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Period: Jan 1, 1000 to
Common Law
Common law, also known as case law, is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions.In practice, common law systems are considerably more complicated than the idealized system described above. -
Jan 1, 1215
magna carta signed
the magna carta was prhaps the most important early example of a written statement of law limiting the power of a rule. it expressses the idea of limited goverment by requiring the king to govern according to established rules of law. it was verry important in the later development of constitutional goverment. -
Jan 1, 1265
Parliament Established
Parliament was reconstituted as a body which deals with matters which have been devolved to it by the UK Parliament. The Scottish Parliament has the power to pass laws and has limited tax raising capability. Another of its jobs is to hold the Scottish Executive to account. -
Period: Jan 1, 1500 to
iroquois confederation
Iroquois, the confederation of Iroquoian tribes known to history as the Five Nations (the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida , Onondaga, and Seneca) or (after 1722, when the Tuscarora joined the league) as the Six Nations. The name is derived from the Algonkin word meaning "real adders" with the addition of the French suffix -ois. They called themselves OngwanonsionniThe date of the formation of the league is not certain, but there is evidence that it took place about 1570, as the result of wars with the Hu -
Mayflower Compact Signed
The Mayflower Compact is a written agreement composed by a consensus of the new Settlers arriving at New Plymouth in November of 1620. They had traveled across the ocean on the ship Mayflower which was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Mayflower Compact was drawn up with fair and equal laws, for the general good of the settlement and with the will of the majority. -
Period: to
New England Confederation Approved
The United Colonies of New England, commonly known as the New England Confederation, was a political and military alliance of the English colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. Established May 29, 1643,its primary purpose was to unite the Puritan colonies against the Native Americans. It was established as a direct result of a war which started between the Mohegan and Narragansetts. -
thomas hobbes- Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan, which says that man's natural state is anarchic competition. In his self-interest, man forms peaceful societies via the social contract, without which life would be 'nasty, brutish, and short'.
Hobbes was a champion of absolutism for the sovereign but he also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men and the artificial character. -
english bill of rights established
•The Bill of Rights is an act of the Parliament of England, whose title is An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown. It is often called the English Bill of Rights.The Bill of Rights laid out certain basic rights for all Englishmen. These rights continue to apply today, and not only in England, but in each of the jurisdictions of the Commonwealth realms. -
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John locke-Two treatises of goverment
The Two Treatises of Government (or "Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter is an Essay concerning The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil-Government") is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha and the Second Treatise -
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Enlightenment
"The Enlightenment" is usually associated with the 18th century, its roots in fact go back much further. But before we explore those roots, we need to define the term. This is one of those rare historical movements which in fact named itself. Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them. They believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to -
Baron De Montesque- On The Spirit Of Law
The Spirit of the Laws is a treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu in 1748 with the help of Claudine Guérin de Tencin. Originally published anonymously partly because Montesquieu's works were subject to censorship, its influence outside of France was aided by its rapid translation into other languages. In 1750 Thomas Nugent published the first English translation. In 1751 the Catholic Church added L'esprit. -
Adopted Albany Plan of Union
It is proposed that humble application be made for an act of Parliament of Great Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America, including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony may retain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may be directed by the said act, as hereafter follows. T -
Jean Jacque Rousseau- The social Contract
ean-Jacques Rousseau, in The Social Contract, propounds a doctrine which already had a long history in the struggle against the older view of the divine right of kings, namely, that government gets its authority over us by a willing consent on our part, not by the authorization of God. -
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Sir John Blackstone- Commentaries on The Laws Of England
he Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765-1769.
The Commentaries were long regarded as the leading work on the development of English law and played a role in the development of the American legal system. -
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First Continental Congress Meets
The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia's Carpenters Hall on September 5, 1774. The idea of such a meeting was advanced a year earlier by Benjamin Franklin, but failed to gain much support until after the Port of Boston was closed in response to the Boston Tea Party. -
Second Continental Congress Meets
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. -
Separation of Powers
The separation of powers, also known as trias politica, is a model for the governance of democratic states. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the uncodified Constitution of the Roman Republic. a model for the governance of both democratic & federative states. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the uncodified Constitution of the Roman Republic. -
Declaretion of Independence Signed
The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary -
Period: to
Article Of Confederation
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constitutional convention meets
By 1786, Americans recognized that the Articles of Confederation, the foundation document for the new United States adopted in 1777, had to be substantially modified. The Articles gave Congress virtually no power to regulate domestic affairs--no power to tax, no power to regulate commerce. Without coercive power, Congress had to depend on financial contributions from the states, and they often time turned down requests. Congress had neither the money to pay soldiers for their service. -
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Ratification of the constitution
The ratification, or adoption, of the Constitution took place between September of 1787 and July of 1788. The Federal Convention, which had drafted the Constitution between May and September 1787, had no authority to impose it on the American people -
Bill Of Rights
When it became clear that the Constitution was going to be ratified despite the efforts of the Anti-Federalists, the men secured an agreement that a Bill of Rights in the form of a list of amendments would be attached to the Constitution and sent out for ratification. James Madison sat down to draft 12 amendments, and after cutting the first two, the Bill of Rights as we know it was ratifiedThe Bill of Rights sets many important precedents for American citizens. -
Greek Democracy
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Colonial Legislatures
A legislature is a governmental deliberative body with the power to adopt laws. In presidential systems of government, the legislature is considered a branch of government which is equal to, and independent of, the executive. -
Written Constitutions
A written constitution is a formal document defining the nature of the constitutional settlement, the rules that govern the political system and the rights of citizens and governments in a codified form. Therefore, individuals' rights remained dependent on ad hoc statutory protection or upon judicial protection under common law. -
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterised by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c. 509 BC, and lasted 482 years until its subversion, through a series of civil wars, into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period.The Roman Republic was governed by a complex constitution
