A group of insurgent medieval lords persuaded King John of England to accept a long list of demands in 1215, which became known as the Great Charter, or Magna Carta in Latin. This feudal treaty served as a significant source of guidance for the founders of America when they drafted the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights generations later.
Magna Carta significantly influenced the Constitution of the USA and the individual states’ constitutional amendments. However, the meaning that Americans ascribed to the Magna Carta in the eighteenth century impacted its relevance. A legacy encapsulating American mistrust of centralized governmental authority was the Magna Carta, popularly regarded as the people’s revival of liberties against the authoritarian sovereign. Due mainly to this history, most state constitutions include statements of rights designed to guarantee specific residents a list of safeguards and exemptions from the state government. This political commitment was one of the reasons the United States eventually established the Bill of Rights.
Several provisions recognized at the time of their ratification as deriving from the Magna Carta’s protection of rights included the regional declarations of liberties and the United States Bill of Rights. These include freedom from illegal searches and seizures, the opportunity to a fair trial, the right to a judicial proceeding in both criminal and civil cases, and the defense against taking someone’s life, freedom, or property without following the rules of the law. The interpretation of the Magna Carta in the eighteenth century that led to the conception of representative democracy, the notion of the highest court, and judicial review is where many more general constitutional ideas in the United States today have their origins.