This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 10th, 2015. I'm

Kila Brown. The Magna Carta, the Great Charter, marks its 800th year

this year, but its relevance to the founding of the United States and

how we consider rights today is easy to forget. Roger Pallon, Vice President for

Legal Affairs at the Cato Institute discusses the continuing importance of the Magna Carta so many centuries later.

Eight hundred years ago, the barons and clergy of England presented the King of England, King John, with a document,

claiming their ancient rights as Englishmen,

and forced John's hand on the document.

It was the first written constitution in essence for the English-speaking people and it has stood ever since as the

symbol for the rise of the rule of law and of placing arbitrary executive power under the rule of law.

The Magna Carta did not give everyone, or at least it did not enshrine rights for everybody, it was for a specific group.

Absolutely, and that is not unlike our own Constitution.

And in the case of both documents,

the scope of the document and its protections

expanded over time.

The Magna Carta has gone through several iterations. The first was 1215, then again in 1225,

then again in 1297, and so on over the centuries.

And in each case, the nobles realize

that in order to keep it effective, it would have to have scope for more and more people.

And so it was in their interest to see to it that its scope expanded and in many ways that was true in this country too.

Was that history known to the founders?

That isn't that history of the increasing scope of people that had been covered by Magna Carta?

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