Melvyn Bragg Quotes
Is it rather stupid and dangerous to take Magna Carta so much for granted, as many of us seem to do, and to think of this attitude as 'very English?'
It was a quasi constitution in limited areas and declared the representatives of the people coordinate with the governor and council, and that no taxes could be laid without their consent—a degree of freedom and self-determinism what was far greater than those of the other colonies save Pennsylvania. Several years earlier, the English portion of the colony clamored for representative government and was ready to break into open rebellion against Governor Edmund Andros and the authority of the Duke of York. The Duke promised an elected assembly and 18 elected New Yorkers constituted the first representative assembly. Their first act was to pass the Charter of Liberties which was approved by the Duke’s new Governor Thomas Dongan. So the Charter of Liberties was the first set of laws in America passed by a vote of elected representatives of the people.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
The two law enforcement officers had testified that they arrested demonstrators who had “come to break the law” and had not at that point broken any laws.
The original draft presented to him had said “We the assembled delegates of ….” Morris made one of the most important and dramatic edits in the history of humanity. See {600144} for an idea of how determinative the phrase was years later.
He and Thomas Jefferson were the two most vocal propononents of this view amongst the Founding Fathers.
To the pro-slavery politician, abolition was an abdication of government to fulfill it’s 3 major responsibilities. Slaves were private property and government had to safeguard the owner’s right to own that property. Slave owners had always been free in America to hold slaves, and abolition impinged on that freedom. And the slavery advocates knew better than the abolitionists how cruelly the slaves had been treated. They reasoned—that if anyone had treated them that way, they would if they could take revenge and kill the slave owners. Therefore, abolition threatened the lives of Southern citizens. Of course, Brown and his fellow slave-owners did not consider the fact that they had interfered with the right of the slave to own property, they denied him freedom, and in many cases killed slaves as examples or out of neglect. Their “logic” was that slaves were not citizens and therefor were not entitled to these protection.
Rynnymede was the location in England where the Barons of the realm confronted King John and forced him to sign the Magna Carta. This was the first event that limited the powers of the King
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, CH, HonFRS, FBA, FRSL, is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is best known for his work with ITV as editor and presenter of The South Bank Show (1978–2010), and for the BBC Radio 4 documentary series In Our Time.
