Today is Magna Carta Day

[BaalChatzaf]

800 years ago on June 15, 1215 the Barons had King John cornered and forced him to sign Magna Carta. See http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-english-translation for an English translation.

This one http://edsitement.neh.gov/sites/edsitement.neh.gov/files/worksheets/Annotation737.pdf has annotations.

It may not seem like much, but it was the first instrument which put the government under the constraints of law.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Magna Carta led by steps and lurches to modern constitutions which limit the power of government including the Constitution of the U.S.A.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14994&page=1#entry225631

[syrakusos]

Well, it is cool and I have it in Latin and Englishe. Note that when I post my annual Newtonmas message, some wag reminds us that the calendar has changed and December 25 Old Style is now January 6. I must demur. And so, too, here: June 15 is the date, not June 21 New Style.

That said, Magna Carta was ignored blatantly several times and re-instantiated in response.

And, just to note, a card-carrying anthropologist will tell you that perhaps every society has some kind of checks and balances, that few allow unlimited arbitrary power. Whether that is true now or was true of our proto-human ancestors, the bottom line is that "rule of law" goes back at least to the 17th century BCE to the Code of Ur-Nammu, which preceded the Code of Hammurabi. See here:

http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Sumer/ur_nammu_law.htm

It is true that these ancient codes were lost and at some point ceased to be in our historical continuity. All we had was the Bible and its rendering of so-called Mosaic Law and Leviticus. But, about 1900 CE when these tablets were rediscovered and translated, scholars were able to identify the true origins of those Biblical traditions -- eye for an eye, etc., etc.,

That being as it is, the continuing tradition of limited government in Western civilization easily looks to the Laws of Drakon of Athens (Draco c. 650-600 BCE). Draconian laws are harsh penalties. We resist those as usurpations of power, but Drakon the tyrant of Athens made murder a state offense, rather than a family feud. And the penalty for murder was death. The archaic Athenians felt that that was unfair… In the next generation, Solon the Lawgiver offered a better solution -- though murder remained illegal...

What happened in Athens only reflected cultural shifts in the Greek world: writing replaced speech, coins replaced cows, commerce replaced agriculture, philosophy replaced religion, hoplites replaced melee, tyrants replaced kings.

Skip forward to Rome and you find another old tradition of republicanism: res publica, the public thing. We see the Senate, of course, but it was only the highest and broadest of bodies. At the local level, Romans chose their councilors in open elections. And when that failed, they chose a dictator for a specific period of time under specific conditions. The so-called emperors of the 100s CE and along were always just "first citizens" granted offices of responsibility by the senate. Yes, eventually and too soon it degenerated, but always, it maintained the form (and fiction) of republican (limited) government.

​… and then in the so-called "Middle Ages" the Church served as a moral constraint on what could only be described objectively as warlordism. See "The Walk to Canossa (1077)" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa