The Magna Carta - Essay Example

Historical records stated that King John considered these rights granted to the nobility are done under duress (National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, p. 1). Until these days, the Magna remained significant for human rights advocacies and for its defenders because this was the first document which challenged the monarchical power of the King and systemically becomes the legal foundation against feudal relations -- that ‘no man should be above the law (National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, p. 1).’ The document expressly stated, "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land (National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, p. 1)." The Magna Carta has therefore dismantled the king’s feudal control over lands in England and its professed power of such elitist rule of the hierarchy where barons directly report to the King in the performance of their responsibilities (National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, p. 1). .

1; Walenta, 2010, p. 1). At the utmost, these principles are embed in universal declaration of human rights and in the Constitution of United States of America. Mulligan (2004) opined that the Magna Carta also ushered positive reform in legislation of laws and paved for the restoration of legal and political institutions after that tragic period of civil strife and social degeneration brought by social inequities and tyrannical control (pp. 41-65). This was affirmed by King Henry I and those subsequent rulers.

Expert scholars considered the document as the best enduring legacy to humankind because those principles strengthened the institutionalization of universal concepts of legal doctrines on judicial procedures that aided in the protection and promotion of civil rights. Franklin D. Roosevelt has succinctly expressed in his 1941 inaugural address when he stated that the Magna Carta is the written document that integrated the democratic aspiration in human history (National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, p. 1). When the Declaration of Independence was sealed and signed as the American Charters of Freedom in 1776, the great Fathers recognized the Magna Carta as the historical context in asserting their liberty from King George III and the English parliament (National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, p. 1). They honoured that meeting of 40 barons and King John 561 years earlier at Runnymede, now home of the Windsor Castle, where barons finally considered themselves as freemen and later became an inspiration for Americans.

They have likewise earned the reconfirmation of Henry I’s Coronation Oath and hence limited the King’s access to resources and funds. At that time, this charter was only