shakespeare, costume and architecture and in music it i grew up with the belief that the sun never sets on the british empire. i collected stamps from all over the british empire. all americans knew then that george washington, john adams, john j, benjamin franklin, sam adams and nearly all the founding fathers were englishmen. alexander hamilton was a scott born in the caribbean. as they came, so later did settlers from germany, france and italy, austria, hungary poland, sweden swiss, russians chinese and all the countries who came to the melting pot of america over the past 400 years. since the founding of jamestown in 1607. my parents took it to the new york world's fair in 1940, just seven years old, to see many of the country's exhibitions and among them for the first time, i saw magna carta at the reddish exhibition. -- british exhibition. it was the 1214 version. as a serving officer in the united states army in 1957, i was returning to america to be discharged after serving in korea. my tour of duty was completed. i first day in london, i went to the british busy and to see two things -- the magna carta and the rosetta stone. to me, they represented the icons of civilization in a civilized society. the rule of law and communication outside the village. i became a trustee of the magna carta trust 21 years ago when i became chairman of the pilgrim society. the chairman of the trust by charter is the master of the rolls, head of the civil law in the u.k. i have worked and i serve as the deputy chairman of the trust. as the longest serving member of the trust, i was asked in 2010 to chair the magna carta under the commemoration committee. today for me, it's either or perhaps both, the end or the beginning or the beginning of the end. how could i refuse? it's why i am here and why now. why are you here? the speakers panel is because each of them is an expert in their field. the audience, because we believe in the rule of law, we believe in democracy, human rights and freedom of religion due process trial by jury and peace not war and, rather than the way of kings and emperors use of force and cultural diplomacy we believe in and soft power. there are many myths which surround magna carta. it was only a fight between the barons and the kings and did not really affect people, that it was a failed peace treaty. some are demystified in the excellent book published under the title "magna carta muse and mentor." i hope you will all share in reading it. some of you helped in writing it. it's an excellent chapter in history. today we will hear from them about these myths and learn about the truths. our session this point carries the title " historical perspectives on magna carta." you will hear that from them, not me. that's why i am here. 38 years ago and all its splendor, the house of commons and lords, ambassadors and high commissioners and the archbishop of canterbury and york met with the senior members of the american congress and senate assembled in the thousand-year-old palace of westminster's westminster hall to hand over the lincoln 1215 magna carta to the library of congress in the autumn to display -- to be displayed in the rotunda of the american congress and i was there then. that's why i am here now. there is one thing not on the program today that i would like everyone to consider here as we are on capitol hill at one pennsylvania avenue with the white house at the other end. here am i at this podium representing my two countries, written and america -- written -- great britain and america. i would argue that threats to our shared values strengthen the special relationship which bonds and binds our two countries. great britain and america. president obama does as well as has every president in my lifetime going back to franklin d. roosevelt. obama observed in 20 -- in 2001 in a speech of the british parliament, our system of justice, customs, and values stemmed from our british forefathers. the president went on to say our relationship is special because of the values and beliefs that have united our people throughout the ages. centuries ago when kings, emperors, and warlords reigned over much of the world, it was the english who first spelled out the rights and liberties of man in magna carta. i thank you. [applause] >> thank you for your hospitality. over the last decades, scholars have taught us a great deal about the history of rights on the western tradition prior to the enlightenment. we now know a great deal more about classical roman understandings of rights liberties, capacities, and powers and their elaboration by later civil and common lawyers. we now pour over intricate lattice work of individual and group rights and liberties developed by media will catholic canonists and the ample expansion of the media will handiwork a neo-scholastic jurists and early modern spain. we now know a good deal more about republican theories of liberty and their transformative influence on early modern, lawyers and political revolutionaries on both sides of the atlantic. we now know in brief that the west new ample liberty before liberalism and had many fundamental rights in place before the there were modern democratic revolutions fought in their name. the magna carta was a critical early source of common-law rights and liberties. charters of rights and liberties were actually quite common in the middle ages before and after 1215 in england and on the continent but no witty -- but no other charter prove more critical than the magna carta. this famous document forged at runnymede made ample provision for early forms of fair taxation, various criminal procedure protections, rights of marriage, private property, and inheritance, freedom of trade, travel, and commerce and freedom of the church and more. particularly pressing for later jurists were its prototypical provisions on due process and rule of law. no free man shall be taken imprisoned outlawed or banished or in any way destroyed nor will we proceed against or rescued him accepted by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land. again, to no one will we sell and no one will we deny or delay rights for justice. in the 14th century and early 15th, these came to be understood as due process rights. to be sure, the magna carta was no comprehensive modern statement of rights and liberties. particularly the fundamental rights of religion speech, press, assembly, privacy equality and more so central to the common law of today are only very narrowly designated. many other commonplace rights today set forth in the universal declaration of human rights and its progeny is hardly figured at all in the magna carta or other charters. a number of historians are now at work mapping and measuring how we got from here to there -- from there to here and how this medieval bed of rights and liberties grew into the thick forest of human rights norms in place today. this morning, i would like to sketch in one small piece of this emerging map, namely the growth of rights in 17th century england and in colonial america in the 17th century. this was at time in england not unlike the early 13th century when chronic royal abuses prompted various english troops to rise up to rebel against the king and demand greater rights and liberties. the 17th century was also a time when a massive wave of revolutionary writings pressed not only for the restoration of the old magna carta but the creation of a new magna carta with many more rights and greater protections than its medieval ancestor. while no new such magna carta was passed for england, the old magna carta was even vibrant new life in the turbulent 17th century. many of the provocative rights ideas advocated in these writings gradually made their way into the anglo-american common-law. first and foremost in 17th century colonial america which featured a number of striking rights documents. in 1640, the english world was turned upside down. for the first time in 11 years comic king charles i called parliament at secession and the members erupted in him us a dented. against -- in unprecedented fury against him and his father james britt the landed aristocracy had chafed under oppressive taxation , property confiscation's, and strangulated trade regulations and tariffs. they have suffered under rick establishement roles. much of the country had come to resent the increasingly belligerent enforcement of oppressive royal measures by the prerogative courts. finally called into session in 1640, parliamentary leaders seize power by force of arms. civil war erupted between the supporters of parliament and the monarchy. a parliamentary party prevailed and passed an act declaring and constituting the people of england to be a commonwealth and free states. the commonwealth parliament abolished kingship and they deposed king charles was tried convicted of treason and executed by beheading and 6049. parliament also abolished the aristocratic house of lords and declared that supreme authority resided in the people and their representatives. equal and proportional representation was antique and the election of local representatives. the church of england was formally disestablished as were most of the prerogative courts. this radical commonwealth experiment lasted only until 1660. most of the laws were reversed in that time. in that brief 20 year period, with censorship laws temporarily relaxed, england saw an avalanche of new writings that would prove prescient for the eventual expansion of rights especially in the hands of the colonists. more than 22,000 pamphlets sermons, and other track were published in england from 1640-1660. a number of them were drafted before 1640 and many more drafted in the course of his 20 year period. many of them denounced the tyranny of church and state and called for more robust protection of the people's rights and liberties. many pamphleteers pointed first and foremost to the magna carta with its guarantee that the church of england shall be free and have all of her rights and liberties inviolable and all freemen shall enjoy sundry rights and liberties. some pamphleteers advocated extending these fundamental guarantees to all peaceable churches, not just church of england, and to all english subjects, not just arrested radical freemen. puritan leader john lilburn was a champion of this view. he called magna carta the birthright of every english man. while i am no free man, i have as true a right to all the privileges that do belong to a free man as the greatest man in england. similarly, sir edward cooke, the greatest english jurist of his day, called the magna carta not just a dusty and dispensable of treatment foisted on king john by the rest of barons and bishops. he called it the principle ground of the fundamental laws of england which neither king nor church nor parliament could breach. magnet carta he declared is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign superior to him. beyond the magna carta, the pamphleteers pointed further to the petition of rights of 1628 which cooke had helped shape. parliament had pressed this document on a very reluctant king charles in exchange for their consent to new taxes. the petition included a number of rights that would prove critical to the anglo-american common-law tradition. no further taxation without the common consent of parliament, no forced loans from the people, no taking of a man's life or liberty or land, no imprisonment and notice inheritance without due process of law. no suspension of the writs of habeas corpus, no forced quartering of soldiers or mariners in private homes, no prosecution or non-statutorily enacted crimes. no use of marshall law against english subjects save in the most dire emergencies. all of these rights and liberties the 1628 petition declared were to be maintained and enforced according to the law and statutes of this realm without prejudice to the people or their parliament. given that royal abuses continued apace after the petition of 1628, various pamphleteers in the 16 40's and 50's called for further and stronger rights documents. magna carta has through its repeated royal abuses become a very blotted book. we need a new magna carta. that provides dirtier safeguards against the tyranny of crown, church, and commonwealth alike. walwin joined forces to draft a new magna carta. they and titled " an agreement of the free people of england." it was published in 1649. the agreement was really a proposed new written constitution for england. it focused first and foremost on the functions of government calling for a representative government with carefully enough my to and legislative and judicial powers. the agreement also took great pains to enumerate the people's rights. it took on all the rights of the magna carta and the petition of right but added several other rights provisions as well that would become fundamental to the later common-law tradition, some of them plucked from medieval precedents. the agreement had strong, new religious freedom guarantees. freedom of conscience and exercise, freedom from compulsory ties of oath swearing and freedom of worship and freedom to elect and reject clerking -- clergy by congregations and parishes. the agreement also called for robust freedoms of speaking writing, printing, and publishing inducing john milton's brilliant defense of the freedom of speech set out in the area in 1644. in addition to freedom of religion and speech, the agreement elaborated several additional criminal procedural guarantees. there was a guarantee of the privilege against some -- self-incrimination, the right to call and confront witnesses in one's own criminal defense, the right to jury trial in all criminal cases, felonious and petty alike. all punishment save undo conviction or grave felonies. proportionate punishments in noncapital cases that were equal to the prescribed and proscribed if offense. and no imprisonment for private deaths. elsewhere, the authors of the agreement also called for" the just, speedy and on burdensome trials and no imprisonment without a warrant." in this proposed new magna carta of 1649 was set out virtually every terminal procedural right that would appear a century and a half later in the u.s. bill of rights and in parallel american state constitutional provisions. finally, the agreement protected rights of commerce, business and private property. it included guarantees of tax and excise free trade as well as freedom from government-sponsored business monopolies. if forbade any government actions designed to level men's estates or destroy their property or make all things common. the mid-17th century english pamphleteers pressed these and other rights claims not merely as positive rights created by the state but as fundamental or natural rights created by god and deserving of constitutional confirmation, protection, and implementation. as richard overton, one of the co-authors of the 1649 agreement put it --" by natural earth, all men are equally born to property, liberty, and freedom and are delivered like god and the hand of nature into this world, everyone with a natural innate freedom of property never to be obliterated everyone equally and the like to enjoy his birthright and privilege." many english writers of the mid-17th century defended these natural or fundamental rights on various grounds. some of them induced the common christian ideas that each person is a prophet, a priest, and a king with natural rights and natural duties to speak or preach or rule the community. others are deuced the 10 commandments of the hebrew bible with this first table rights and duties to honor, worship, and properly use god's name and its second table rights concerning marriage family, and household life, property, and reputation. others turned to roman law and mediate a precedents to defend all manner of public/private and procedural rights. the radical right set out in this proposed new magnet carta and in many other new applets of the 17th century proved far too radical and adventuresome for the english common law of the day. with the restoration of the established church, crown, and commonwealth in 1660, this document and many like it were consigned to the flames. many of their authors and defenders were pilloried and punished and banished in a few of them killed. nonetheless, this short burst indeed short explosion, of expansive rights talk in the mid-17th century set in normative totem for later generations of common lawyers to make evermore real. it was only two generations later that some of these ideas informed the english bill of rights and toleration act of 1689. even more of them entered slowly into the common-law case law and statutes over the next three centuries. the new rights that took centuries to develop in england took only a few years to develop in colonial america. the english royal charters at first constituted many of the 17th century american colonies. it gave the settlers a broad latitude to conceive and create their own ideal politics -- policies per the 17th century charters imposed no real royalist establishment on the new world and rather few restrictions on the young colonies. the colonists were free to develop their own political and legal structures to elect most of their own if not all of their own magistrates and passed their own laws provided they were not repugnant to the laws of england or trespassed the liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects or it the first colonial companies used this freedom to create something of a haven for european and english dissenters and a laboratory to try out some of the most adventuresome rights ideas that had just been discussed in england and on the continent. many of the colonists introduced their own experiments especially in religious liberty upon arrival, incorporating some of the radical ideas we just heard. providence plantation was established in 1636. in the words of its founder roger williams, as a lively experiment for full liberty and religious and civil concern meant. later rhode island colonies remarkably established liberty of conscience, the free exercise and enjoyment of all civil and religious rights and a guarantee danced the establishment of christianity and that became an model for areas religious liberty advocates of the 18th century. maryland also was founded by catholic leader lord baltimore insisting 33 as an experiment in catholic and protestant coexistence. its famous active 1649 provided that no person professing to believe in jesus christ shall henceforth be anyways troubled or his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof nor in any way compelled to believe or exercise any religion against his or her consent. equally inspirational and often controversial was quaker leader william pans experiment in religious liberty instituted in pennsylvania and the great law of 1682 which had comparable guarantees. colonial america was an active laboratory for experiments not only in religious liberty but also in a number of other basic rights and liberties. indeed, more than a century before the american revolution and the state and federal cost to chennault convention set to work crafting all of these new rights instruments that are so famous today, the colonists had already reached many of their own bills of rights which they set out in some detail in charters and compacts and codes and other instruments. there are many examples from the 17th century is my distinguished co-panelists will no doubt elaborate on in a few moments. let me focus on a surprisingly early one -- a body of liberties. it emerged in massachusetts a in 1641. it came to be styled as a new american magna carta. puritan massachusetts was hardly known as a haven for liberty. we know it as a bastion of irritant theocracy, the banishment of roger williams and and hutchinson and the hanging of quakers and the boston commons and the prosecution and punishment of which is an neighboring -- in neighboring salem. nonetheless, this purported puritan theocracy passed in 1641 their new magna carta, over a decade after the arrival of the first colonists and month -- in modern-day boston. the body of liberty incorporated not only the rights and guarantees of the magna carta and the petition of right in england but also many of the most tearing rights proposals gathered from the pamphleteers in england as well as the pamphleteers writing since the 15 that these in protestant circles of the continent and admit it's unsurprising innovations as well. the body of liberties was drafted by nathaniel ward, a distinguished heidelberg trained calvinist minister and cambridge trained lawyer. he had come to new england in 1634 with 10 years of legal experience as a barrister in england. he had in his trunk eight copy of sir edward cooke's institutes of english law, john calvin's institutes of the christian religion, and a huge pile of all of these pamphlets i have been talking about. the body of liberties that he drafted bills 25 nine by 12 inch pages in modern edition. it provides a detailed recitation of what ward called the first basic elemental and essential rights to a chain in the massachusetts bay colony. the preamble to the 1641 he of liberties makes clear that the massachusetts colonists regard the protection of rights and liberties to be essential to the peace and stability of church state, and society alike. it opened with strong guarantees of the right to life, liberty property, family, and reputation using language that echoed and elaborated the magna carta's prototypical due process clause. this is what we read -- " no man's life should be taken away, no man's honor or good name shall be stained, no man's body shall be arrested or restrained her than a store dismembered nor in any way punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no man's goods or estate shall be taken with him or in anyway damaged under authority unless it is by virtue or equity of some express law of the country warranting the same established by a general court sufficiently published and well-known and discernible." the body of liberties fleshed out these basic guarantees with a number of criminal procedure rights and protections. we hear some of the familiar things we just heard and new things as well. all persons whether inhabitants or foreign art guarantee the right to enjoy the same justice and equal and partial execution of the law. parties can be charged only for crimes explicitly set out in statute. a grand jury was to be used for preliminary findings and indictments in serious cases. defendants had a right to hearing before an impartial judge and a right to a speedy trial whether bench or jury trial. they were guaranteed to the privilege against self-incrimination and could not be subject to double jeopardy for the same offense. an official case record would be cap to be open to the parties by courts to ensure that there was no double jeopardy. convictions for crime required proof of convincing evidence. a defendant could not be tortured to collect evidence against himself nor could they be subject to inhumane barbarous or cruel punishment upon due conviction. the body of liberties set out private procedural rights as they were called. in civil suits, parties could elect a written or oral pleading or elect bench or jury trials injury trials, jurists were selected from the electorate and they could be challenged by both the plaintiff and defendant and could give verdicts only upon clear and safe presentation of evidence. parties could appear or through representatives or consumer damages or equity release or could counterclaim. third parties could intervene as needed. parties could be compelled to testify at the judge's discretion. parties could withdraw their lawsuits if they wished. in the event of damage awards, parties could claim a right to homestead exemption. the body of liberties included strong darren teasing private property rights and private contracts the right to hold alienate, devise and inherit private property without the or tax or government interference. they had fishing and harvesting and hunting rights on public lands. everyone is expected to participate in public work but any property taken from them had to be duly compensated thereafter. there were special provisions even to women, children, and servants rejecting the traditional common law rule of the right of the opater familias to rule without inter-fairness. -- without interference. the woman had special procedural protections for complaints britt widows could seek redress. children were freed from unnatural severity from their fathers. corporal discipline of servants could be checked and ultimately indentures could be canceled in the event of undue severity. even domestic animals had rights . no man shall exercise any tyranny or cruelty toward any creature which is kept for a man's use and in such events that these should be set free or event with more benevolent neighbor. the body of liberties set forth a number of public or civil rights, rights to vote, run for office, participate in public referenda on public issues of law and morality, the right to appear and speak at tanning congregational meetings, the right to move and petition for redress from grievances. and the freedom to search records, a freedom of information as it comes to be called. three more minutes, if i may. the 1641 body of liberties was a remarkably detailed list, an expansive discussion of public/private liberties. it was all the more remarkable in that it was drawn up for a young, scattered community of some 15,000 souls for whom mere survival for a second decade of severe winters, pestilence, and native american invasions was still there most pressing concern. the body of liberties was duplicated in whole or in part in a number of other new england colonies. it became something of an anchor text for john adams and other drafters of the 1780 massachusetts constitution, the oldest written constitution i think in the world and certainly in the west. john adams singled out this 1641 body of liberties as a prescient document in his understanding of the defense of the constitutions of the united states, a massive body of work defending american constitutions. nathaniel ward, the main author of the 1641 body of liberties, pretended this was just a little assemblage of english laws as he understood them. he was deprecating the novelty and the sweep of his formulations. what was new in colonial new england was to have all of these different, scattered traditional common law rights of england and many new rights besides, even the beasts get rights, compelled in a single source, generally available to all subjects in the community regardless of the court in which they appeared and generally binding on all parties. citizen and official alike. nothing like that existed in the english common law of the day with his byzantine conflicts of courts and brits and procedures. what was also new in colonial new england compared to old england was to have this body of liberties text that gave preemptory instruction to government authorities that limited the law and gave from it standing colonial citizens to press claims and vindicate their rights abuses before the court. here was a matrix for the creation of the understanding of judicial review. we have in the colonial peace law thereafter evidence of that judicial review in action, going inevitably like every law in action it was blatantly breached laws especially in the , hands of some early leaders. with oligarchic or theocratic intentions. what was most novel was their ability to build this set of rights on a covenant framework rooted in understandings of covenant relationships between neighbors and god, predicated on countless formulations of -- how would this formulations of covenant politics in their day. standing out in their theories of law, many of the basic ideas of a contract carry on logic in general terms rather than theological terms of the 17th century. they would come to dominate 18th-century american life. thank you for your kind attention. [applause] >> good morning. thank you very much for inviting me to be here. it is a great pleasure. you just heard about many of the original rights that were added in the new world. my essay here is entitled -- "magna carta entrenched, the legacy in america." while i will be speaking about the transition and attitudes of these rights in america, it -- to america, it struck me, and most people would agree, that the magna carta is far more important in the land where it was assigned. i was particularly struck in 2005, where i wrote a brief -- brief essay for british online journal called "farewell to magna carta." in parliament was passing a 2005, prevention of terrorism bill and there was a great deal of upset over the enhanced police rights, the long detentions, and one of the leading journalist wrote for the guardian and the bbc. simon jenkins was so upset that he wrote where can liberty turn? , he looked to the house of lords for help. the house of lords had been successively gutted of its powers sometime ago. well, they did not rise as well as they could and they added amendments to soften the burden. he was particularly concerned about this detention and he was -- and he cited a cause from magna carta about how people were entitled to the loss of the judgment of their peers. less than one month earlier they had written an essay about juries in which the evidence was clear. don't them. -- don't -- dump them. of course, those things could be done by parliament. next? unlike the congress, they can release the rights and change the constitution with a simple majority. they abolished the hereditary house of lords to which simon was appealing. there was an appointed house of lords and there were some hereditary lords that were grandfathered in. the house of lords is not what it had been. for those of us concerned about the rule of law, in 2003 they abolished double jeopardy. -- the 18th hundred prohibitions against double jeopardy. it was just supposed to be for murder. this a lot for other cases be brought back that they added some 20 other crimes. including not only murder, but drug trafficking and other crimes. which meant that if you had been found innocent you could always , be brought back and tried again if there was new evidence. then you evidence was to be due decided by the prosecutor. they also reduce the number of jury trials. it was a lower standard than in civil cases. as an american, i was much more upset than probably most of the people living in britain. there is a great contrast of course with the night in a qaeda -- with our own practice where the rights have been entrenched in state and federal constitutions. the magna carta has been embedded in the statute books of 27 states. here they are. by date. it has also been incorporated in the constitution, and the due process chapter that says no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or due process -- or property without due process of law. for more states have the provision in context to criminal prosecution. five more with the provisions limited to the accused in criminal prosecutions. all of these are in the state constitutions as a guarantee. what i would like to do now is give you a brief history of it. a brief colonial history of this transition to america of these rights. and of the evolution in england and the power of parliament and the american take on that. i'm particularly curious on how we parted ways and how we got so far removed from the british tradition. the colonists, as you have just heard, came to this country with a lot of the very strong and passionate aliens from the 17th century writers in the english civil war about the rights of individuals. one of the chief writers who was very influential was sir edward coke. -- cook. cook's writings where read by many of our founders like jefferson and adams, and john marshall. he said the magna carta was the fountain of all the fundamental rights for freemen. -- fundamental laws of the ram which make freemen. he also talked about how judgment against any of the points of the act that magna carta are judged point. if any are made against either of them, they shall be void. there is your tradition of judicial review. later on in the institute, he did say, but, parliament cannot be confined for causes or persons within any balance. but the founders particularly focused on his accord of magna carta and of the statutes that were made against him be void and kind of ignored the implicit threat that parliament can do whatever it wants. in dr. bono's case in 1610, cook wrote, it appears in our statute books and in many cases, the common law of contracts as parliament and sometimes they are utterly void. they are repugnant or impossible to be performed then, the common law will perform it. the charter rights that the founders receive -- excuse me this is my first powerpoint so you will have to bear with me. the charter rights, beginning with james the first in 1606 budget rights are guaranteed -- 1606 virginia rights are guaranteed to those people who will be settling and they will enjoy all the liberties franchises of biting and born within the realm of england. they must -- quite early -- have been rather dismayed at how feisty the people working came here. they were very much concerned about maintaining those rights. in massachusetts bay they issued a document comparing magna carta article by article to the fundamentals of the massachusetts in 1646. in maryland, massachusetts, in new england, they hashed statutes providing common law in chapters of magna carta particularly of what were articles 39 and 40 of the 1215 edition of the magna carta. the first addition about no freemen being taken or dispossessed of his free liberties. or free customs or to be outlawed or exiled in any way destroyed, nor we we condemn him except by legal judgment of his peers or law of the land. to will be self, deny, or delay the right of justice. william penn in 1687, published the entire text of magna carta. it was the first printing in the western hemisphere. the resident of pennsylvania, as he put it, are strangers to the to understanding of that inheritance. every freeborn subject of england is aired on two by birthright. unparalleled privilege of liberty and property. he praised this happy frame of government which he said, it is assigned most conspicuously into two things, parliament and juries. the jerry part i am sure you will be hearing about much more, soon. as i said, the people who came were extremely litigious. one of my favorite examples is massachusetts. in 1664, a massachusetts way assembly, and realize how young this colony was, they wrote the letter to their sovereign taking issues with the royal commission that accused the new england colonies of passing laws repugnant to the laws of england. they claim their own colony had in exemption imposed by the navigation act, while other new england colonies, massachusetts reminded charles the first that their charter reconfirmed by him to years earlier, that only the absolute use property of the tract of land mentioned, but also full and absolute power governing all the people of this place have been chosen by themselves and according to such laws as they shall from time to time see and they can establish not being repugnant to the laws of england. according to their charter, they were to pay only the fifth heart of the oracle and silver that shall be found. i do not know that anyone has ever found out's of gold or silver in massachusetts. but that is what they were supposed to pay and no more. they even objected to the royal commission itself. we are like to the arbitrary powers of strangers proceeding not by any established law but by their own discretion. if these things go on, they warned, their subjects here will be forced to seek new dwellings or sink under the burdens that will be intolerable. the crown officials finally yielded, i guess in the face of this obstinacy. it was through the -- and they withdrew the commission. they had sent to the wrong people to this country if they expected some kind of obedience to parliament. under the dominion of new england of 1687, when james the second tried to call the new england colonies together under a governor and council, there was a protest in ipswich. it was because of the tax that was being imposed upon them without him consulting the assembly. some of the switch members including one of the ministers and they tend to be pretty feisty, some of the most feisty, sued for habeas corpus. about five of them were put in prison. the judge told them not to let the laws of england follow them to the end of the earth, and that the only privilege they had was, "not to be sold as a slave." massachusetts assembly shifted the case to their own supreme judicial court and empowered that court to exercise powers comparable to those to the court of last minister, and that was to grant the people take his corpus. unfortunately, james left in 1688. and the dominion of new england was no more. we are all familiar with the various protests against regulations from britain. assistance from general search warrants. the rest of the assistance which inspired james otis to reassign his career as a british official and represent some 60 odd merchants in their protests, had in fact been in operation in britain for some time. while there has been some legal treatises written against him, that there has been no kind of upstate the same way there was a massachusetts and in the new world. 15 tea tax that was going to be so provocative in this country was observed and paid in britain. we are all familiar of course with the stamp act. in braintree massachusetts when they protested that they were concerned not only about the lack of it taxed in the parliament in which they had no representation but the loss of jury trials -- local jury trials for admiralty trials which would be before a judge appointed at will and not before a local jury. there are a couple of cases that i would like to mention that may be less familiar to you. one is the hancock case. as many of you probably know john hancock, the famous founder of the continental congress, was also a famous smuggler. [laughter] he was arrested and jailed for failing to obtain a permit to unload a cargo of his ship, the liberty. john adams rose to the occasion and defended him. but i think gives you an example of what hancock and other smugglers were up against, was that his ship was seized in june. the liberty was seized and it was condemned in august. sold in september, along with the cargo. that was not good enough for the british government. in october, the admiralty court suit hancock for the enormous of 9000 pounds. adams represented him and argued and insisted that in addition, hancock would have to appear before an admiralty court in london and would be appealing magna carta as far as the rights of americans were concerned. you will be happy to know, that not only would it have reduced hancock below the rank of an englishman, as i say, you would be happy to know that the government decided to drop the case. our founder went free, as it were. of course, the ship and cargo had seized areas that americans felt very strongly that their rights needed to be beyond the seizure of the british government. massachusetts would have its charter revoked if all the only rights he had for in those charters were very vulnerable that they would be in amiable and they were part of usa human being and that natural rights were terribly important. so the source of the magna carta rights had to be natural rights conference. -- natural rights confirmed and , this was reiterated time and again by people here. of course, when thomas jefferson pans the declaration of independence, he mentions that these rights that people are entitled to, were endowed by their creator with certain in alienable rights. the us are not writes anyone can -- these are writes anyone can take away from you. they're not given to you by the king, which is the one who had signed his charters. there was one other episode i wanted to mention before i got to that. that is the 1772 burning of the gas. this will give you another sense of how important it was that people had local juries and in fact, local juries for americans were willing to arrest or condemn people like hancock. but the burning of the gas day is probably best known and gives you a sense of how united country was very the british had these man-of-war's and ships patrolling the new england coast, which was a perfect host for smuggling because it is so irregular. this was one of these ships, and a local slope that was busy in the smuggling trade learned that they into shallow waters off of rhode island where it duly got grounded. at that point, people were described as patriots and they wrote out to the gaspe entered the captain and crew prisoner. they brought them back to pawtucket, which still commemorates the joy of having these people in their prison. the british had thoughtfully passed something called a dockyard act, which meant burning the king's ships, you would be charged with treason. just before dawn, it went up in flames and no one knew how. since was somewhat a waste of time to get a local jury to find out what happened and condemn anybody, the government or special commission, of all the chief justices of the new england colonies along with new jersey and new york, these people were to inquire into what had happened and find out who's in the convicted. or at least charged and brought to trial. finally, i think it was the chief justice of rhode island who said it well, since i cannot get any evidence, we will have to drop the case. and they did. the british government really was up against a fairly united and intimidating group of people . intimidated perhaps by the fight here not to come forward. why was the magna carta entrenched here and not in the u.k.? that is the chief concern of mine. i think timing is everything. here we go. the time that the colonies were going to these final throes before the revolution they were still relying on push for their rights. -- they were still relying on cook for their rights. a volume on the rights of individuals was published. they thought very highly of magna carta and that it preserved rights, it did not create them. the rights of individuals were infested in that by the immutable laws of nature in which jefferson and americans could agree with. and that everyone calls the restraint of the subject was a degree of tyranny. blackstone next to montesquieu was the most frequently cited expert -- european expert that the founders relied on. there was a big bump in blackstone's commentaries. that was that by the time of the american evolution parliament had become more and more sovereign. blackstone wrote that parliament can do anything that is not naturally impossible. that is to say that parliament can do anything but make a man a woman, but that is interesting because now, presumably, they can do that. at any rate, there was a lot of concern and even blackstone, by his final and nine edition of his work commentaries on the laws of england, became a little worried about all those rights could be overwritten by parliament. he put in a little kind of waiver affect of that cause. if parliament will positively connect the thing that will be done, which is unreasonable. he left a little quick over, but this was obviously not going to be anything that the americans could rely on. some of the new state constitutions that were drafted in 1776 after the declaration of independence particularly exempted from the power of their legislatures, the right to alter any of the rights that were given in the constitution. here's delaware, it says that after seeing that the legislature will preserve the rights and can legislate, they put a clause that they cannot pass laws repugnant to the rights and privileges in the constitution and the declaration of rights. new jersey has something very similar. and a new constitution, the legislature could pass no law's repugnant to the rights in this charter. and the right to trial by jury shall remain as a part of the law without repeal forever. georgia also had a preamble which claims citizens the rights to privileges they are entitled by the laws of nature and reason. this included several articles with a pledge in the english bill of rights for excessive fines, the rights to habeas corpus, and trial by jury. the -- which was to mean invalid bit forever. the u.s. constitution has an vetted rights within the body of the constitution, the right to habeas corpus, and of course the bill of rights amended to the constitution. in contrast to parliament, it is very difficult to actually amend the united states constitution. no simple majority vote of the house of the congress with the president can alter any of our rights. i think that has made a great difference. the british trusted in parliament, in their view, and it is a rational choice. they feel they must defer to the democratic branch. we have embedded these rights from magna carta in our constitution and made it very very difficult for anybody, or even our legislature to make any change. in closing, i would like to cite the author of the federal farmer, during the debate over the american constitution in 1688, where he explains our freedom depends on keeping in view this legacy of magna carta. he writes, the people might not forget these rights, and gradually become prepared for arbitrary government, they are discerning and honest leaders causes instrument to be confirmed near 40 times. to be read twice the year in public places. not that it would lose its -- lose validity without such confirmations, but the contents of and the minds of the people as they successively, upon the stage. then in some countries do not remain free merely because they entitled to natural rights, men of all countries are entitled to them. not because their ancestors once got together and enumerated them on paper, but because i repeated, negotiations and declarations, all parties are brought to realize them. of course, to believe them to be sacred. i might show the wisdom of our past conduct as a people, and not merely purported and comforting ourselves that we were entitled to freedom, but constantly keeping in view and addresses and bills of rights and newspapers etc., that particular principles on which our freedom always depends. thank you. [applause] >> my topic today is magna carta and trial by jury in the new republic. i studied the legal systems of england, the colonies, and the united states. rules about civil and criminal procedure, lawyers, juries, and judges. is a great pleasure to be here with other historians and scholars at the library of congress. in return for this, i promise not to get into the technical details of pleading trespass to the case. four of the mary evidence in the 18th century. i became interested in this topic because of bafflement. i was studying the scope of jury trial in the new republic and i didn't understand language indicates i was reading. the case was versus the city of charleston. the south carolina supreme court delivered the opinion in 1794. the hapless zilsta not only had a interesting name, but had been keeping a candle shop. this -- this violated the city ordinance because charleston has a hot climate. being -- beef hallow --tallow smells a lot. my husband can attest to this because i make attest to this because i make beef bone broth every week. every week he complains about the smell. those of you who have adopted a paleo diet understand. he was charged in a municipal court and fined 100 pounds. he then complained to the supreme court of south carolina that he had a right to jury trial. his his counsel argued vigorously that he was entitled to dns civil trial by jury, the birthright of every citizen, pickard -- procured to him by magna carta. wait a minute, i thought. what what is magna carta got to do with his argument? is this just the overblown rhetoric of lawyers? not entirely, it turned out. the the south carolina constitution of 1790, like those of most other states in the new republic, contained the following language. no freemen of this state shall in any manner be deprived of life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. we have heard already from the two previous speakers, the language of article 29 of magna carta, in the 1225 reissuance, no freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or deceived of any free tenant or have his liberties are free customs or outlawed or at flawed -- exam of, or destroyed, nor will be go upon him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land. in other words, the majority of states have set the language of article 29, translated directly into their constitutions. but a further surprise awaited me. that was language the judge used in describing the tree trial. he he wrote, a traveler jury is a common lot rights, not the creature of the constitution. it is originating in time of memorial. it is in every individual citizen, the title to which commences long before the political existence of this society. which has been held and used by our ancestors in succession from that period to our own time. needless to say, he got a jury trial. but what is going on here i wondered. had the judge last his mind? he he had a constitution in front of him that was only four years old. why was he talking about time and in memorial by our , ancestors, what could he mean ? i got a sense that he was referring to a developed strand of thought. if i wanted to understand ideas about the jury in the new republic. that began our audit into magna -- our odyssey into magna carta or to be more precise, into that lots of england of which magna carta was the premier example. where to begin -- ideas about magna carta and jury trials have changed quite a bit in 800 years. as it turns out, they couldn't guarantee common-law trial by jury. jury trials did not exist and only for certain types of civil cases. it meant that no one could be tried by his inferiors. the barons, therefore, that they should be tried by each other. a concept that survived in the trial of peers in the house of lawrence. the barons did not consider royal judgment to be their peers, much less the common folk that made up ordinary juries. up parliament enacted a series of statues that referred to magna carta and confirmed a trial should take place before a judgment. several of these statutes used a phrase, due process of law which became associated with magna carta. it comes from the 14th century statutes. english writers explicitly linked the phrase "judgment of his peers" in magna carta to common-law jury trial. they described this right as an ancient inheritance. the first person to make this link in print appears to have been william lambard in 1581. lambart importantly was an aquarium of anglosaxon law. he was interested in tracing the ancient constitution of england, in many cases, back to the anglo-saxons. it was found in the libraries of thomas jefferson and george whit, among others. edward cook, a name we've heard about from our previous two speakers, was happy to imbellish this theme of linking magna carter and jury trials. the prerogative courts sat without juries and were more directly subject to royal control. cook extensively discussed article 29 of magna carta in his second institute, a source well known to americans, as we've heard. cook was the most influential exponent of the idea of an english inheritance based on dissent and consisting of fundamental law. in cook's view, this inheritance was unchanging and from time in memorial. it preceded the norman conquest and in georgia cook's day. according to the fundamental laws expressed in magna carta and other sources, the king could not take property from his subjects or imprison them without due process of law. the the law of the land specified what process was due and its most important component was the common law of england. a difficult was that english in england and english in america held different views about the extent of the fundamental laws including common law outside of england. he himself did not believe they applied outside of england. flagstone certainly did not. he he wrote in his commentaries that they had control over the oversea colonies, because these lands were conquered. the english in america in contrast insisted that our lands were settled, not conquered. the colonial charters, furthermore purported to give english settlers in the colonys and -- in the colonies and their descendants the full rights of english men, as if they had been abiding and born in the realm of england. the american insistence on their rights as english men is something that is important for us to understand. it's often overlooked in contemporary education. but unlike many things that are overlooked in contemporary education, it's been overlooked for some time, because of the desire to assimilate immigrants from other countries and because of the forageing of an independent american identity. the theory we proclaimed today is that the united states as a nation founded on universal principles, not on blood. many american colonists and revolutionaries have a different view. they have rights and inheritance based on their blog. -- on their blood. they persuaded their rights as english men with the universal rights as man. at every opportunity in proclaiming their liberties, they harped on the ancestors and their descendents. you see these words over and over again in statements of american liberty, fathers, children austerity, and so on. for the most part, they did not mean spiritual ancestors or descendents. abraham lincoln translated that in a speech on independence day in chicago in 1858, drawing on the words of the declaration of independence. back in the 18th century like edward coke, many americans believe the colonists were unchanging in ancient times, from time in memorial. no king or parliaments could alter this birth right of the english people. the body of this inheritance was, as coke had explained, the fundamental laws of england, especially as expressed in magna carta. as we've heard already this morning, to an astonishing extent, the american colonists enacted the passages from the magna carta. thomas jefferson's views about the in memorial english constitution were wide spread among educated colonists and helped explain devotion to magna carter. -- carta. jefferson follows the declaration of the universal rights of man and the declaration of independence. had arrived early and energetically, the idea that english constitution and common law were legacies of the anglo-saxons. second to this common law was a primitive democracy, supposedly embodied in such free institutions as the folk moot, and trial by jury. never mind that the normans, in fact, introduced trial by jury. jefferson was so enamored of the anglo-saxons, in 1776, he proposed an initial seal for the united states showing the figures of tangus and horsa. who who are those characters, you might wonder. there they are. these were two german chiefs possibly legendary, who were allegedly brothers and among the first anglo-saxon invaders of britain in the fifth century. tangus means stallion in anglo-saxon and horsa means horse. so this is a family evidently with an equine obsession. you see in the bottom right there, the picture of a horse banner. interest away -- interestingly you see farm houses in scandinavia here in the places that the anglo-saxons were from. probably originally horse s heep. we are deep into mythology here. jefferson describes them as the saxon chiefs, from whom we claim the honor of being descended and whose political principles and form of government we have assumed. in the wig story of champion by jefferson, the depraved normans, where the evildoers. the french-speaking normans imposed futeileism and temporarily deformed the rights of english men. magna carta restored these rights. the battles of the 17th century were further examples of the english asserting their rights against tyrants. americans saw themselves in a continuation of this struggle to preserve the ancient rights of english men against usurpers. as as tensions built between the north atlantic colonies and britain, american invocation of magna carta became more aggressive. this is a $4 bill printed in maryland in my children were 1775. very interested in the idea of a four dollar bill. they wanted one. not sure it would still be legal tender today. we'll take a closer look at it. i hope, there we are. this shows this shows the figure of liberty liberty on the right and she is backed by american troops carrying the banner of liberty. you might be able to see the l-i-b on there. it's handing it to britainia in the middle with a shield and spear. britain though is restrained by king george iii, the large figure on the left, who is known trampling magna carta. and for good measure, king george is setting fire to the port of annapolis. [laughter] many americans claimed therefore, they had an inheritance and were not giving up without a fight. for americans, the jury was not only part of their ancient inheritance as english men protected by magna carta, or so they thought, but the jury had proved very useful during the colonial period in the conflict with the british government, and you've heard about this from professor malcolm already. at the heart of the american fervor about the jury, was the institution's ability to nullify unpopular laws. on the criminal side, one of the most prominent examples was the acquittal of john peter zainger in 17 set -- in 1736. american juries refused to indict that the law became essentially a dead letter in the colonies. in contrast to england, where there were a number of successful judicious processes for civil libel. to nullify the customs laws against custom tax collectors. i'm surprised john hancock didn't think of that. this exasperated british officials. the real governor of massachusetts complained in 1761 that a customs house officer have no place with the jury, let his cause be what it will. he warned his superiors in london that they overturned the judgments of the courts of admir -- of admiralty, which sat without juries. another colonial governor of massachusetts wrote that, a trial by jury here is only trying one illicite trader by his fellows, or at least his well-wishers. colonists viewed the jurisdiction of the jury was admiral to courts of a major grievance. they repeatedly complained about the curtailments of the right to jury trial, and in particular, in the stamp act congress of 1765 and the declaration of independence a decade later. the british government in the view of many americans was depriving them of their birth right to trial by jury and magna carta and thus prevented them from nullifying the hated customs laws, and this view accounts for the immediate insertion of the language into the magna carta into these new state constitutions. again, it took place as early as that, as soon as the state constitutions were written, the majority of them put that language right into them. once the republican government took power, hour, jury -- however jury nullification became deeply problematic. the people now had a say in the making of laws. why should 12 citizens have the power to nullify laws enacted by a legislature elected by the entire people? furthermore, legislatures followed a process for enacting laws carefully specified in a written constitution, itself ratified by the people. at the time the federal constitution was drafted in 1787, the federalists began to express publicly doubts about the civil jury. anti-federalists such as patrick henry of virginia, argued strenuously in favor of it. the specific issue that henry called attention to was the civil jury's ability to nullify debts. debtors were a powerful political force soon after the revolution. state juries wereicisma awere -- were sympathetic to debtors. not a popular group at the time. anti-federalists protested the lack of a civil jury right in the federal constitution. they were afraid that debtors would be hauled into federal court and made to pay their debts. the anti-federalists succeeded in persuading a reluctant james madison to draft the bill of rights, including a right to jury civil rite trial in the seventh amendment. he argued against the need for a civil jury right, directly opposing patrick henry. madison, therefore, decided to make no direct reference to magna carta in the seventh amendment. the federalist's concerns about the jury pre-staged the attitudes of many lawyers and judges in the united states. politicians and judges continued and continue to praise the jury in extravagant terms and to exalt magna carta as the guarantee of this liberty. year by year, however, they whittled the jury away. this erosion was especially true of the civil jury. at the founding, the jury had been a political institution, as tuckville famously described it. in the 19th century, however many americans in all areas wanted predictable, uniform legal rules that would help promote commercial development. use of civil juries could lead to unlawful, unpredictable results that undermind the authorities of legislatures and courts and thwarted the ability to carry out plans and actions. one of the most surprising things about reading state constitutional conventions in the early 19th century was how often delegates complained about the jurors having to spend their time listening to their neighbors complain. the jury began to be rewarded more of a judicial institution than a political one and as a judicial institution, the jury fell short. we see the shift in attitudes in opinion of the jury in the federal courts. as we saw previously, the south carolina supreme court in 1974 in the zilstra case allotted -- lauded magna carta and a jury trial. courts dropped the language of ancestors and rights from time in memorial and focused on efficiency and adjudication. the 1819 opinion of the u.s. supreme court and bank of columbia vs. oakly, is a good example of a new emphasis on efficiency. that case confirmed a summary proceeding by a bank against a debtor. the debtor complained that he was being deprived of his right to jury trial under the maryland constitution. the maryland constitution was one of those that directly incorporated the language of magna carta article 29. justice william johnson wrote the opinion and as it happened he was a native of charleston. he took a different attitude towards the magna carta than his fellow south carolinian thomas waity. in his opinion to the court, justice johnson wasted no time in full use and praise of the charter. his tone suggested impatience with what he called, the volume spoken and written with a huge juxtaposition. justice johnson declared that the good sense of man kind had arrived at the idea that they were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private rights and distributive justice. after this announcement, justice johnson explained to make his note negotiable at the bank and, therefore, he had waived the right to jury trial. by the mid-19th century in both england and america, the powers of the civil jury were increasingly curtailed. the jury went from being described as a secret palladium, as blackstone had called it, to a figure of fun. the magazine "punch" got in on the act, seldom missing the opportunity, and published a book called the common black stone by gilbert elbecket in 1846. the most common passage and singled out for admiration in the united states was a satire on blackstone's chapter on the civil jury. he referred to the ancient inheritance of english men. the trial by jury is, of course, a subject that every true-born britain with a quarter of a pint of saxon blood in his veins, is prepared to revel in. becket went on to assume that the jurors were irrelevant to counsel and they sometimes flipped a coin to decide cases. the story of a jury moving from an ancient right of the people to a nuisance suggest the difficulties of constitutionalizing specific procedural rights. legal systems, economies, and politics can change, changing in turn, the need or the desire for a particular procedure. the idea of the jury as a right of english men from time and a math. the criminal jury was unknown and the barons insisted the jury did not apply to them in the most important civil cases. the notion of a jury in the struggle against the royal prerogatives in the 17th century's and suited americans in their struggles in the 18th century. after these battles were over, the civil jury seemed too many to be a liability. the more enduring legacy of magna carta is the one that justice william johnson pointed to in bank of columbia versus oakley. the individual should be secure from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government. thank you. [applause] >> here are some of our feature programs for this weekend. tonight at 10:00, my copy be on the current landscape. sunday night at 11:00 the political initiative by president lyndon johnson as part of the great society. on c-span3, the professor on the role of the air force on allied strategy during world war ii. sunday evening at 6:00, an archivist tours the a millionaire heart collection, which houses the largest papers related to amelia ehrhardt. finally complete schedule and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us, e-mail, or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> today live coverage of the iowa freedom summit begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern. speakers include rick perry scott walker, and chris christie, mike huckabee, donald trump, and dr. ben carson, sarah palin. the iowa freedom summit, today on c-span and www.c-span.org. >> each week, real america brings you film that helps tell the story of the 20th century. ♪ >> in an address to 10,000 before the memorial in washington, president truman advocates freedom for all united states citizens. >> recent events have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all americans enjoy these rights. [applause] when i say all americans i mean all americans. [applause] our immediate task is to remove the last remnants of the barriers would stand between millions of our citizens and their birthright. there is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry or religion or race or color. [applause] ♪ >> the baltimore museum of industry was we visited the museum to learn about the history of the garment industry there. >> first of all, let me introduce myself to you. my name ed hawkins. i am a teacher here for the last 12 years, trying to bring up what the idea of what the garment business was like here maybe, 100 years ago. i am surprised that the number of children that come here that to not know what the word garment means. first of all, we will try to get

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