Magna Carta Project

The Magna Carta is one of the earliest know versions of written law. It was issued in Latin in the year 1215 in England. It was translated into French in 1219 and in the late 13th century it was reissued in modern versions. In 1225 The Magna Carta was passed into law. The purpose of the Magna Carta was to limit the power of the monarchs in England, the Magna Carta was also the first document forced onto a King of England by his subjects. The Magna Carta was part of an open rebellion against the king in 1215. The Magna Carta was forced onto King John by a group of Bishops, Barons, Abbots who were upset with the Kings higher taxes and unsuccessful wars. The purpose of the Magna Carta was to limit the power of the king. The Magna Carta is the foundation for English common law. When the Founding Fathers drafted the Bill of Rights and the Constitution they looked to the Magna Carta for historical precedent on how to write them. Without the Magna Carta our life in the U.S. would probably be very different. The Magna Carta was one of the only documents in the world that listed rights that the people wanted. The founding fathers used this as historical precedent and if the Magna Carta didn't exist they would have had no historical precedent to go by and that means the Constitution would be different and we would probably have a different set of rights as citizens if there was no Magna Carta than if there was one. Without the Magna Carta there would be no 5th amendment which says that No one will be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. By the second half of the 19th century nearly all of the Magna Carta's clauses had been repealed.

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Works Cited

"Featured Document: The Magna Carta." Featured Document: The Magna Carta. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/>.

"Magna Carta." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://www.history.com/topics/magna-carta>.

Magna Carta. N.d. Photograph. Wikipedia. Web. 4 Oct. 2012. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Magna_Carta.jpg>.

"Magna Carta." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2012. Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta>.