Source: The New Review, July 1st, 1915. Vol. 3, No. 9. Current Affairs column.
Transcription and Markup: Bill Wright for marxists.org, February, 2023
The air is full of rejoicing. Seven hundred years ago the English people received their “Great Charter” from King John. As sharers in the “great inheritance” of English freedom, we naturally consider the celebration our own, and so let the glad shouts resound in the air.
But the celebration of the great historic event which we share with England does not make us oblivious to the actualities of the present which are all our own. The celebration of Magna Charta obtained by the English people in June, 1215, at Runnymede, is, therefore obscured, outshouted, and relegated to the rear, by the celebration of the Magna Charta obtained by the American people in June, 1915, at Trenton, New Jersey.
On June 3 of this year of Grace, 1915, the United States District Court of Trenton, N.J., handed down its decision in the Steel Trust case, which decision has been greeted with shouts of joy from Maine to California and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, as the “Magna Charta of Good Business”; and these shouts will be heard long after the celebration of the centenary of King John's charter will have been forgotten. And very properly so. King John is dead, and so is his old “Charter.” But the Court which handed down the Steel Trust decision is a living power, and it is its charter that “Good Business” is going to do good business under.
There are those who claim that old Magna Charta gave everything to the English Barons, and nothing to the English people. And it is barely possible that an inspection of the new Magna Charta may reveal the fact that it gives everything to the American Barons and nothing to the American people. But of this some other time. Just now I am interested not so much in what the new “Charter” contains, as in the manner in which it was obtained; not so much in what it gives, but the way it was given. And in this connection a comparison with the manner in which the old Charter was given is very interesting. It will show some remarkable similarities; but also at least one very striking difference, showing the shifting of the centre of gravity of the body politic, the lodgment of the “sovereign power” of the State.
At the time Magna Charta was asked for and granted, England was an absolute monarchy. Freedom was unknown to the English nation. The King was master. In him all the powers of the State, “the sovereignty of the realm” resided. There was no liberty, but there were “liberties,” that is, privileges, which some of the English King's subjects enjoyed as an act of grace from him. When the English Barons felt aggrieved by the actions of King John they did not think of appealing from King John to his people, for the monarchical idea was as sacred to them as it was to King John himself. For the same reason they did not dream of taking their Liberty by force, although they were not averse of teaching King John a lesson in “good government” so as to compel him to grant them the liberties they asked. So they marched in force to Runnymede, presented their petition, and received their grant of “liberties” in the form of the Great Charter, which was simply an enumeration of privileges granted the Barons by the King.
Seven hundred years have passed since then. We at least have done away with the monarchy. The sovereignty of our State no longer resides in a King. But we still have no democracy. The sovereignty of our State does not, as yet, reside in the people, although the people have been fooled by the form of our government into the belief that such is the fact. Our Barons no longer apply to a King for their “charter.” But neither do they apply to the people — although nominally the people are sovereign. The sovereign power which was once lodged in the King is now lodged in the Courts. An Oligarchy has replaced the monarchy. When the American Barons — Steel, Coal or any other — want “good laws” to do “good business” under, they do not apply to the representatives of the people assembled in Congress, but to the Courts. For it is in the Courts that power resides.
Hence the jubilation over the Magna Charta of Trenton, a jubilation which is not merely a shout of joy, but also a challenge to, and a taunt of, the American people, who are utterly powerless to do anything if they should happen not to like the “Charter” which the Courts have granted to the American Barons. As one of the chief spokesmen of the American Barons put it:
“It would be useless to pass such a law (that is, a law changing the ‘Magna Charta of Good Business’). The Supreme Court has had its lesson in business economy, and such a law would not survive its first test.”
The Supreme Court has had its lesson,— that settles it. The American people don't count.
Last updated on 06 February 2023