And the principal benefit of the charter was, that it contained a written description and acknowledgment, by the king himself, of what the constitutional law of the kingdom was, which his coronation oath bound him to observe.
Spooner highlights the importance of Magna Carta in formally defining the constitutional law that the king was obligated to uphold.
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They neither ask, nor expect, any mercy, if they should ever fall into the hands of honest men.
For all these reasons, they are not only modest and sensible, but really frank, honest, and honorable villains, contrasted with these courts of injustice, and the lawmakers by whom these courts are established.
They acknowledge it to be our unquestioned right and duty to kill them, if we can; that they expect nothing else, than that we will kill them, if we can; and that we are only fools and cowards, if we do not kill them, by any and every…
They do not tell us of the almshouses, hospitals, schools, churches, etc., which, out of the purest charity and benevolence, they maintain for our benefit, out of the money they take from us.