The Magna Carta is one of the most important to us in history.  During the time this document was written King John was on the throne. This ruler was starting to abuse his powers by raising the taxes without the people’s consent and was killing anybody who tried to take some of his power. The people got very angry with his actions so they wrote up a script called the Magna Carta.  It stated that no one was above the law including the king.  For example the king would kill people without thinking and that was against the law. It also stated that the king could not raise taxes without the great council’s consent.  The great council was a body that was made of bishops and high ranking officials.  In addition to that it said that everyone should have a fair trial and cannot just be put away when the king said so.  Finally it stated if the king were to break one of these laws it was the duty of the people to rebel against him.  During this time the feudal system was present. The feudal system works because the king can’t control all of the land so he needs help. First he hires nobles to split up the land.  Those nobles hire knights to protect the territory and to enforce laws. So if he didn’t sign this charter he would have been attacked by the knights because the nobles own the knights the king doesn’t. This left him with no choice but to sign it. 

Another major document is the English bill of rights. The English bill of rights was made during the glorious revolution. Charles II took the throne thinking he would be a despotic ruler. He started making the military, the people, and the governments become Roman Catholic. Any Protestants, or anybody from a different religion, was going to be wiped out or converted. The people didn’t like this so they revolted against Charles. This ended up in the people’s victory and many old traditions changed. Now the king had less power and almost every law that was made had to go through the parliament before actually being put into play. The Bill of Rights also stated that everyone should have the right of a trial by jury as the Magna Carta said too.  Lastly it states that everyone has the right to petition. This is a process which if there is a complaint or suggestion the king will act on it immediately and try to fix any problems.

Let’s talk about something a little closer to home; How about our declaration of independence.  After England settled colonies in America the king started raising taxes on the colonies for a worthless war in France. The colonies couldn’t pay the taxes because they had too many other problems like feeding themselves and taxes were the last thing they needed. This was the straw that broke the camels back after years of indiscretions they finally had enough of England’s disrespect. So they wrote the declaration of independence. This concordat stated the way to have a perfect government. All people should be created equal. A government has to protect the natural rights that god gave them. These are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And a government should only be changed if it is absolutely necessary because people can go through a lot of hardships but big change affects them more. The declaration also talks about how the king of England has wronged them; here are a few. The king drags the officials out to the wildest places so they would be too tired to have correct judgment and would just obey the king. He has also refused to approve any laws that the colonies have to have. He cancelled meetings if anybody is against him.  The declaration also was the first time our country’s name was ever spoken.

Before the declaration of independence was written there was another compact written just as we were settling into America. This was called the Mayflower Compact. When the Mayflower left England its destination was Virginia. But when a storm blew in it was totally off course and it came to shore in what is now Massachusetts. Before, in England, the law stated that the Protestants were to be in charge over the Puritans in Virginia. They didn’t land in Virginia did they? No, they landed in Massachusetts so the Puritans got to thinking and they wrote up a document on the boat saying that when they get to shore the Puritans were in charge. It also said that King James was there sovereign ruler. But they made their own government too. What was special about this was that all free men had the chance to make laws. It said that all people should come together and make “just and equal laws”. King James had the power to appoint a new governor to watch over. This was the first glimpse of our later government because this follows the same rules and traditions of a government formed by the people and run by the people. Lastly it said that if you follow the laws that the people make, the government will protect you. 41 men signed this document not including women.

John Locke was a political philosopher back in 1632 in England. He thought up the idea of natural rights. Natural rights are given to a person by god when they are born. These rights are life, liberty, and property. And he said if a king doesn’t uphold these rights the people can throw him out. Also our own declaration of independence says the same thing only in a slightly different way. John Locke said that there are two different kinds of government, state of nature and absolute power. Absolute power is when a large number of people are governed by one person. A state of nature is when there is no ruler at all, anybody could do whatever they wanted. What would probably happen is the strong people would all band together and take the natural rights away from the weak people and all the weak people would gang up in huge numbers and take away the rights of the strong people. Locke believed that people should surrender a little bit of their freedom to the government in exchange for protection this is called a social contract. He also devised the theory of a social compact. A social compact is when people agree to make government and protect people’s natural rights.

Montesquieu was a French political philosopher and wrote a lot of books about government and how it works. He thought that absolute power was a bad idea. He thought this because when you have this all you want to do is make sure you have it and keep it until you die. So this, can turn the best people into tyrants. Montesquieu thought that if you balance the power of the government between several parties. Each party had the power to check another. Checking is when another party can make sure that another party has their share of the power no more, no less. Montesquieu also thought of civic virtue and that everyone in the colony should practice it for the common welfare.  

Civic virtue is when you put your country or the people before yourself. Cincinnatus is a model of civic virtue. Ok, back to Cincinnatus, it was the year 460 B.C. and Rome’s army was in trouble, they were surrounded on both sides. So the dictator sent out for Cincinnatus because he was one of the most experienced warlords in Rome at the time. When the messengers arrived he was working in his little four acre farm, that’s not even the size of a football field!! Once Cincinnatus got to Rome the dictator agreed that he could be in charge of Rome for as long as he wanted. So Cincinnatus did his job and led the troops into a battle that lasted two days. The battle ended up as a victory. Cincinnatus was still in charge of Rome and he could be as long as he wanted to be. Instead he chose not to for the good of the citizens and because he knew if he was ruler for to long fame and power would takeover. That is how civic virtue is done.

Way back before dirt in 1258 king Henry III was urged by the bishops to make a new council or body of people called parliament. There were two different houses each one representing there own group of people. One house was called the House of Lords which represented all the nobles and the other called the House of Commons this branch represented all the regular people with large amounts of property. But tension grew between the parties, each one wanted all of the power. When one group got power they weren’t able to have it for a long time. The heat got so intense that it resulted in a civil war in the 1600s. But by the time the glorious revolution came around parliament had more power than the king so it was all good.

During The Massachusetts town meetings everyone in town got together to vote on a decision and this was a direct democracy. This works because of the small population of people could fit in a town hall and there were fewer issues. This did not include women, only grown males were allowed. You see this doesn’t work with large cities because with all the people they wouldn’t fit in a town hall. So the people elect representatives to stand for a small amount of people and the representatives can vote for them. For example, in America, we have a representative democracy. We elect several representatives from each state more or less depending on size and they vote for us

The Fundamental orders of Connecticut came about by a man whose name was Roger Williams. Williams lived in Massachusetts and he did not like the way things were going in the puritan colonies. He thought the puritans were way too strict and that he needed more freedom of religion. So Williams spoke out against the puritans and almost immediately banished. He went on to establish a colony in Rhode Island and make his own type of government. This government had the trait of separation from church and state which meant that the church doesn’t have so much power in the government and couldn’t banish people just because they didn’t like the native religion. More and more people agreed with Williams until the compact was signed and it became the first written constitution in the United States.

When Jamestown became the first successful British colony in the new world the London Company had absolute power. The London Company funded the voyage to the new world. The London Company thought it would attract more settlers if they let the people have some say in what happened around the colonies. The London Company devised a way that was just like the parliament in England to give power to the people. They split this government into two different sections the governor’s council and the other the House of Burgesses. The House of Burgesses had all the adult males. Each colony had the right to elect two representatives to represent them in the House of Burgesses. The power of the House of Burgesses was still very limited because none of the laws they could make could contradict any other British law. And the king had the power to take away any law he wanted to.    

Ok that’s it I hoped this answered any questions you had about the events leading up to the declaration of independence. All the events above were what wrote our constitution and declaration of independence. I hope you enjoyed reading this essay.