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READ: Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, and American Democracy

Scholars explaining the roots of the American Revolution often look to centuries of English democratic traditions. Are they right?
The article below uses “Three Close Reads”. If you want to learn more about this strategy, click here.

First read: preview and skimming for gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Second read: key ideas and understanding content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:
  1. What was the Magna Carta?
  2. What were the two sides of the English Civil War? Who won?
  3. What elements of the English Bill of Rights are also found in American democratic thought and documents?
  4. Were the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, and the Glorious Revolution actually revolutionary?
  5. According to the article, why were English and Scottish political philosophers more popular in America than in England?

Third read: evaluating and corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:
  1. This article pays a lot of attention to the similarities between the texts English and American democracy. How might you tell the story of this relationship using the Networks frame?
  2. Was the American Revolution just a logical result of the English democratic tradition, or was it a war against English (British) monarchy, or both? Defend your answer with evidence from this article.
Now that you know what to look for, it’s time to read! Remember to return to these questions once you’ve finished reading.

Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, and American Democracy

Painting showing a crowd of soldiers in a forest, with a priest leading Charles I to his execution in 1649.
By Trevor Getz
Scholars explaining the roots of the American Revolution often look to centuries of English democratic traditions. Are they right?

Continuities?

At the start of the American War of Independence in late 1774, the First Continental Congress met to decide a course of action that would eventually lead to armed rebellion. Together, these representatives of the British colonies in North America wrote a Declaration of Rights and Grievances that demanded better treatment from the British King George III. In it, they demanded the liberties they believed were guaranteed by “the principles of the English Constitution, and several charters or compacts.” These included:
  • freedom from taxation without representation
  • the right to a trial by a jury of peers
  • protection of life, liberty, and property
These phrases should be familiar to anyone who knows a bit about the American Constitution and the development of democracy in what would become the United States of America. They were all taken from British legal and political documents. So, would it be fair to say, as many historians have, that American democracy is based on British (or English) ideas of liberty and rights?

Magna Carta

The United Kingdom of Great Britain, which ruled the American colonies, was made up of a formal union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland in 1707. Because England also ruled Wales and Ireland at this time, those countries also became part of Great Britain. Together, they formed a single political unit. Although the Continental Congress would later cite its “constitution,” Britain had no actual constitutional document, but rather a number of “charters or compacts” between the King and various parts of the population, which had grown over time. Most of them came from the English part of Great Britain.
The first of these documents was the Magna Carta. Confusingly, there are several versions of this “Great Charter” (the translation for the Latin words Magna Carta). The most important was signed by King John on June 15, 1215. He didn’t sign by choice, he was actually forced to sign by his nobles, known as barons in the document.
A copy of the Magna Carta, on display in a gold case, at the US Capitol building. A group of visitors surround the case, looking at the document.
A copy of the Magna Carta on display at the US Capitol building. Although an English document, it has been celebrated as a step on the way to American democracy. © Getty Images.
The Magna Carta guaranteed certain rights and freedoms, mostly to the barons. The barons were unhappy that both John and his father, Henry II, had together taxed them and taken away a lot of their power and authority. Henry II had been an effective and powerful king, and so the barons were unable to push back against his taxes and centralization of power. But John was less respected and less personally powerful, so the barons forced him to agree to some reforms. Most of these reforms merely benefited this small group of wealthy and powerful men: limiting the taxes they could be forced to pay (unless they agreed) and promising them swift access to justice. This is precisely the kind of stuff you find in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Note these comparisons:
Magna Carta US Constitution
Paragraph 34: “The writ … shall not in the future be issued … if a free man could thereby be deprived of the right of trial in his own lord’s court.”Sixth Amendment: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial … [in] the state or district wherein the crime shall have been committed which district shall have been ascertained by law …”
Paragraph 52: “To any man who we have deprived … of lands, castles, liberties or rights without the lawful judgments of his equals, we will at once restore these.” Sixth Amendment: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a … trial by an impartial jury…”
So, some of the rights that the founders of the United States would emphasize were indeed found in the Magna Carta. But remember, these rights largely applied only to important and powerful men in thirteenth-century England. There were a few mentions of serfs and peasants, but they were very limited indeed.

English Civil War

A second important event in British history was the English Civil War of 1642-1651, not to be confused with the American Civil War two hundred years later.
The English Civil War was fought between those who supported the King – Charles I – and those who supported the English Parliament, a semi-elected body. A war like this, between a king and a parliament, can easily be seen as a model for the American War of Independence in that the fight is for democracy and constitutionalism. And there’s a lot to that assessment.
First, the cause of the English Civil War was mostly about taxes imposed by the king, without the support of Parliament. (Sounds a lot like the American Revolutionary demand of “no taxation without representation”). Second, the English Civil War was between a group of semi-elected officials – members of Parliament – and an unelected King. Finally, it was a war that ended with the execution of King Charles I – killing a king is about as revolutionary as it gets!
The turmoil of the English Civil War gave rise to a number of groups who were very democratic. One of these groups were the Levellers, who were radical supporters of the Parliamentary side. They called for:
  • rule by the people (a phrase that would come back in the American Revolution)
  • widespread right to vote
  • religious tolerance
Cover page of the Declaration and Standard with an engraved image of the Levellers submitting proposals.
Representatives of the Levellers putting their proposals before Parliament. Courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Oxford and Google Books. Public domain.
But the Levellers did not win this conflict. First, even many of their allies did not agree with their radical ideas. But second, in 1660, Charles I’s son – Charles II – was restored to the throne of England and Scotland, and the monarchy was restored.

Glorious Revolution

Now for the third event in English political history that is often invoked as important to the ideas of American revolutionaries: the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This was a bloodless revolution that replaced James II, Charles II’s son, with a new King and Queen – William of Orange (from the Netherlands) and his English wife, Mary.
The Glorious Revolution took place partly because James II suspended Parliament and tried to rule all by himself. This unpopular strategy got him replaced. When the rebels put William and Mary on the throne, they didn’t want this kind of thing to happen again. So they got them to sign an important document called the Bill of Rights. This English Bill of Rights of 1689 had a lot of similarities to the later American Constitution and Bill of Rights a century later. For example:
English Bill of Rights US Revolution and Constitution
Makes it illegal for the King to institute taxes without the consent of ParliamentAmerican revolutionary cry of no taxation without representation
Provides free electionsUS Constitution provides for certain groups of people to elect members of Congress
Freedom of debate and speech, at least in ParliamentFirst Amendment of the US Bill of Rights guarantees free speech
Makes cruel and unusual punishments illegalEighth Amendment of the US Bill of Rights also prohibits cruel and unusual punishments
Elaborate engraving of the royal court at the ratification of the Bill of Rights by King William and Queen Mary.
But some might argue that the Glorious Revolution was not really revolutionary. It was mostly organized by a group of wealthy men who replaced one king with another. The new guy, King William, was no democrat. He merely agreed to provide a few rights for others in order to get the throne of this increasingly powerful kingdom.

Limitations of the argument

In fact, it is possible to argue that there was no real tradition of democratic rule in England at all by the time of the American Revolution. Although the American revolutionaries imagined that the Magna Carta had been an important democratic document, it really just affirmed the power of the barons. The English Civil War had ended not in democracy but rather a restored monarchy. The English Bill of Rights was very limited.
Indeed, the English and Scottish political philosophers who most inspired the Americans were those who had lost in these conflicts. They were the opponents of the monarchy who called for total – okay, almost total – democracy. But these philosophers were not in power. They called for local rule, for rights for anyone – well, anyone who owned land – and for religious tolerance. Back in Britain, in fact, their work was not that widely read.
But these opponents of the British Kings were very popular in the American colonies. Pamphlets written by Thomas Paine and other American rebels, many of whom were born in Britain, cited the Levellers and other inspiring radicals.
Why were the radical ideas of the British opposition so popular in the British North American colonies? Unlike England, the American colonies had lots of people owning land, instead of just a few. Also, they were far away from the British government and had to make decisions on their own. As a result, they had elected local governments to make decisions at least on local matters. Finally, lots of different religious groups lived together. So the radical ideas of the opposition writers appealed to them.
This isn’t to say that the English legal and political tradition wasn’t important to the American Revolution. It’s just that the radicals who were most influential on American laws and documents had less power in Britain itself.
Author bio
Trevor Getz is Professor of African History at San Francisco State University. He has written eleven books on African and world history, including Abina and the Important Men. He is also the author of A Primer for Teaching African History, which explores questions about how we should teach the history of Africa in high school and university classes.

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