This paper examines the historical development of constitutional government, focusing on how systems of checks and balances evolved to limit the exercise of sovereign power. Beginning with the Magna Carta of 1215, the paper traces key documents — including the English Bill of Rights of 1689 — that shaped the thinking of America's Founding Fathers. It analyzes Woodrow Wilson's conception of constitutional government as a practical arrangement of limits and methods rather than an abstract proclamation of rights. The paper also considers how the U.S. Constitution has evolved through amendments, including the 14th Amendment's expansion of due process and the failed experiment of Prohibition under the 18th Amendment, illustrating that constitutional governance is a continuous, evolving process.
The paper demonstrates effective use of historical contextualization — each constitutional document (Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution, and its amendments) is introduced not merely as a legal artifact but as a response to specific abuses of power. This technique shows students how to situate legal and political ideas within the conditions that produced them, strengthening causal reasoning in historical analysis.
The paper opens with a theoretical definition of constitutional government using Wilson's framework, then moves chronologically through the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution. It shifts from historical origins to domestic constitutional evolution — particularly the 14th and 18th Amendments — before concluding that constitutional governance is an ongoing, adaptive process rather than a fixed settlement. This arc moves from theory to history to contemporary application.
A constitutional government places limits upon the exercise of power in writing. Power is invested in institutions, not simply in people or customs. According to President Woodrow Wilson: "A constitutional government is one whose powers have been adapted to the interests of its people and to the maintenance of individual liberty. That, in brief, is the conception we constantly make use of, but seldom analyze, when we speak of constitutional governments" (Wilson 1908). Wilson further notes that "roughly speaking, constitutional government may be said to have had its rise at Runnymede, when the barons of England exacted Magna Carta of John; and that famous transaction we may take as the dramatic embodiment alike of the theory and of the practice we seek" (Wilson 1908).
The Magna Carta of 1215 was a written document that placed limits upon the exercise of the king's power. This was a radical notion during a historical period in which the "divine right of kings" was still taken quite seriously. The Magna Carta "required King John of England to proclaim certain rights (pertaining to nobles and barons), respect certain legal procedures, and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects — whether free or fettered — most notably the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment" ("Magna Carta," History, 2012).
Most of the document pertained to the rights of the nobility, but the inalienable rights of the individual were still protected in some of its provisions. This notion — that the king had an obligation to respect the rights of his subjects — was highly influential in giving the American colonists both the intellectual justification to rebel and the conceptual foundation to create a government based upon checks and balances. It was also very influential in the creation of the Bill of Rights, which specifically protected the right of citizens to habeas corpus and against unreasonable searches and seizures.
According to Wilson, there are very practical aspects to the exercise of constitutional government: "Look into any constitutional document of the English-speaking race and you shall find the same spirit, the same way of action: its aim is always an arrangement, as if of business — no abstract setting forth of liberties, no pretense of grants of privilege or political rights, but always a formulation of limits and of methods, a regulation of the way governments shall act and individuals be dealt with" (Wilson 1908).
This practical spirit can also be seen in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, another highly influential document for the Founding Fathers. The Bill of Rights established the rights of the legislature in relation to the king's authority. Specifically, it contained provisions such as "that the pretended power of suspending the laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal" ("English Bill of Rights 1689," Revolutionary War and Beyond, 2012). Although England had been a Parliamentary democracy for some time, kings had attempted to circumvent such provisions by not calling Parliament for years and acting in an absolutist fashion. The English Bill of Rights set forth, in highly specific and non-abstract terms, that the right of Parliament as a representative body — and as a check upon the power of the king — was just as important as the king's authority.
Not all attempts to reform the U.S. Constitution were equally successful. The 18th Amendment put Prohibition into action, banning all forms of alcohol consumption and sales. When this proved to be untenable to enforce — despite having been passed through the lengthy and cumbersome process of amending the Constitution — it was ultimately rescinded through the use of another constitutional amendment, the 21st.
The formulation of the Constitution, and the ongoing negotiation between the rights of the people and the powers of the government, is thus a continual and evolving process — not one that was settled merely when the laws of the land were first written down.
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