The Magna Carta formed the foundation of the United States Constitution. Compare two specific articles of?

Answer 1

I am a historian, and I disagree with the statement in question. Although I think that the Magna Carta was a significant step toward the English common law that did form the foundation of our Constitution, to suggest that the Magna Carta formed the foundation is a big stretch. You can compare articles from the two, but the fact is that the writers of the Constitution were not working from the Magna Carta. They were working from a whole slew of sources, including the writings of Montesquieu, Locke, and Rousseau, the English constitution and common law, and their own thinking, to name just a few. Magna Carta is merely one small chunk of a large wall of Constitutional evolution.

Answer 2

The most important parallels between Magna Carta and the US Constitution are:

trial by jury of the defendant's peers
no confiscation of property except by due process
habeas corpus

The fundamental principle behind Magna Carta is that the king derives his powers from the consent of the governed, which in those days meant the barons, because anyone less than a baron did not really count for much. That, of course, is in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, but the Declaration is still a fundamental document of the United States, and it is a potent indictment of a government policy to state that it is contrary to the Declaration.

Answer 3

The way the question is phrased sounds like a homework assignment.

That being said, I don't grant the premise. The Magna Carta was one of many documents that the Framers of the Constitution considered during multiple version drafts.

As for the comparison, the whole point of the assignment is to get you to read the two documents.

Answer 4

I also don't agree with the premise but I think you are probably misstating your assignment here. You could write about trial by jury and compare it to the due process clause, or about voting rights, or about checks and balances.

Answer 5

I graduated. It's your turn to learn this.