Charter

“ In the presence of God, I swear to observe faithfully the Constitutional Charter, with the modifications contained in the declaration; to govern only by the laws and according to the laws; to render fair and equal justice to every one according to his right, and to act in every thing in no other view but that of the interest, the happiness, and the glory of the French people. ”

“ If a charter be a mere grant of political power, if it create a civil institution, to be employed in the administration of the government, or, if the funds be public property alone, and the government alone be interested in the management of them, the legislative power over such charter is not restrained by the constitution, but remains unlimited. ”

“ And if his judgment is right, how imprudently and contrary to their charter, have his three hundred thousand souls acted in their elections of assembly-men these twenty years past; for the charter requires them to choose men of most note for virtue, wisdom and ability! ”

“ We have lived to fee the most valuable part of the charter of our most sacred rights daringly invaded—but we will not live to see it destroyed. The wounds by which it falls shall first reach our hearts, and the rich torrents of our blood be shed as a libation on the pile of expiring freedom.
Let us preserve the Great Charter of our liberties with the same firmness as that by which it was obtained, and by which it has been preserved to us against the repeated attacks of wicked and abandoned traitors, and this is only to be done by the firmness and intrepidity of Englishmen. ”

“ The infatuation opposed to the reasoning, which discloses the destruction of responsibility and legislative integrity, lurking in the system of charter and banking, is an unexamined idea, that our constitutions contain some charm, some magical influence, which will preserve liberty, by the agency of avaricious charter-making and charter-taking representatives. History produces no instance of national happiness, under a legislature, corrupted by the most sordid passion, of which human nature is susceptible. ”

“ The charter they crafted—with its separate branches of Government, enumerated powers, checks and balances, and later the specific protections provided by our Bill of Rights—guides our Nation and inspires others around the world. ”

“ JONES
Under the charter, eh?
PETER
Aye, so there's naught to do but what the masters say. [Pg 23]
JONES
Have you never heard of mutiny?
PETER
Mutiny? Nay, we be lawful men, bound together in the love of Jehovah; we'll not mutiny! We must abide by our charter.
JONES
The charter, aye.
PETER
So there's naught to do—
JONES
Hold—have you thought on this—the charter binds you under the King's grant in Virginia Plantation—
PETER
Aye. ”

“ That there might be always at the head of the province, and resident therein, as the charter provides, a person of untainted integrity, candor, impartiality and wisdom, to judge of and determine so essential a point—A point, in which I should think, no person who justly deserves this character, can be passive or merely ministerial, against his own judgment and conscience. ”

“ The Great Charter is old law. It is codification, or rather it is a selection of those points of the existing law which the king had constantly violated, for the purpose of stating them in such form that his specific pledge to regard them could be secured, and his consent to machinery for enforcing them in case he broke his pledge. The source of the Great Charter, then, of its various provisions and of its underlying principle, must be sought in the existing law that regulated the relations between the king and the barons—the feudal law. ”

“ As when the king by a charter saith, Whoever the city shall choose, shall be their mayor, and have such and such power, and be invested in it by the recorder or steward: here the person elected receiveth all his power from the king by his charter, (which is a standing efficient, conveying it to the capable chosen person,) and not from the choosers or recorder; only the last is as a servant to deliver possession. ”

“ And whereas the said English, have represented their Desire to the said Earl, and Commissioners, to have their hopeful Beginnings approved and confirmed, by granting unto them a Free Charter of Civil Incorporation and Government; that they may order and govern their Plantation in such a Manner as to maintain Justice and peace, both among themselves, and towards all Men with whom they shall have to do. ”

“ There it stands in the very front of our Great Charter, embodied in two simple, self-evident truths,—first, that all men are equal in rights, and, secondly, that all just government is founded only on the consent of the governed,—the two together making an axiomatic definition which proves itself. ”

“ If there had been railways in the Middle Ages there would probably have been a railwaymen's guild; and it would have had a charter from the King, defining their rights. A charter is the expression of an idea still true and then almost universal: that authority is necessary for nothing so much as for the granting of liberties. ”

“ Here, then, we are face to face with a fundamental question of immense importance: Does the Great Charter really, as the orthodox traditional view so vehemently asserts, protect the rights of the whole mass of humble Englishmen equally with those of the proudest noble? ”

“ With respect to the power of the convention to impose this inhibition, it seems to be pertinent in this place to recur to the opinion of one contemporary with the establishment of the Government, and whose distinguished services in the formation and adoption of our national charter point him out as the artifex maximus of our Federal system. ”

“ The charter was spread forth—the Great Charter, which, in the first place, asserted the liberty of the Church of England, and then of its people. It forbade the King to exact arbitrary sums from his subjects without the consent of a council of the great crown vassals; it required that no man should be made an officer of justice without knowledge of the law; and forced from the King the promise not to sell, refuse, or defer right or justice to any man; neither to seize the person or goods of any free man without the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. ”

“ The aristocracy, who batten on your sweat and blood, tremble. The Government are preparing for flight. The great cause gains ground daily. Ten thousand signatures have been added to the Charter of the people during the last three days. The moment of freedom is at hand! We agreed, at our last meeting, that we would this evening discuss what our course of proceeding shall be, when the Charter of the people is presented to the House of Commons. ”

“ A charter, then, being a contract within the scope of the constitution, the next consideration, which has arisen upon this important subject, is, whether the principle applies to all charters, public as well as private. Corporations are divisible into two sorts, such as are strictly public, and such as are private. ”

“ When they won their independence the people of each state substituted a CONSTITUTION for the charter; the difference between a charter and a constitution being that the former is given TO the people by some higher authority, while the latter is adopted BY the people themselves. All of our states alike, whether created before or after the Union was formed, are self-governing under constitutions of their own making. ”

“ The first great document in the laws of the Thirteenth Century is, of course, Magna Charta, signed in 1215, the foundation of all the liberties of English speaking people ever since. Perhaps the highest possible tribute to the Great Charter is the fact that it has grown in the estimation of intelligent men, rather than lost significance. ”

“ ANDROS
Here, sir, are my orders. [rattle of paper] [Pg 8]
TREAT
And here, sir, is a true copy of our charter. [rattle of paper]
ANDROS
My orders supersede your charter.
TREAT
Our charter is a royal grant, and cannot be superseded except for cause by due process of law.
ANDROS
I shall take possession under my orders. You can appeal to the Privy Council for redress.
TREAT
You can take possession only after every man in this fort is dead!
ANDROS
Do you still insist on this ridiculous show of force?
TREAT
I do! If you make a move to land your troops, we will open fire! ”

“ The authority of the Legislature to repeal a charter is much broader than the judicial authority. It is expressly declared by the Constitution and by the law to be in the discretion of the Legislature. ”

“ In Articuli super Chartas; when the Great Charter was confirmed, at the Request of his Prelates, Earls and Barons, we find these Passages. 1. Nevertheless the King and his Council do not intend by reason of this Statute to diminish the King’s Right, &c. 2. And notwithstanding all these things before-mentioned, or any part of them; both the King and his Council, and all they that were present at the making of this Ordinance, will and intend that the Right and Prerogative of his Crown shall be saved to him in all things. ”

“ These are all examples of the basic theory underlying the Charter, namely that the state will respect choices made by individuals and, to the greatest extent possible, will avoid subordinating these choices to any one conception of the good life. ”

“ The charter goes on to give authority to commanders, captains, governors, and all other officers for the time being, “to correct, punish, pardon, govern [Pg 47] and rule all such the subjects of us, our heires and successors, as shall from tyme to tyme adventure themselves in any voyage thither or from thence, or that shall at any tyme hereafter inhabit within the precincts and parts of New England aforesaid, according to the orders, lawes, ordinances, instructions and directions aforesaid, not repugnant to the laws and statutes of our realme of England as aforesaid.” ”

“ It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect—that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. ”

“ A Charter is a grant of certain powers or privileges given to a part of the community for the advantage of the whole, and is therefore liable by its nature to change or to revocation. Every act of Government aims at publick good. A Charter, which experience has shewn to be detrimental to the nation, is to be repealed; because general prosperity must always be preferred to particular interest. If a Charter be used to evil purposes, it is forfeited, as the weapon is taken away which is injuriously employed. ”

“ And we are not obliged to learn them from imperfect evidences or precarious speculation; for they are imperishably recorded in the Great Charter, and in Charters and Statutes connected with and confirmatory of Magna Charta [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1215] . ... These great primeval and enduring principles of our Constitution are as follows: The government of the country by an hereditary sovereign, ruling with limited powers, and bound to summon and consult a parliament of the whole realm, comprising hereditary peers and elective representatives of the commons. ”

“ When Britain first at Heaven's command,
⁠Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the azure main
⁠This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain,
⁠Rule Britannia! ”

“ We are being taught in other directions that it is not enough to say that a charter is genuine or spurious. Fragments of genuine charters are embodied in late copies which have been remodelled for reasons often hidden from us. ”

“ As the People are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of Government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of the Government; ”

“ But many of them are matters of primary importance in the constitutional history of England. The Great Charter must not, however, be overrated as an expression of general constitutional rights; to a large extent it is a mere recapitulation of the claims of the baronage, and gives redress for their feudal grievances in the matters of aids, reliefs, wardships, &c., its object being the repression of arbitrary exactions by the king on his tenants-in-chief. ”

“ CHARTERS The contract which the citizens extorted from their lord was known as a charter. It specified what taxes they should be required to pay and usually granted to them various privileges, such as those of holding assemblies, electing magistrates, and raising militia for local defense. The revolt of the cities gradually extended over all western Europe, so that at the end of the fourteenth century hardly any of them lacked a charter.
CIVIC FREEDOM The free city had no room for either slaves or serfs. ”

“ Because the charters comprehend the essential forms by which you enjoy your liberties, we regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they have lately been. We even think that they ought by no means to be altered at all, but at the desire of the greater part of the people who live under them. ”

“ The charter is to them the letter of authority, to which every one may look when called upon to consider the validity of their acts. The corporation can only be bound when these agents keep strictly within their prescribed limits. ”

“ Notwithstanding all which, what with the interest they had, or made amongst the courtiers, and what with the plausibleness of the thing at sirst sight, their proposals were accepted, and a charter was granted them fuller than they desired. ”