arter, or the Charter of the Forest, that shall be holden for none;
by which words all former statutes made against either of those
charters are now repealed; and the nobles and great officers were to
be sworn to the observation of Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta.

"_Magna fuit quondam magnae reverentia chartae._" (Great was formerly
the reverence for Magna Carta.)--_Coke's Proem to 2 Inst._, p. 1 to
7.

Coke also says, "All pretence of prerogative against Magna Charta is
taken away."--_2 Inst._, 36.

He also says, "That after this parliament (_52 Henry_ III., in 1267)
neither Magna Carta nor Carta de Foresta was ever attempted to be
impugned or questioned."--_2 Inst._, 102.[109]

To give all the evidence of the authority of Magna Carta, it would be
necessary to give the constitutional history of England since the year
1215. This history would show that Magna Carta, although continually
violated and evaded, was still acknowledged as law by the government,
and was held up by the people as the great standard and proof of their
rights and liberties. It would show also that the judicial tribunals,
_whenever it suited their purposes to do so_, were in the habit of
referring to Magna Carta as authority, in the same manner, and with the
same real or pretended veneration, with which American courts now refer
to the constitution of the United States, or the constitutions of the
states. And, what is equally to the point, it would show that these same
tribunals, the mere tools of kings and parliaments, would resort to the
same artifices of assumption, _precedent_, construction, and false
interpretation, to evade the requirements of Magna Carta, and to
emasculate it of all its power for the preservation of liberty, that are
resorted to by American courts to accomplish the same work on our
American constitutions.

I take it for granted, therefore, that if the authority of Magna Carta
had rested simply upon its character as a _compact_ between the king and
the people, it would have been forever binding upon the king, (that is,
upon the government, for the king was the government,) in his
legislative, judicial, and executive character; and that there was no
_constitutional_ possibility of his escaping from its restraints, unless
the people themselves should freely discharge him from them.

But the authority of Magna Carta does not rest, either wholly or mainly,
upon its character as a compact. For centuries