An Introduction to Rule of Law in the Constitution
Rule of Law is the principle that all humans, including those in power, are subject to the law. No one is above the law. The law is impartial or applies equally to everyone. Rule of law is not based on fallible, changing rulers but on a constant set of laws or a constitution. This principle differs from “Ruler’s Law” in which a ruler or governing body may arbitrarily govern over subjects without limit or accountability. While Ruler’s Law dominated most civilizations around the world for thousands of years prior to the American experiment, the American Founders implemented a new, just system entirely under Rule of Law.
Rule of Law is based on equality of all men before God and on equity—the fair, just, and impartial application of the law. Equality and equity are derived from the Law of Nature, natural rights, and the Bible. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion of 1536, reformer John Calvin notes a “two-fold equity” of mankind in the Bible—that all are made in God’s image and possess the fallen human nature. Observing equity in God’s moral law and in the civil laws of the ancient Israelites in the Bible, Calvin asserts that equity should characterize human law. In 1638, American Puritan Thomas Hooker expressed support for Rule of Law from Deuteronomy 17:10-11 in which God’s people are instructed by God to judge according to the “sentence of the law” and not according to their own discretion.
Rule of Law was practiced by the early Americans and later adopted by the American founders with the U. S. Constitution. The principle had been recognized, though not wholly practiced, in Britain’s Magna Carta of 1215 and affirmed by British thinkers Sir Edward Coke, Samuel Rutherford, and John Locke in the 1600s. In his Democracy in America (1832), French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville observed the equity of the U. S. Constitution: “Christianity, which has declared that all men are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law.”
From AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.
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Source for more information: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.
Related Articles/Videos:
1. An Introduction to Popular Sovereignty
Activity: Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 3, Part 2 of 3, Activity 1: Drawing Essential Understandings / Answering Guiding Questions (Question 1), p. 113, 118. MS-HS.
Drawing Essential Understandings/Answering Guiding Questions…
Purpose/Objective: Students learn and answer Essential Understandings/Guiding Questions in this part of the unit.
Suggested Reading: Chapter 3 of Miracle of America sourcebook/text.
Essential Understandings & Guiding Questions to consider:
- The values, beliefs, and experiences of a people often shape and affect the values of their civil society.
1. What were the political ideas of John Winthrop and Thomas Hooker? What basis did they use to ground their civic views and the governing principles of their commonwealth? Consider the role of government and citizens, popular sovereignty, consent, Rule of Law, covenants, constitutions, limited government, chosen representatives, individual rights, literacy, and Protestant/Puritan work ethic.
Pre-Test/Post-Test: Writing Warm-up and Wrap-up. At the beginning and close of this part of the unit, students write brief responses to guiding questions in this section. Students may turn these in and/or share responses in pairs, groups, or whole class. The writing process should take less than 5 minutes, and sharing can go as long as teacher and class decide. The Writing Warm-up may serve as a pre-test of students’ current knowledge and understanding. The Writing Wrap-up may serve as a post-test of students’ learning and understanding of this section’s instruction and content. In the Writing Wrap-up, students might compare their answers/responses to those they wrote in their Writing Warm-up/pre-test. How have their answers changed? What did they learn? Students might use a comparison chart to write and compare their warm-up and wrap-up responses.
To download this whole unit, sign up as an AHEF member (no cost) to access the “resources” page on americanheritage.org. To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the AHEF bookstore.
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