Richard Nixon’s lawyers tried to claim that the President was “as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time”. In the current debates about Presidential power in respect of the unauthorised NSA wire taps and his use of “signing statements” it is perhaps worthwhile pointing out a very much closer analogy. Indeed it points out that even if the USA were still ruled by the British monarchy, the King would still not have those powers.
The British Bill of Rights was passed in 1689. Parliament was inviting Wiliam of Orange and his wife Mary to become joint monarchs. Their importance was that they was the Protestants with the stongest claim on the throne. They were put ahead of stronger claimants in order as it has “been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a popish prince”
Part of the deal was the redress of grievances Parliament had against the deposed James II by limiting the power of the King and re-stating and reforming the rights established in Magna Carta. I often point out that the American Revolution was in a long tradition of Englishmen being stroppy with their rulers. Rather than the acts of Americans, the revolt was the traditional response of English against injustices.
The Bill of Rights is closely paralleled in the Declaration of Independence in that both are set out in very similar ways, they start with a list of the grievances against the King and then assert the rights of the people. The British Act is relatively little know in the USA. This is unfortunate as many of the traditions and rights thought to have been established first in the USA are withing it – even down to the right to bear arms (although in the British case this was limited to Protestants so they could form a militia to fight against Catholic claimants and arguably the US version was so that any counter-revolution would be supressed).
So let’s look at the grievances in the preable amd I think you can see the remarkably close parallels with the complaints against Bush. Here are the first two in a long list.
# Whereas the late King James the Second, by the assistance of divers evil counsellors, judges and ministers employed by him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom;
# By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws and the execution of laws without consent of Parliament; By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power;
To redress this, William had to agree to the bill which went on
[the two houses of Parliament] in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties declare:
* That the pretended power of suspending the laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal;
* That the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal;
So over 70 years before the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the US Constitution, the powers of the head of state were already limited. The monarchs had agreed that “all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and claimed in the said declaration are the true, ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom”. Of course this is English law but that is what much of US law is based on. Let me point out another incident recently that is based in this British documents.
Parliament, since Charles II more than 40 years before had been aggressively asserting its independence. Less than 30 years before they had reinstated the monarchy after the Commonwealth. To protect the independence of Members, it was necessary to get the new King to agree to certain measures:
# That election of members of Parliament ought to be free;
# That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;
The latter is still fiercly defended in both countries. Thus in the UK, MPs have precedence when going to the House of Commons to vote. Technically the traffic lights outside Westminster can be ignored by them. Before they were introduced, police would stop traffic so that MPs could get to the building in time. You will be well aware of the fuss caused when a black Congresswoman was stopped by a Capitol policeman and the protests over the searching of a member’s office.
