On the fields of Runnymede, 801 years ago today, English nobles and clergy met to wrest from King John many of the rights we Americans now enjoy. There followed, however unevenly, the rule of law.
Thus was the nascent common law reduced to a document, Magna Carta, the world’s oldest, still honored “constitution.” Its lesson, that political power needs to be restrained by the rule of law, is as important to remember today as it was eight centuries ago.
Click on the links above to see why.
