King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta by his nobles in the year 1215 A.D. King John made a habit of imposing high taxes to pay for a war when his subjects couldn’t afford it as well as detaining his subjects if they didn’t pay taxes or before they were proven guilty. Because of this, King John’s nobles rebelled against him and threatened to leave him unless he signed the Magna Carta that ensured more individual rights and limited the Monarchy. The Founding Fathers probably knew this and considered the circumstances in which the document was written while writing the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, etc. because it embodied everything the American people wanted to see in a new government. And, in a way, it …show more content…
Because the Magna Carta is a precursor to the Declaration of Independence and is backed up by irrefutable evidence, the conclusion can be drawn that the Declaration of Independence was influenced by the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta, in many ways, facilitated and shaped of the Declaration of Independence as well as being very similar. The Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence were both the result of wars; in America the colonists rebelled against the British, and King John’s nobles rebelled against him in England. Both of these documents exercised the idea that there should be limitations on the power of the government and the people should dissolve an insufficient government if it oversteps those limitations. Both documents also explicitly state “all men are created equal” and should be treated equally for that reason. These documents also protected nobles (Magna Carta) and common people (Declaration of Independence) from loss of life, liberty, and property. It also argued that the consent of the governed is needed in order to have a successful government. Eleven years later another document was strongly influenced by the Magna Carta--the U.S.