In an op-ed at the New York Times Tom Ginsburg agrees with me that the importance of Magna Carta is much exaggerated:
But its fame rests on several myths. First, it wasn’t effective. In fact, it was a failure. John was a weak king who had squandered the royal fortune on a fruitless war with France. Continually raising taxes to pay for his European adventures, he provoked a revolt by his barons, who forced him to sign the charter. But John repudiated the document immediately, and the barons sought to replace him. John avoided that fate by dying.
The next year, his young son reissued Magna Carta, without some of the clauses. It was reissued several times more in the 13th century — the 1297 version is the one on display in the National Archives and embodied in English law. But the original version hardly constrained the monarch.
A second myth is that it was the first document of its type. Writing in 1908, Woodrow Wilson called it the beginning of constitutional government. But in fact, it was only one of many documents from the period, in England and elsewhere, codifying limitations on government power.
A third myth is that the document was a ringing endorsement of liberty. Even a cursory reading reveals a number of oddities. One clause prevents Jews from charging interest on a debt held by an underage heir. Another limits women’s ability to bear witness to certain homicides. A third requires the removal of fish traps from the Thames.
The English Bill of Rights of 1689 had obvious influence on the Virginia Bill of Rights which in turn had a great influence on Jefferson. I’m not so sure about the influence of Magna Carta on the English Bill of Rights. Citing it as an influence doesn’t make it so.
I’m not sure why citing the Magna Cara as influence wouldn’t demonstrate it’s influence. This reminds me of a discussion where you basically deny we know anything about the ancient Romans, and I point out that it doesn’t matter, what people have believed to be true has frequently created its own reality that is more important. The Founders contemplated the lessons of the Roman Republic and adopted Roman designs for its buildings and iconography, just like they did with the Magna Carta.
The Library of Congress has an on-line exhibit that traces the importance of the Magna Carta.
The linked author doesn’t get that a charter that “hardly constrained” the monarch in a time of divine right of kings is still very important. Woodrow Wilson is not important — Coke and Blackstone are. The Common law at the time the Constitution was enacted is still used to explicate its meaning, and Coke and Blackstone’s Whig interpretation of English Common Law placed importance on Magna Carta.
While in some situations the phrases used in Magna Carta are important, such as the right of freemen not to be deprived of life or property except “by the law of the land” (the antecedent to due process). In most cases, the importance is in the idea of pre-existing rights, such as what are the traditional procedures that are part of the common law of the land? We have a common law constitutional system rooted in 18th century Whig interpretations of history and law.
Just listened to a piece on NPR about Magna Carta, and a law professor shared the story of William Penn, who was a big proponent of the Charter. He would use it to demand a right to trial by jury when he was prosecuted for unlawful assembly (i.e., Quakerism). When time came for Penn to help write a Constitution for Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he incorporated the “Magna Carta” right to jury.
One can argue that Penn got it wrong, that trial by peers was meant to refer to the peerage class, but if you don’t believe in aristocracy or that we are all peers of each other in the eyes of G*d, then he is right.
@PD Shaw
A lot of people think that the succession was an orderly process – Father to firstborn son, and everybody lived happily ever after. They do not understand that any document is only enforceable if there is somebody willing and able to enforce it, and at the time, peasants were not considered the peers of nobles.
It is like when children do not understand how money works, and when you tell them you do not have any money, they tell you to write a check or use a debit card.