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Article: The Advance of Human Rights.
- Article from:
- The Humanist
- Article date:
- November 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 American Humanist Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There he sits, in many a high school textbook on world history: bad King John, chafing under the pressure of the noble knights about him, grudgingly a mixing his official seal to the Magna Carta. The date is June 15, 1215. And in this "great charter" of rights spread before him (we are told) appear the root ideals of liberty and freedom that will grow and blossom through the centuries to come.
Article 23, for example, states: "No manor or man shall be compelled to make bridges over the rivers except those which ought to do it of old and rightfully." Article 46 says: "All barons who have founded abbeys for which they have charters of kings of England, or ancient ...