Elliott M. Fourte’ II Period 5 9/28/11 The Similarities between the Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter) and the United States Constitution Both the Magna Carta and the United States Constitution were important documents in history. The United States Constitution, undoubtedly the most important document in American History, was the basis for our Government today. The Magna Carta (signed in 1215 by King John) set the precedent for the U.S. Constitution. Both of these great documents of history define and limit power of the state. The Constitution was also written by people who were unhappy with the King of Britain and how he threw about his power.
During 1774 Thomas Jefferson had composed and assembled a written document on his thoughts and beliefs of the British Empire on the colonies. He set forth on a motive that would express the tyranny that had existed throughout. In A Summary View of the Rights of British America, Jefferson begins to show homage to the British Parliament but then as the text continues he expresses numerous concerns over the oppressing force of the British over the American Colonies. Jefferson’s perspective of the British Parliament under the ruling of King Charles is very much clear. “The British Parliament would arrogate over us” (Jefferson Pg.1).
The Federalists were usually characterized as loose constructionists, which meant they focused more on the intent of the constitution and its framers, and believed that changes were necessary for the development of the nation. Although Republicans and Federalists were characterized as having these particular views towards the enactment of the Constitution, when Jefferson and Madison served as Presidents during the beginning of the 19th century from 1800 to 1817, it was proven that even though they seemed to believe in their own views, in reality when time came, they started changing their beliefs and becoming both strict and loose constructionists for the good of the nation, which was strongly advocated by Henry Clay and his American System. The same would occur for the Federalists, so generally, each side did not accurately characterize itself during the early 19th century and proved each side had its similar interest when interpreting the Constitution. Before Jefferson became President in 1800, The Federalists dominated national politics for the first decade of America’s governmental history because of George Washington and John Adams favoring Federalist views. It was not until the
DBQ: What led to the rise of political parties in the 1790’s? Throughout American History, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were two very important figures. However, they both believed in their own political systems, and they debated on which is better for the Americans. The documents help us see what each believed in, and this led to the rise of political parties. Thomas Jefferson believed in the Democratic-Republican parties.
This was then followed by The Great Reform Act of 1832, where they introduced a system for the election of MP's, by the 20th century Britain had its separate parties.Then in 1945 the first truly modern election manifesto appeared with a clear program of reform and thus made representation farer. For representative democracy, each MP represents a constituency (incluiding N.Ireland and Scotland) they are expected to represent the interests of the constituency and make its constituents feel like they will be listened to and f needed solve their problems. An MP does not have to be part of a party therefore can have its own ideas on what is best for its constituents and can also use Burkean representation (expect to also use own judgement of best interests of its constituents, he should not be expected to follow instructions of those who elected him). If an MP is part of a party, they can retain independence within the party sturcture as for example in the 19th century, this was described as the 'golden age of the British MP' in doing so, they influenced over government policy. In certain
However not only did the Declaration of Independence bring about a global surge but also the United States constitution has also influenced the rest of the world in a new legal structure. David Armitage writes “As the first successful declaration of independence in history, it helped to inspire countless movements for independence, self-determination and revolution after 1776 and to this very day.” (Armitage, 2014) This very clearly demonstrates a simple explanation as to the impact of the declaration. The declaration itself was formed during a revolution and independence movement against the tyranny of the British. This tyranny therefore led to a mass influence in what Andrew Heywood describes as” Anti Colonial Nationalism” (Heywood,2007).This form of Nationalism worked perfectly alongside the declaration itself with a large portion of the original declaration listing “specific grievances to justify an armed insurrection”(Kramer,2011).As Kramer writes the declaration presented a large list of grievances and crimes which the British had committed on the American people during their reign. These grievances helped to unite the different colonies under one aim for Independence.
In doing so, they formed the great country that became the United States of America. There are many ways that the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution are similar in the ways they lay out the government. One example of this is that the Magna Carta forced limitations on the King of England, and established a parliament form of government, to represent the people. This form of government split the lawmaking between an institution of individuals, and the King. This prevented the King from creating selfish laws as he pleased.
During the creation of Constitution, each state had to approve it. During this time there were people who supported it, Federalist and who did not, Anti-Federalists. I am siding with Anti-Federalist since they were right in thinking they did not want to give all their power away to the national government. If you lived in a state separate from where government state is established, how would you get your problems in your state solved if you had a government who was telling you what to do but not really knowing what problems you had in your state. If I lived back in that time, and having just finished the war with Britain where we finally got our independence, I would remind people all the issues we had.
The Age of democracy is a response or answer to the Age of Absolutism by the new ideas that spread throughout the world. Although democracy and absolutism had advantages and disadvantages, democracy was a more effective type of government for it limited royal power and protected the rights of the people socially, politically, and economically. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, tension arose between the two different types of governments, the democracy and absolute monarchs. During the Age of Absolutism there were many different views on how to run a monarchy. There were so many different monarchs at the time; they all had different ways of running their perspective courts.
3. ‘The Human Right Act has revolutionized the way in which judges interpret statutes’. The judiciary practice in interpreting statutes has long been subject to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, which asserts the hierarchical relationship between the judiciary and Parliament in which the Parliament is the supreme law-making body. This was also stressed by Lord Scarman in Duport Steels Ltd v. Sirs[1]: In the field of statute law the judge must be obedient to the will of Parliament as expressed in the enactments. In this field Parliament makes and unmakes the law, the judge’s duty is to interpret and to apply the law, not to change it to meet the judge’s idea of what justice requires.