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The Constitution’s Deep Roots
be traced to English precedents. Representative government, or what we
call the republican tradition, is the bedrock of American constitutionalism. But it is a tradition inherited from Great Britain, and American revolutionary leaders generally regarded the right of representation as the
most fundamental right they possessed. To be sure, a principal constitutional grievance of the colonists was the lack of American representation
in Parliament—‘‘taxation without representation.’’
The Growth of Parliament
In contrast to the democracies of the ancient world or of the medieval
and renaissance city-states of Italy, there arose in England, by stages,
what we now call representative government, through the summoning
of an assembly called Parliament. Various forms of representative government had developed in western Europe late in the Middle Ages and
down to the late eighteenth century; but of these the English form, with
its House of Lords and House of Commons that made up the Parliament,
was the most successful and powerful. The origin of Parliament may be
traced back to the King’s councils (Witans) under the Anglo-Saxons, who
ruled England before the Norman invasion in 1066, but some historians
prefer to mark the beginning in 1215. This was the year when the English
barons compelled King John to grant them a great charter (Magna Charta),
which bound the King to extend certain basic liberties to all ‘‘freemen.’’ A
more precise point of origin, however, is the year 1295. On that date, King
Edward I summoned what became known as the ‘‘Model Parliament’’
because it served as the model for all succeeding Parliaments. Here, for
the first time, the right of all classes to be represented in Parliament was
permanently established. The barons (the English nobility) and the Bishops and other high ranking members of the clergy joined together as the
‘‘Lords Temporal and Spiritual’’ to form the House of Lords. Two knights
from every shire (county) and two burgesses from every town or borough were also summoned, and these freemen or ‘‘commoners’’ joined
together to form the House of Commons. ‘‘What concerns all, should be
approved by all.’’ These words appeared in the writs (written orders in
the form of letters) sent out by Edward when he summoned the Model
Parliament. Edward wanted to raise taxes, and taxation to support Ed-