Free Republic

I want to introduce you to a magnificent document that far too few people have read. But before I introduce it to you, I need to remind you of something written in Federalist #84, that English history is American history. Hamilton specifically sites several(major) English documents that are important pre-cursors to the US Constitution. The earliest of said documents in that chain is the magnificent 1100 Charter of Liberties. Hamilton cites Magna Carta as the earliest, but the M.C. is really reliant upon the 1100 Charter as a precedent. In this Charter of Liberties, you will see, among other things,...

CHARTER OF LIBERTIES OF HENRY I. 1100(Latin text in Stubbs, Select Charters, ninth edition, pp. 117-119. Translation by the editor.) Henry, king of the English, to Bishop Samson and Urso de Abetot and all his barons and faithful, both French and English, of Worcestershire, greeting. 1. Know that by the mercy of God and the common counsel of the barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of said kingdom; and because the kingdom had been oppressed by unjust exactions, I, through fear of God and the love which I have toward you all, in the...