Following a civil war under the reign of King John, the Magna Carta emerged in 1215 first as terms of a treaty and later as the foundation of the English Constitution. In seed form, it established inalienable rights that no monarch had the power to remove. For instance, it said that “No [extraordinary tax] shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom.” It also posited the right to trial by jury, declared the Church free from government coercion, and generally exalted the rule of law.1 So powerful were its arguments that politicians and scholars over the next eight centuries cited them to defend personal liberties. The following is a sample of the Magna Carta’s champions.

1. Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) drew on it to codify English Common Law. At times, his passion for legal integrity involved great risk. During a Privy Council meeting in 1608, for instance, King James I claimed power to override the decisions of all other judges and dismiss them at will. But Coke disagreed, telling the king, “The law is the golden metewand and measure to try the causes of your majesty’s subjects.” At that, James flew into a rage. He screamed that it was treason to say he was under the law and lurched forward to punch Coke. In response, Coke prostrated himself and begged for mercy.2 Short lived as it was, the challenge was nonetheless courageous and reflected the Magna Carta’s influence.

2. Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600-1661) refuted the common dictum that “the king is law.” His book Lex, Rex (meaning “the law is king”) supported rule by law rather than by a ruler’s whims. He argued from Deuteronomy 17 to uphold the Magna Carta’s claims, advocating separation of powers and a form of social contract.3 When the monarchy was restored in 1660, authorities burned Lex, Rex and cited Rutherford with high treason. He died before the citation took effect.4

3. William Penn (1644-1718), founder of Pennsylvania, saw the Magna Carta as an invaluable guide to the society he sought to fashion. Thus, he reprinted it to inform the functioning of his government and commended it to all Pennsylvania residents: “This excellent Law holds first place in our Statute Books; ‘tis called Magna Carta, or the great Charter, not in respect of its bulk, but in regard to the great importance and weight of the matters therein contained.”5

4. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) testified before the House of Commons in 1766 that according to the Magna Carta, Parliament had no right to levy taxes on the American colonies without allowing them representatives in Parliament.6

5. John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United States, cited the Magna Carta to protest England’s decision to impose the Stamp Act on the American colonies. The act levied a type of tax, Adams said, that Englishmen had long regarded as unjust. Indeed it was “a grand and fundamental principle of the constitution, that no freeman would be subject to any tax to which he had not given his own consent, in person or by proxy,” he said. When England took power away from colonial courts, Adams found it “directly repugnant to the Great Charter itself.”7

6. American legal scholar Thomas M. Cooley (1824-1898) served as Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. He argued that judges should interpret the U.S. Constitution based on “[t]he maxims of Magna Charta [sic].”8

In addition, the principles of the Magna Carta undergirded the U.S. Constitution, the Nuremberg Trials, modern British laws, and the prosecutions of criminal dictators like Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein. Indeed, whenever believers enjoy freedoms established by this foundational text of liberty, they should thank God for the brave men who passed down its heritage.9
Footnotes:
1

See Kairos Journal article, “The Foundation of the English Constitution—the Magna Carta,” http://kairosjournal.org/document.aspx?QuadrantID=3&DocumentID=5384&L=1&CategoryID=11&TopicID=27. For complete text of the Magna Carta, see National Archives and Records Administration Website, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/translation.html (accessed March 15, 2010).
2

Geoffrey Robertson, The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold (New York: Anchor, 2007), 26.
3

Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex (London: John Field, 1644), available at Constitution Society Website, http://www.constitution.org/sr/lexrex.htm (accessed March 17, 2010).
4

John W. Cousin, “A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature,” Project Gutenberg Website, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13240/13240-h/13240-h.htm (accessed March 15, 2010).
5

William F. Swindler, Magna Carta: Legend and Legacy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), 213.
6

Ibid., 218.
7

Ibid., 217.
8

Ibid., 235.
9

article adopted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located across from the Principio Health Center on Rt. 40.