[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9563-9564]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  800TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MAGNA CARTA

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Eight hundred years ago on this very day, at the field 
of Runnymede alongside the River Thames in England, King John granted 
the document that came to be known as the Magna Carta--in our language, 
the Great Charter. This was the result of negotiations between King 
John and rebellious barons who objected to what they saw as violations 
of their customary privileges. By affixing his Great Seal to the 
document 800 years ago today, the King accepted limits on his power to 
impose his will on his subjects.
  It was a momentous occasion, as evidenced by the fact that four 
original copies of the Magna Carta remain carefully preserved, but its 
significance has grown over time. It is true that the original Magna 
Carta was only in effect for a couple months before King John then at 
that time got the Pope to annul it. Subsequent Kings voluntarily 
reissued the charter as a way of gaining the support of the barons, and 
portions still retain legal force in England today.
  While many of the specific provisions in the Magna Carta dealt with 
very medieval concerns, such as how heirs and widows of deceased barons 
should be treated, a couple clauses resonate very strongly to this very 
day.

       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.
       To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay justice or 
     rightful justice.

  In these clauses, you can see the specific right of habeas corpus 
that was included in the U.S. Constitution as well as a right to speedy 
trial by jury in the Sixth Amendment. You can also see a reference to 
property rights. Moreover, what comes through is the overarching theme 
of the Magna Carta--something very basic to U.S. governance--the rule 
of law or what John Adams called ``a government of laws, and not of 
men.''
  In the 17th century, the Magna Carta was increasingly cited to 
criticize the King's exercise of arbitrary power in the tug-of-war for 
supremacy between the English Crown and the Parliament. It became a 
potent symbol of an inviolable liberties of Englishmen.
  For instance, when William Penn was put on trial in England for 
practicing his Quaker faith, he used the Magna Carta in his defense. He 
later wrote a commentary on the Magna Carta for a work printed in 
Philadelphia called ``The Excellent Privilege of Liberty and Property 
Being the Birth-Right of the Free-born Subjects of England,'' which 
contained the first edition of the Magna Carta printed in the New 
World. In this work, William Penn explained the significance of the 
English tradition where the ruler is bound by the law, in contrast to 
countries such as France, where the King was actually the law.
  He wrote, again quoting William Penn:

       In England the Law is both the measure and the bound of 
     every Subject's duty and allegiance, each man having a Fixed 
     Fundamental right born with him, as to freedom of his person 
     and property in his estate, which he cannot be deprived of, 
     but either by his consent, or some crime, for which the law 
     has imposed such a penalty for forfeiture.

  It is in this environment that the English philosopher John Locke 
developed his theory of natural rights, which was so influential in the 
drafting of the Declaration of Independence. The natural rights 
philosophy went a step further than the ancient rights of Englishmen, 
positing that the rights are God-given and self-evident and that the 
very purpose of government is to secure those rights.
  However, you can clearly trace the lineage of the notion of limited 
government and consent of the governed to the Magna Carta. In fact, the 
original version of the Magna Carta contained a clause limiting the 
ability of the King to levy certain taxes on the barons without first 
consulting them. I think you can clearly see that this is an early 
version of what we say: No taxation without representation.
  While that provision did not last, the custom of needing consent for 
taxation eventually led to the evolution of the parliamentary system 
and representative government. Still, it is important to note that 
representative government grew out of even more fundamental principles, 
such as the rule of law, limited government, and the notion that 
citizens retain rights that the government may not in any way violate.
  Our Founding Fathers thought that representative government was the

[[Page 9564]]

best way to guard against tyranny and preserve the rights of citizens. 
But that is not sufficient, because without a strong tradition of 
respect for the rule of law, even duly-elected governments can descend 
into tyranny. Now, remember the history of Germany pre-World War II. 
Hitler came to power as a result of a democratic process and then 
proceeded to act in the very definition of tyranny.
  In more recent times, Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia 
and then stifled opposition and consolidated power to himself, 
essentially putting himself above the law. When Sergei Magnitsky stood 
up for the rule of law in Russia and exposed corruption at the highest 
levels in that country, he was imprisoned in appalling conditions, 
where he died a slow, agonizing death.
  By contrast, the 800-year old Anglo-American tradition of the rule of 
law acts as a crucial safeguard to our liberty--not only that, but it 
is also an essential foundation for prosperity. An organization called 
World Justice Project has ranked countries based on various factors 
that indicate how a strong the rule of law is in that particular 
country. The countries at the top tend to not only be ones we recognize 
as very free but also tend to be much more prosperous than countries 
ranked at the bottom of the rule of law index.
  Now, maybe to us in America that makes common sense. I think it is 
common sense. You are less likely, then, to work hard to generate 
wealth or invest in a business if you cannot be sure that the law will 
protect what you worked for. Still, we should not take this 800-year-
old document and tradition for granted. It will continue to preserve 
our liberty and provide for our prosperity only so long as it retains 
the reverence it has built up over the generations.
  Human nature being what it is, there is still always a temptation for 
those in power to think they are above the law. For instance, in the 
famous Frost interviews after he resigned the Presidency over the 
Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon was asked about the legal limits of 
what a President can do. Nixon answered: ``If the President does it, 
that means it's not illegal.''
  He could not have been more wrong from the standpoint of the U.S. 
Constitution and the fundamental principles on which it is founded, 
going all the way back to the Magna Carta. Still the danger does not 
just come from megalomaniacs and others who seek to use power for their 
own purposes. Those entrusted with power who would act outside the law, 
even when they think it is good for their people as they see it, end up 
eroding the bulwark of liberty that is the rule of law. Ever since the 
Progressive Era, there has been a powerful school of thought that our 
system of divided and limited government is somehow inefficient, that 
we should have evolved beyond the need for limits on governmental 
power, and that power concentrated in the right hands can be used to 
help people.
  This is a temptation for every President and one I fear the current 
President is particularly susceptible to. In fact, modern Presidents 
have tools at their disposal that go far beyond anything envisioned by 
the Framers of the Constitution. The Constitution says that the role of 
the President is not to write laws, but to ``take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed.''
  We now have a massive administrative state made up of departments and 
agencies to which Congress has delegated enormous power and that make 
regulations with the force of law. Moreover, these agencies have the 
power to enforce their own regulations and the primary role in 
interpreting their regulation in individual cases. Thus, they exercise 
legislative, executive, and judicial power all in the one.
  But this concentration of power in executive branch agencies creates 
a strong temptation for Presidents to use it to implement their agenda 
irrespective of Congress or the law of the land. I have been very 
critical of President Obama for a number of actions that I think exceed 
his legal authority, from using the Clean Water Act to try to regulate 
land use decisions in virtually every county in our country to forcing 
States to adopt his preferred education policies in order to get 
funding and waivers to granting a massive amnesty from our immigration 
laws, which even he previously admitted he did not have the legal 
authority to do.
  I think these are bad policies. But even those who see these as 
short-term policy victories should be very wary of the long-term 
consequences of anything that erodes our tradition of respect for the 
rule of law.
  Now, as I finish, it took 800 years to build up, and once it is 
eroded it will not be easy to restore. It is vital that Presidents 
exercise restraint out of respect for the rule of law.
  Congress should also work to reclaim much of the power it has 
delegated to the executive branch in order to reduce the temptation and 
the opportunity for abuse of executive power. It is not just up to 
elected officials. Our ancient tradition of the rule of law draws its 
authority from the fact that generations have demanded that their 
leaders adhere to the rule of law. As such, this 800th anniversary of 
the Magna Carta is an occasion for Americans to remember our heritage 
and to rededicate ourselves to this bedrock of liberty, the rule of 
law.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

                          ____________________