This document played a key role in MANY developments of the Revolutionary period -- here's my overview, which I hope helps you see how they ALL fit together'
The 1689 English Bill of Rights -- Parliament's justification for the "Glorious Revolution" -- was a very influential document in the thinking of leading Americans, and is repeatedly echoed in the founding documents, from letters & declarations of the Congresses and state constitutions (which often INCLUDED their own "Bill of Rights"), to the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights added to the U.S. Constitution.
I will list links to some of these key documents below, so you can compare them.
But first, the gist of the English Bill of Rights. What this document did was to lay out the GROUNDS for Parliament's rejecting the rule of James II and the basis on which they accepted William & Mary in his place. The first part of the document lists a series of ABUSES they claim the king committed against the historic rights of Englishmen. (This points further back to a long history of British common law and constitutional development, with several steps along the way, and most famously including the 1215 Magna Carta.)
The document goes on to LIST the specific rights they are claiming and that the insist a sovereign MUST acknowledge and protect, followed by the explanation that William & Mary, recognized as rightful rulers by Parliament HAVE acknowledged these rights.
Note that the "Glorious Revolution" was at the end of the great struggle between the British (Stuart) kings and Parliament (earlier including the Civil War, execution of Charles and the Protectorate) -- in which Parliament came out on top and the "limited monarchy" was established. The ARGUMENTS for all these things were put forward by leading Puritans (including Samuel Rutherford in a famous book "Lex Rex" -- The LAW is King [not the other way round!]) and AFTER all these events famously explained/jusified by John Locke in his *Second Treatise on Government* (1692).
Note that it was at PRECISELY this time (17th century) that the American colonies were being settled. And they brought this history and these political traditions with them (combined with the "covenant"/"compact" traditions of the Puritans in New England... very similar to the "social contract" idea). They were also reflected in their GOVERNMENTS, with LOCAL legislatures handling most affairs -- laws, justice/trials, self-defense and taxation.
So the Revolution and the form of government these colonists eventually established for their new nation was BASED on that English tradition and often explicitly APPEALED to it in their pamphlets, letters and formal documents.
For example:
First Continental Congress - "Declarations and Resolves" (Oct 1774)
Laid out the RIGHTS they believed they historically had enjoyed as Englishmen (generally as 'life, liberty and property', then more specifically to pass their own laws, etc) and briefly how the recent "Intolerable Acts" violated them. (Other letters from this Congress and the Second laid out lists of violations from the early 1760s on.)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/resolv...
Virginia Declaration of Rights -first part of its state constitution (May-June 1776, drafted by George Mason)
- here you'll also see points echoed in the preamble to the Decl. of Independence; and the NEXT section (drafted by Jefferson), like the Eng. Bill of Rights, lists the King's abuses against their rights
(other state constitutions did similar things)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states...
Declaration of Indepedence
- begins with brief announcement of rights; main part of the document (like the Eng. Bill of Rights) is a justification for rejecting the King's rule by listing his abuses of those rights
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/declar...
Finally, the U.S. Constitution
- the MAIN part (the original document of 1787) does not precisely echo the Eng. Bill of Rights, because its purpose is to lay out a STRUCTURE or form for the new government. in a BROAD sense it IS structured in a way that is intended to safeguard rights by insuring representation (legislature) AND by setting up three branches whose functions are intended to prevent any one branch from 'taking over'/ gaining all the power, and thereby to protect people's rights from being abused
- the "Bill of Rights", requested by many of the individual states when they ratified the Constitution, DOES specifically echo the sorts of rights expressed in major documents of English Constitutional history -- featuring the Eng. Bill of Rights -- as well as the other documents already named.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/usconst.htm
And here is the text of the English Bill of Rights
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/england.htm
