"The highest and most binding laws are the statutes which are established by parliament; and by authority of that highest court it is enacted (only to show their tender care of Magna Carta and Carta de Foresta) that if any statute be made contrary to the Great Charter, or the Charter of the Forest, that shall be holden for none; by which words all former statutes made against either of those charters are now repealed; and the nobles and great officers were to be sworn to the observation of Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta. "_Magna fuit quondam magnæ reverentia chartæ._" (Great was formerly the reverence for Magna Carta.)--_Coke's Proem to 2 Inst._, p. 1 to 7. Coke also says, "All pretence of prerogative against Magna Charta is taken away."--_2 Inst._, 36. He also says, "That after this parliament (_52 Henry_ III., in 1267) neither Magna Carta nor Carta de Foresta was ever attempted to be impugned or questioned."--_2 Inst._, 102.[109] To give all the evidence of the authority of Magna Carta, it would be necessary to give the constitutional history of England since the year 1215. This history would show that Magna Carta, although continually violated and evaded, was still acknowledged as law by the government, and was held up by the people as the great standard and proof of their rights and liberties. It would show also that the judicial tribunals, _whenever it suited their purposes to do so_, were in the habit of referring to Magna Carta as authority, in the same manner, and with the same real or pretended veneration, with which American courts now refer to the constitution of the United States, or the constitutions of the states. And, what is equally to the point, it would show that these same tribunals, the mere tools of kings and parliaments, would resort to the same artifices of assumption, _precedent_, construction, and false interpretation, to evade the requirements of Magna Carta, and to emasculate it of all its power for the preservation of liberty, that are resorted to by American courts to accomplish the same work on our American constitutions. I take it for granted, therefore, that if the authority of Magna Carta had rested simply upon its character as a _compact_ between the king and the people, it would have been forever binding upon the king, (that is, upon the government, for the king was the government,) in his legislative, judicial, and executive character; and that there was no _constitutional_ possibility of his escaping from its restraints, unless the people themselves should freely discharge him from them.