual ruler or the entire political system.” Due to the overall disapproval of the trial by prominent individuals, biased personnel assembled in the court, questionable legal legitimacy, improper court proceedings and unfortunate socio-economic circumstances during his reign, it can be concluded that King Charles I did not receive a fair trial.

The first revision took place in 1217, and the second revision took place in 1225. The original copy of the Charter pretended to state customary law and it promoted disagreement and contention. The Magna Carta’s full “effect” did not occur until later, at first, it was only legally valid for no more than three months. Within these three months, the Charter’s terms were never properly fulfilled. After removing all reference to tallage, the Charter achieved formal consistency at the cost of its real intent.

Our founding fathers are not the geniuses you think they are just because they created our government. They borrowed many of the concepts from other people who’ve had their rulers abuse power. The people they borrowed from were Barons back in England in 1215. Those Barons would be the people who created the Magna Carta, which would have the most influence to our founding fathers while they were creating our government. The Magna Carta is the most influential concept to our government today because it started the beliefs of Rule of Law, Limited Government, and Due Process which are concepts seen in our government today.

The Magna Carta is one of the most revered legal document and has played a critical role in the evolution of the law for the past 800 years. Under the reign of the most reviled monarch in history, King John, the Magna Carta was drafted to hold the King accountable for the many injustices that he committed and to forcibly hold him to the laws of the land. (Mckay) On June 15, 1215 at Runnymede King John was held responsible for the grievances that he committed during his reign and by force, he signed a treaty that would become the inspiration for what has become known as “the due process of law”. (Morris)

The ideas for The Act of Supremacy document, I assume, would have been from King Henry VIII but was written by Lord Thomas Cromwell to be made into