0Several western European countries, including Germany, France, and Switzerland influenced the founders of the United States.  However, the country most influential in the minds of those who wrote our laws and founding documents was England.  For one thing, the majority of the early colonists were English.  They included the pastors who greatly influenced colonial thinking, such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield,  John Wesley, and John Witherspoon.  Additionally, the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were of English descent.

The pastors and teachers were influenced not only by John Calvin, Samuel Rutherford, and John Locke but by documents that dated as early as the medieval period.  In 890 King Alfred took the laws English people lived by and put them on paper.  As his guide, he took the Mosaic Law from the Old Testament and applied it to the circumstances of English life.  Years later,  men such as Edmund Coke (1552-1634) and Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) would expound on this work that became known as English Common Law.  Much of the law included sins listed in the Mosaic Law, such as cursing, adultery, and prostitution.  Blackstone based the authority for these laws on what he called revealed law or the Bible.  In time, English Common Law developed laws concerning various legal issues and functions of government. (1)

Sir William Blackstone also used what he called natural law to illustrate what he called rights bestowed upon each individual at birth by God.  Natural law is just another way of saying the law of nature, mentioned in the previous post.  The rights included in natural law concerned the right to life and liberty.   Blackstone wrote:  “Natural liberty…(is) a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation.”   Because these rights are God-given,  no king has the authority to deny them to any individual, unless they abdicate them by committing a crime.  Blackstone wrote four volumes collectively titled, “Commentaries On The Laws of England.  They were widely read in the colonies and used as justification for declaring independence from England. (2)   During America’s conflict with England, Blackstone was a member of Parliament and supported the cause of the colonies.

Just as important as the English Common Law was the Magna Carta.  An original copy of the Magna Carta can be viewed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.  It is considered to be the most important legal document to Western Civilization.  It was written by Cardinal Stephen Langton, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Langton wrote the Magna Carta in an effort to establish limits on the power of kings.  This concept came to be known as “constitutionalism.”  Hmmm- sound familiar?  The Magna Carta proclaimed that “no person could be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”   At about the same time the Magna Carta was written, a group of Catholic lawyers called canon lawyers developed the concept of “inalienable rights.”  This term would be coined by Thomas Jefferson six hundred years later.  Again, these were rights an individual was born with; that no king could take away.   It is important to note that English Common Law and the Magna Carta were in place long before the Reformation and were instrumental in influencing Sir William Blackstone.  Both the Catholic church and the protestant churches of the Reformation played important roles in developing the political theories that would be studied and incorporated in forming the government of the United States of America.(3)

 

Interesting tidbits:

After Langton drafted the Magna Carta, he and several noblemen approached Prince John and pressured him to sign it.  This validated the document and gave it power.

It is interesting to note the ownership of property was grouped with inalienable rights.  Ownership of property meant the ability to grow crops to feed a family.  Without that power, people were at the mercy of a king or face starvation

Many state constitutions were based on the moral laws contained in the English Common Law.

 

(1) Amos and Gardner, NEVER BEFORE IN HISTORY, Haughton, pp. 62,63,68.

(2) Ibid. pp. 68, 69.

(3) Ibid. pp. 66,67.