The Ideas Of The Magna Carta And The American Revolution

President Abraham Lincoln said, “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Lincoln was talking about how the people control the government, and the people should not try to overthrow the government (since they control it). The Magna Carta blazed the trail for due process, coming out of a tyranny. John Locke brought about the ideas of natural rights, while the Mayflower Compact showed that a group of people could work together to be part of a thriving, self-government. The Magna Carta, John Locke, and the Mayflower Compact’s idea on government; which influenced the American government, by its ideas on rights and the social contract, made American society want to gain rights and make a fair, equal government, due to the British government restricting rights.

The Magna Carta is ultimately a failed, over glorified legal document hurriedly pieced together by a small group of rebels who attempted to obstruct the monarch’s power. The principle behind it however, is a brilliant, striking beam of individualism, democracy, and liberty that encouraged, influenced, and enlightened America’s founding fathers on the principles of proper government and the concept of rebelling against unjust power. From the charter arises a question: who is the mother of democracy? Most historians would agree that the fundamentals of the democratic government came from Athens, Greece around 146 B.C., but ultimately this democracy was flawed and thus short-lived. While democracy was first seen in Ancient Greece it’s not

The King did not want other people to enter the country because he felt like they would cause trouble. The colonist wanted the declaration of independence written because they felt that it would not only help them but it would help everyone. There were so many people who wanted changes to be made but they did not know how they would make the changes happen. The King had a right to make decisions about everything even over the judges. The colonist people did not like being harassed by the king constantly. The colonist had to pay taxes to pay for the war; no one asked them for their permission. The colonist wanted to have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and they wanted to do all things that an independent state had the right to do. The colonist felt like the British had jurisdiction over them. The colonist did not have control over anything. The colonist wanted to live the way that they wanted to live” (p.

Under the tyranny of Great Britain the colonist faced many hardships placed onto them by the parliament. Unconstitutional taxes were implemented for no reason other than to increase Britain’s revenue. In addition laws that disregarded man's’ natural rights were enforced by Britain onto the colonists. And because of these reasons the American colonist were justified for separating from Great Britain by declaring independence.

The Americans were justified for independence because of harsh british acts.”The British King made the colonist move to the east due to the New law of the proclamation of 1763”(Doc A).The King made the colonists move and they lost a lot of land that they owned and were forced to go east after the proclamation was made.This was just one of the many acts put on the soldiers.”The Quartering act made the colonist house soldiers”(Doc G).The king made them house soldiers with the quartering act and made the colonist mad with the unfairness.The Americans were treated poorly and with unfairness by the king.

The causes of the American Revolution don’t just start at the acts that were passed, they go way back. Starting in 1763, the end of the French and Indian war. Wars are costly, so after this war Britain was in great debt, so as always they put that on the colonists, raising their taxes. Next is the Treaty of Paris 1763 when British gained land because of their win in the French and Indian War. From this gain of land, settlers began to move west making the Natives very unhappy. To save Britain from another all out war, they decided to pass the Proclamation of 1763 which stated that settlers were permitted to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. This made the Natives happy, but us colonists felt differently. Britain should have fought for our land and our rights, instead they just gave it up to the Natives. Shows how much they care about us, right!

Today the United States is known as a land of freedom, and as elegantly stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Unfortunately these words have not always been a reality for Native Americans, who were treated not as equals, but as subhuman by early white European settlers.

The colonist, who thought of themselves as Americans, had cleared the land, built homes, fought Indians and made lives for themselves far away from Britain. Their everyday concerns differed from the people of Britain. The colonist did not want anyone else to tell them how to govern themselves, especially the British. However, Britain’s elite believed that the purpose of a colony is to serve the mother country, and Parliament has the power to tax and govern the colonies. Whereas the colonist had developed a different opinion as to how they would be governed. They had an elected assembly and an appointed

The Europeans who settle into the New World value personal freedom, many of them left Europe for a better life and a place away from the British and French. One of the main factor to cause the Americans to rebel was the stamp the British was raising the revue of the taxes without consulting the government of the colonies. The sugar act was a raise of revue on molasses, The British also tax the Americans because they were protecting them sending troops into the 13 colonies. Since the they first settle into the new world they never intended on having taxes but now they are raising it. The American Colonists rebel and declare war for their independence because they weren’t going to stand for their liberty and pride to be abuse from Great Britain.

Before the Bill of Rights, the “leaders” were the ones in charge. They decided how much people had to pay for goods. They decided who got to work where. They decided what religion to live by. If the colonist didn’t like the religion they had, they would either move out or they could rebel and get killed. If they were ruled by a king it would be the same way. He or she would rule all the colonist. The leaders before the current leaders thought it would be a good idea to just have one person in control of everything with no laws set in place. They fixed that with the Bill of Rights. The first one is freedom of religion, speech, and press. Back then if they said anything that wasn’t allowed, they would probably be killed. But now we have the Bill of Rights to somewhat protect us. People weren’t allowed to say just whatever they want. These days we can say what we want, but not without consequences for our actions. Back then if they even were just talking out about how much they dislike the religion, they would be dead. They weren’t able to speak their minds as much as we can these days. If we didn’t fight the American Revolution, we wouldn’t have these rights. That’s because the American Revolution was a big step

In the early years of the colonies the concept of liberty would increase over time. According to Rights of Colonial Citizens video, “Colonists in America saw the same rights that citizens in England did.” The colonists thought the had the same rights, even though they still came to America. The colonists, in the end did get the same rights as the English and gained more rights, such as being able to petition the king and a right to trial by jury. In Rights Of Colonial Citizens video stated, “The most important was the right to have a voice in government...The English people had long struggled to gain the right to participate in government…

In addition to borrowing from British experience, our early government also avoided many English ideas. One large reason that America stresses equal representation was the Founders’ fear of recreating an overbearing government. Many colonists were enraged by the British system of government and the idea of taxation without representation. The British believed that all their subjects around the world had the same interests, and therefore thought it was only necessary to represent one part of their empire. This infuriated the colonists, eventually leading to the American Revolution. When creating the federal government, the Founders avoided a monarchy by ensuring that each state would have representation in Congress. Additionally, through

Democracy in the world today was influenced by events that took place many years ago when Aristotle was still alive. Those events that took place in the thirteenth century created the form of democracy that countries still use today (Synan). The Magna Carta was a document that was originally created by rebel barons in England which served as the country’s constitution, putting an end to the power of their monarch, King John. The infrastructure of the Magna Carta was replicated in many constitutions for the next eight hundred years, including the US Constitution (Synan). A group of English rebels coordinated with one another to create a document restraining King John’s power and each rebel signed it. In fear of full-blown

The Founding principle of American Culture was the belief that everyone has the right to equality and freedom. Freedom -the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint- was a primary reason many colonist fought against the British during the American revolution. They were seeking for freedom from the unjust ruling of King George III. Equality was also a driving force. The king had not given them many rights and had taken away some of the few rights they had as English men. This included representation in parliament and having a standing army, because of this many colonist felt that when the constitution was formed it should allow the freedom and equality for all. All though in theory this was what many colonist wanted, including the founding fathers, many did not practice this belief.

The year of 1607 was a monumental year; it was the establishment of the first english colony in America, Jamestown. As years passed, more english men and women came to the newfound land and formed colonies. Britain, where the colonists came from, still ruled the colonists. However the colonists had an unofficial long term period of salutary neglect when they could violate laws without punishment. By the middle of the 1700s Britain reversed that period to raise taxes from the debt they had in the French and Indian War. That led to the colonists becoming enraged and rebellious eventually causing the American Revolution. The Revolution won by the colonists created changes in their states. There was new government views which was democracy instead