The Founding Documents Essay by Peter Pen

This paper explains that each founding document critical to the U.S. Constitution makes reference to the importance of man's free right to exercise his political will under a tolerant and open form of government. Furthermore, key concepts like the right to a fair trial and land and property ownership rights were underscored in these earlier founding documents. The author defines the founding documents as the "Magna Carta", the "Mayflower Compact", the "Virginia Declaration of Rights", the "Declaration of Independence", the "Articles of Confederation" and the "Federalist Papers". The paper relates that the concepts of "all men being created equal" and having the unalienable rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as presented in the preamble of the U.S. Declaration of Independence are the fundamental concepts of freedom incorporated into the present-day constitution and powerful core principles upon which future democratic documents will be written.