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kedness, no matter, so long as tyrants political & religious had a Divine right to reign and rob, just as they pleased and when they pleased. And perhaps the nine tenths of European society might, in their simplicity, sometimes wonder, what was the use of God giving them any minds and intellects at all; because if they dared to act or think without their master’s permission—; their last act of thinking was sure to be in the Star Chamber—the Bastile, or the Inquisition.
In tracing the progress of Liberty from its origin down the stream of time, after the darkness and despotism that so long lay up the world, one of her most important achievements; was the granting of the “Magna Charta” by king John to his Barons. This was the first act of Liberty after her long sleep; and it was the act of a giant refreshed with wine, and renewed strength. I know not a more important event in the progress of Liberty than that one act, because it is really the origin of every step that Liberty has subsequently taken, and every triumph she has since gained. That Magna Charta is the origin of constitutional governments, a government whose limitations and powers are defined and determined by the people. That Magna Charta is also the origin of the right of petition, which is one of the main pillars of Liberty and one of its essential features. That Magna Charta lost England these United States, for the seeds of our revolution were then sown which had to be transplanted to this western word to bear the full fruit, of Liberty. And that Magna Charta will much more diminish the prerogative of England’s crown and raise her trampled and prostrate peasantry. For what is most deserving the attention of political and moral observers at this time, is, that the present descendants of these same Barons, who wrested this Magna Charta from the crown, and the descendants of the feudal serfs of that day are now relatively occupying that position to one another, which king John and his proud Barons occupied. These Barons were then the Charterists, now the serfs and peasants are the Charterists, and demand from their masters and oppressors what the Barons demanded and obtained from their sovereign. And it was, an evil day for the posterity of these Barons, though a glorious day for the cause of Liberty, that saw king John affix his name or mark to that instrument. And had the spirit of prophecy gleamed for a moment upon his stolid intellect, so as to enable him to have foreseen centuries after, by whom and from whom another Magna Charta would be demanded, what a fiendish smile of pleasure might have lighted up his saturnine visage and neuteralized his mortification and wounded pride while he traced his almost
