Constitution’s Realtionship Between Other Historical Documents

The United States Constitution is thought to be an original thought of some super form of government, which leaped us from the hell grasps of England into a new era of freedom. When in reality our basic form of government is similar in many ways, including distributed powers, unalienable rights, and judicial laws. So despite the original 55 framers of the U.S. Constitution coming up with a government with a basis the rights of the individual, it was still based off several preexisting documents being implemented in other forms of government across the world.

Lets first start off describing the U.S. Constitution, it is consists of seven articles ranging from the separation of powers to how a law is to be ratified, and 26 Amendments that also vary, the first ten are known as the “Bill of Rights” and are our unalienable rights as citizens of this country, that no man can take away, and that includes the Second Amendment “right to bear arms”. These are to be fundamental rights to each and every citizen. Also there are several containing, the adoption of the Electoral College in electing the President, the freedom of slaves as equals in the mid 1800’s, the real freedom of African Americans in the mid 1900’s and the almighty limiting of pay raises of congressional members in the 1990’s.

This is all relevant because the other historical government forms contain a “Bill of rights” such as… the “English Bill of Rights (1689)”, which, in a big coincidence, is where the writers of the U.S. Constitution came from (Alpert, 2007). The English version requires individuals have these freedoms, “trial by jury…right to bear arms… prohibits excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishments” (Alpert, 2007) much like our own unalienable rights in the Fifth Amendment “trial by jury”, Second “right to bear arms” and Eight “prohibits excessive bail and unusual punishments”. Showing that by giving rights and focusing on common people may be nice, it still is not a pioneering type of government. In fact is based off a government in which they fled because of to much power encroaching on these exact rights.

Also many ideas and rights put forth by the Magna Carta (1215) are also endorsed by the U.S. Constitution. Clause 1 of the Magna Carta issues that the “church shall be free” (Alpert, 2007). This has been read historically by some to be a protection of the church from governmental power, similar to the protection submitted by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Clause 29 guarantees the right to “due process of law”, very similar to the Fifth Amendment. One of the most important rights acknowledged by the Magna Carta and also acknowledged by the United States judicial system is that right of “habeas corpus”. Clauses 36, 38, 39, and 40 all define the right in Magna Carta, while it is assured