Word: carta
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...Received a commemorative copy of a new book (Magna Carta, by Oxford University Professor James C. Holt) from Sir Patrick Dean, the British ambassador, and took the occasion to Lyndon-ize history: "The Magna Carta has always meant much to all Americans. The success of the lords who, shall we say, reasoned together with King John 750 years ago inspired the Americans who tried the same on King George III 189 years ago from Philadelphia. The outcome was good or bad-depending on the point of view...
Rich & Poor. Of the 63 chapters in Magna Carta, two stand above all others. Said Chapter 40: "To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice." That statement opened the courts to rich and poor alike...
Chapter 12 of Magna Carta, for example, heralded the principle of "taxation through representation," indirectly inspired the American Revolution by providing that the King should levy no taxes except by "general consent" of the kingdom. Chapters 17 through 19 laid to rest the practice of meting out justice only through the King's traveling court, led to permanently based courts (Common Pleas, King's Bench, Chancery and Exchequer) set up to deal with everything from debts to divorces...
That the punishment should fit the crime was the bedrock principle of Magna Carta's Chapter 20, which declared that "a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offense," and required that no fine be so stiff "as to deprive him of his livelihood." Chapters 28 through 31 insisted that no government official might requisition food, troops, horses or carts without immediate payment: this is the seed of the "just compensation" clause in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution...
...even if there were no Chapter 40, indeed if Magna Carta contained only a single chapter, its greatness would have been ensured by Chapter 39: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land." In that brief statement lies the forerunner of "due process," habeas corpus, trial by jury, the limitation...