But the authority of Magna Carta does not rest, either wholly or mainly, upon its character as a compact. For centuries before the charter was granted, its main principles constituted "the Law of the Land," the fundamental and constitutional law of the realm, which the kings were sworn to maintain. And the principal benefit of the charter was, that it contained a written description and acknowledgment, by the king himself, of what the constitutional law of the kingdom was, which his coronation oath bound him to observe. Previous to Magna Carta, this constitutional law rested mainly in precedents, customs, and the memories of the people. And if the king could but make one innovation upon this law, without arousing resistance, and being compelled to retreat from his usurpation, he would cite that innovation as a precedent for another act of the same kind; next, assert a custom; and, finally, raise a controversy as to what the Law of the Land really was. The great object of the barons and people, in demanding from the king a written description and acknowledgment of the Law of the Land, was to put an end to all disputes of this kind, and to put it out of the power of the king to plead any misunderstanding of the constitutional law of the kingdom. And the charter, no doubt, accomplished very much in this way. After Magna Carta, it required much more audacity, cunning, or strength, on the part of the king, than it had before, to invade the people's liberties with impunity. Still, Magna Carta, like all other written constitutions, proved inadequate to the full accomplishment of its purpose; for when did a parchment ever have power adequately to restrain a government, that had either cunning to evade its requirements, or strength to overcome those who attempted its defence? The work of usurpation, therefore, though seriously checked, still went on, to a great extent, after Magna Carta. Innovations upon the Law of the Land are still made by the government. One innovation was cited as a precedent; precedents made customs; and customs became laws, so far as practice was concerned; until the government, composed of the king, the high functionaries of the church, the nobility, a House of Commons representing the "forty shilling freeholders," and a dependent and servile judiciary, all acting in conspiracy against the mass of the people, became practically absolute, as it is at this day. As proof that Magna Carta embraced little else than what was previously recognized as the common law, or Law of the Land, I repeat some authorities that have been already cited. Crabbe says, "It is admitted on all hands that it (Magna Carta) contains nothing but what was confirmatory of the common law and the ancient usages of the realm; and is, properly speaking, only an enlargement of the charter of Henry I. and his successors." Crabbe's Hist. of the Eng. Law, p. 127.