much power for himself at their expense. They therefore wanted some kind of written document that would enshrine their rights as well as spelling out exactly what the king could and could not do.

The Bill of Rights, like the Magna Carta, was also a document written for the benefit of a political elite. In this case, delegates to the Constitutional Convention were concerned that the proposed Constitution gave too much power to the Federal Government at the expense of the states, thus potentially reintroducing British tyranny by the back door. The ensuing Bill of Rights was a means of allaying these concerns while at the same time ensuring that the proposed Constitution had as much support as possible.

The Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights share something else in common: they were both written on paper, which is a 3-D object.

The Magna Carta, written in 1215 (and later revised several times) by rebel barons who pressed their demands on King John, leader of England, sets limits on the power of the monarch. Many of the provisions in the document were intended only for the elite. However, the document grants the accused rights in a criminal trial that later became the the English Petition of Right (passed in 1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (passed in 1679). These important rights came from Clause 39 of the Magna Carta, which reads, "no free man shall be…imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed]… except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land" and from clause 40, which reads, "To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice."These rights of defendants in criminal trials became part of the Bill of Rights, particularly the 5th Amendment's protection of due process rights, which reads, "Nor shall any persons be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

In fact, 9 out the 26 rights in the Bill of Rights can be traced back to the Magna Carta. However, the Magna Carta does not provide for the abolition of the monarchy, as does the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Paper is 3-D, as it has length, width, and an infinitesimal height. 

The major similarity between the two documents is that both of them are limits on the power of the government.  A secondary similarity is that they are both written contracts of sorts that spell out what governments can and cannot do.

The idea that a government can be limited was a novel one in the 1200s.  The theory of monarchy was that every ruler had unlimited power subject only to whoever was above him (and the king was subject only to God).  But this document said that there were earthly rules kings had to follow.

The Bill of Rights does this as well -- it sets limits on what a government may do.

A piece of paper is 3-D.

I recently did research on both Magna Carta and Bill of Rights, to prepare for teaching a lesson on Documents of Freedom, in a boy's camp.  Yet I could not give the answer to this question without much additional research.  I suggest that you get the two documents and compare them.  Find all things that are alike between them.  This will leave all things that are different.

I recommend to you, on the Magna Carta, A.E. Dick Howard's Magna Carta: Text & Commentary, University of Virginia Press (1998).  It is a very small book.

A book that is very good on the Bill of Rights is Levy, Leonard W. 1999. Origins of the Bill of Rights. New Haven: Yale University Press.  It is also a small book, though not as small as Howard.  I think Levy may tell you which provisions of the Bill of Rights have origins in the Magna Carta, so that you can tell that everything else is different.

To me, there are a few major differences between these two documents.

First of all, the Magna Carta was not really written to apply to everyone in the society at the time.  It only applied to freemen.  This left out serfs and such.  Of course, the Bill of Rights didn't do anything for slaves, but everyone else was protected by it.

Second, the Magna Carta only talks about things like trials and crimes.  It does not give any of the kind of personal freedoms that are important to us -- freedom of expression and freedom of religion, especially.