The Religious Foundations of Magna Carta’s Legacy of Liberty

Issued by England’s King John in 1215, Magna Carta sets a series of constraints on the monarchy that became a fundamental part of the British constitution, and a direct line can be traced from this charter to the traditions of limited government that underpin the American founding. It is also, as Walter Russell Mead, Jonathan Silver, and Catherine Pakaluk explain, a document that places religion front and center. Mead observes that it opens with a “reassertion of the rights of the church,” and takes as axiomatic that “freedom and liberty if not grounded in reverence and faith sooner or later will go badly.” To Mead, the lesson to be learned from Magna Carta is that the cause of liberty and the preservation of tradition go hand in hand. (Video, 77 minutes.)