Written Constitution
Lilburne was instrumental in the writing of two more editions of this famous document. The second was An Agreement of the People of England, and the places therewith incorporated, for a secure and present peace, upon grounds of common right, freedom and safety, was presented to Parliament on 11 September 1648 after amassing signatories including about a third of all Londoners.
Following the defeat of the Royalists and the abolition of the monarchy and House of Lords, England became a commonwealth in 1649 with the regicide of Charles I. It was while he was in the Tower of London that John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince and Richard Overton wrote the third edition of An Agreement of the Free People of England. Tendered as a Peace-Offering to this distressed Nation. They hoped that this document would be signed like a referendum so that it would become a written constitution for the Commonwealth of England. The late United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who often cited the works of John Lilburne in his opinions, wrote in an article for Encyclopædia Britannica that he believed John Lilburne's constitutional work of 1649 was the basis for the basic rights contained in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Read more about this topic: John Lilburne
Famous quotes containing the words written constitution, written and/or constitution:
“Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you ... take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“But he [Bramhall] adds that we must subject them, according to that presentiality which they have in eternity, which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, but only by them that conceive it as an indivisible point. To which I answer, that as soon as I can conceive eternity to be an indivisible point, or anything be an everlasting succession, I will renounce all that I have written on this subject.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“One of the things I considered a delightful experience in school was the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I didn’t realize the gap was so big from the Founding Fathers until now. And I didn’t realize they weren’t talking about me.”
—Maxine Waters (b. 1938)