Lesson Title: Law Day 2015 Lesson
Magna Carta: Symbol of Freedom Under Law
Lesson Description: This Lesson uses materials developed by the American Bar Association and is included in their 2015 Planning Guide. The DelawareLawRelateEducationCenter has modified the format of the lesson and included additional material from the Planning Guide and other sources.
Lesson Procedure:
I. Whole Class Activity:
Selectmembers of the class to read each paragraph inHandout I.History of Magna Carta, Have the class identify the significant points made in each paragraph and list some reasons Magna Carta is important.
2. Break students into pairs. Give each student a copy of Handout 2:Right to Travel: Quote 1 Magna Carta. Have the pairs read the quote from Magna Carta and to answer the three questions. Chose different pairs to answer each of the questions. Discuss answers with class.
3. Small Group Activity:Right to TravelHandouts: Quotes 2 - 6
Have five sets of each of the Quotes with 6 copies of each Quote. (This assumes a class of 30 students) Break class into 5 groups. Give each Group one of the Quotes to analyze. Explain that each quote is about the freedom to travel and are from a variety of legal sources. Each group should read their quote and discuss the following questions.
- Where does this quote come from – name and type of document or court case?
- What does this quote say about the right to travel? Why is it a “right”?
- What significant statements are being made? What are the key words and concepts in the quote? What do they mean?
4. Group Discussion: How does the Rule of Law protect our Freedom and Rights?
Handout 1. Why is Magna Carta Important?
“Magna Carta was for England, and later for people around the world, what President Lyndon Johnson said Lexington and Concord were for the American Revolution and Selma was for the American civil rights movement – a turning point – where “ history and fate meet at a single time, in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.”
Roger Gregory, Judge,
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
“Magna Carta is a shining symbol of our shared legal heritage and of the rule of law as the foundation for freedom and human rights. Today, the story of Magna Carta we should tell is not merely of Runnymede in 1215, but of the Great Charter’s enduring significance in the 800 years since.”
William C. Hubbard, 2014 -2015 ABA President
The term “Rule of Law” refers to “the doctrine that every person is subject to the ordinary law of the area”. Black’s Law Dictionary
Magna Carta is Latin for the “Charter of the Liberties.” A Charter is an instrument by which a king ora city or a state grants rights, liberties or powers to its subjects. Magna Carta was the result of a rebellion by English Barons against King John. They met in a meadow at Runnymede, England in 1215 and persuaded the King to affix his seal to the document. It was declared invalid by the Pope, but it was reissued in 1217 after the First Baron’s War and again in 1225 and 1297.
In most of the world during this period, kings had absolute power over their subjects. This power was referred to as “the divine right of kings”. Rulers were said to derive their power from God and they could do anything they wanted. There were no limits on their power. Magna Carta put limits on the English King’s power and gave certain rights to Englishmen. The King had to follow the “Rule of Law”.
Handout 2.
Right to Travel: Quotes 1:
Magna Carta (1215)
Chapters 41 and 42
“41. All merchants may enter or leave England unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal extractions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs. This, however, does not apply in time of war to merchants from a country that is at war with us. Any such merchants found in our country at the outbreak of war shall be detained without injury to their persons or property, until we or our chief justice discovered how our own merchants are being treated in the country at war with us. If our own merchants are safe they shall be safe too.
42. In the future it shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom unharmed and without fear, by land or water preserving his allegiance to us, except in time of war, for some short period, for the common benefit of the realm. People that have been imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the land, people from a country at war with us and merchants – who shall be dealt with as stated above – are excepted from this provision.”
In pairs, answer the following questions.
- What rights does this give to men in England?
- What are the exceptions?
- Why do you think merchants are treated differently?
- How do the provisions in Chapter 41 protect English merchant when they are in a country at war with England?
Right to Travel: Quote 2
Articles of Confederation (1781)
“. . . the free inhabitants of each of these states . . . shall be entitled to privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states, and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, . . . ?
Vocabulary:
immunities = exemptions from something burdensome as a legal obligation
ingress and regress = to go into and to leave from
Questions:
!. Where is the quote from? - name and type of document or court case
2. What does this quote say about the right to travel and why is it a “right”?
3. What significant statements are being made about the right to travel? What are the key words and concepts in the quote and what do they mean?
Right to Travel: Quote 3
Chief Justice Melville Fuller, in
Williams v. Fears (1900)
“Undoubtedly, the right of locomotion, the right to remove from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or though the territory of any State is a right secured by the Fourteenth Amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution . . . “
Vocabulary:
Inclination = preference
Attribute = belonging to
14th Amendment . , . “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”
Questions:
!. Where is the quote from? - name and type of document or court case
2. What does this quote say about the right to travel and why is it a “right”?
3. What significant statements are being made about the right to travel? What are the key words and concepts in the quote and what do they mean?
Right to Travel: Quote 4
Justice Robert Jackson,
Concurring Opinion in Edwards v. California(1941)
. . .” The right of the citizen to migrate from state to state . . . is not, however, an unlimited one. In addition to being subject to all constitutional limitations imposed by the federal government, such citizen is subject to some control by state governments. He may not, if a fugitive from justice, claim freedom to migrate unmolested, nor may he endanger others by carrying contagions about. These causes, and perhaps others that do not occur to me now, warrant any public authority in stopping a man where it finds him and arresting his progress across a state line quite as much as from place to place within a state”
Vocabulary:
Unmolested = unharmed
Contagions = spreading of disease by contact
Questions:
!. Where is the quote from? - name and type of document or court case
2. What does this quote say about the right to travel and why is it a “right”?
3. What significant statements are being made about the right to travel? What are the key words and concepts in the quote and what do they mean?
Right to Travel: Quote 5
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
Chapter 13
“Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.”
“Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Vocabulary:
Residence = a place where one resides (lives)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights =is a statement that was written and adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and supported by member counties. It is not a binding treaty.
Questions:
!. Where is the quote from? - name and type of document or court case
2. What does this quote say about the right to travel and why is it a “right”?
3. What significant statements are being made about the right to travel? What are the key words and concepts in the quote and what do they mean?
Right to Travel: Quote 6
Justice William Douglas, Kent v. Dulles (1958)
“ . . . The right to travel is part of the “liberty” of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment . . . Freedom of movement in either direction and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, may be necessary for a livelihood. It may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values . . .”
Questions:
!. Where is the quote from? - name and type of document or court case
2. What does this quote say about the right to travel and why is it a “right”?
3. What significant statements are being made about the right to travel? What are the key words and concepts in the quote and what do they mean?