Eight hundred years ago, Magna Carta was signed by King John at Runnymede, England. The event was the first attempt to enumerate the ancient liberties of the English-speaking people and to constrain the government, in the body of King John, with the acknowledgement that the law existed outside the whim of the king and freedmen held certain ancient, inalienable rights. Of course, King John immediately tried to get out of what he promised, but then that is government for you. However, the acknowledgement had occurred and the die was cast. Magna Carta was a part of English governance and our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are direct descendants. In the ensuing centuries, the monarchs of England waxed and waned in their honoring the ancient liberties, several times to the cost of their head as Charles II discovered in the First English Civil War. We are all, at least vaguely, familiar with our own forefathers’ attempt to once again constrain government on the grounds of lack of representation and to ensure the liberties of the People by doing away with the king all together and, supposedly, creating limited government of the People. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking we are again in one of those waning periods.
So what are these liberties from time immemorial that we as Americans are privileged to live in the country that most embodies them? Well, there is representative government. This came to be Parliament in England and Congress in the U.S. This representative body was suppose to control government for the people, but it seems of late those “representatives” have found it more profitable to control the People, both here and in Britain. Then we have secure private property This is known to be a key element of prosperity. Common law, a single law of the land that governs king and pauper, government and citizen that comes not from the mouth of the king but the traditions of the people. And the individual liberties, a few, but not all, are enumerated in our Bill of Rights. It was argued at our founding that we didn’t need a Bill of Rights because the ancient liberties were part of the culture of the new America and therefore redundant. However, the persistent attacks and undermining of those rights, especially in recent years. puts us on notice that the culture of the English-speaking people honoring those rights as ancient and inalienable is itself waning now that it has been demoted in our education curriculum to being taught as unexceptional, no better than any other.
But in this celebratory year, the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, perhaps we should reflect on the ancient liberties of the English-speaking people, nee Englishmen, nee Anglo-Saxons, and, yes, the cultural relativists at the universities will remind us of the many historical deficiencies of the culture that carries those ancient liberties, but as we enjoy those very freedoms and liberties that Anglosphere culture shepherded through the last millennium and spread across the world, we should ask, are we doing our part to maintain the culture so as to continue those ancient liberties through time and across the world? Or are we letting that culture and those liberties be eroded by government and activist?
Oh and as an aside, why has the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta been essentially ignored by American humanities and political science departments as well as the K12 educational cartel? Seems like an excellent excuse to promote the study of American history, our civil governance. as well as the study of Western Civilization.
Jeff Brown