Chapter 6 - Body and Sinew
The English Bill of Rights is the first known example of such a document. Thomas Hobbes’ tour de force Leviathan (1651) is one of the first texts of what would become the Enlightenment of the 18th century—the movement upon which the great thinkers behind the American Revolution would draw. Incidentally, Hobbes is the first person to use the words “unalienable rights” in print, although he basically reduces it to the ineradicable right of biting people on the way to the gallows.
I’ll spare the endless bitching, sufficing to say that the words “evil counselors” is tossed around, but the results are definitely a huge step up the socio-political ladder inspired by Hobbes.
English Bill of Rights 1689
An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown (excerpted)
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;
That the commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all other commissions and courts of like nature, are illegal and pernicious;
That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer time, or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal;
That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;
That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;
That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;
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;
That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;
That jurors ought to be duly impanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders;
That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void;
And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.
Frankly, there’s a lot of great stuff in there if you omit the pogromic undertones, but it identifies two points regarding the right to bear arms and the abuses heaped upon the American Colonists less that a century later.
First is the idea that a standing army should be avoided in times of peace. The other name for the Glorious Revolution of 1688 is the Bloodless Revolution, owing to its relatively harmless transfer of power. Perhaps it would be more accurate for the Catholics to say “taking everything way from you and leaving a menacing, armed, volatile Protestant population over your shoulders” instead of “relatively harmless”, considering that a Bill of Rights is mostly about things other than being killed.
The second is of particular note; herein is the first example of a generalized right to bear arms. Never mind that it gives that right only to Protestants explicitly for the purpose of killing Catholics. Still, it was something to think about. Finally, the English had put in words what had been on lips and in minds for centuries. For the English, this is the Great Work of civil evolution, and it is upon this pedestal that the historically unburdened Americans would conceive of natural right and freedom in a democratic government.