How English Principles Influenced Colonial Government: The English Bill of Rights

How English Principles Influenced Colonial Government

In the late 1600s, English people started to receive more rights. One of these rights include trial by jury. During this time, the English Bill of Rights came to be, which was a document signed by King James II’s daughter Mary and her husband William, that guaranteed basic rights to all citizens. It would be hard for England to control the “New World” overseas so the colonists had to create their own government. The representative government, The English Bill of Rights and basic rights, and the Magna Carta played a big role in creating this new government.
The representative government created three different kinds of colonies. They were charter colonies, where settlers were given a charter to set up, proprietary, where people were ruled by proprietors (individuals or groups who received land grants from Britain), and royal, where the king appointed a governor and ruled. With these three types of colonies, colonists were allowed to participate in government as long as it was through a legislature. It was believed by English people that certain basic rights should be protected by the government.
The English Bill of Rights was made to protect the basic rights of citizens. The English Bill of Rights was important to the colonists because it allowed them to have basic rights, no matter who they were. An example is education. A law passed requiring that all large towns have a school. Some colonial governments allowed the colonists to vote. Voting was a freedom; and was typically given to the white, land owning men. These governments also protected the basic rights of life, liberty, and property. The Magna Carta was created in England in 1215 to protect the basic rights given to citizens. The colonists used ideas from the Magna Carta such as trial by jury and unjust punishment and applied them to their colonies. In 1735, New York Weekly Journal writer Peter Zenger faced charges of libel at court. A man named Andrew Hamilton defended Zenger, with the argument that free speech was a basic right to English people. Peter Zenger was found not guilty, and Hamilton’s speech was an important step in the development of a free press. The colonists used the English principles and laws on their own culture and government. The colonists used English principles to create the laws and basic rights system. These principles include basic human rights and protection of these rights. The significance of English principles on colonial government was so great that it eventually lead to The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States. The United States government is still governed on the basis of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of The United States.