Seriously, Mr. Chair, this isn't just a piece of history. This is a document that deeply informs our constitutional traditions.
I'll pause on that, although I may refer to it later, but I think the point coming through that document should be evident to members. It is that the tradition established in the Magna Carta is not principally one of asserting the existence of new rights, or of proposing the idea that the state, or the executive, or some sort of all-wise guardian class is the introducer or protector of rights. Rather, it is to seek to recognize and protect in law the realities of pre-existing notions of rights.
Even at that point, which we can trace back in our constitutional history and which seems to be the beginning, there are references to this idea of pre-existing, evolved notions of rights. Again, this is what paradoxically starts our tradition, but not on a revolutionary footing. It starts our tradition in a way that suggests that it is already up and running.
There are moments in the evolved English tradition that appear revolutionary, yet ultimately were tempered and made evolutionary. This was the success of the continuity of our constitutional framework. Probably one big point in history to meditate on, as we consider this distinction between the revolutionary and the evolutionary, is the reformation. I'll have to be careful as I talk about this, to keep Mr. Kmiec on my side here, but—