The following is an article written by Mark Hartsell, writer-editor for The Gazette, the Library of Congress staff newsletter.
The legacy of Magna Carta, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer said, sometimes can be seen in the things that don’t happen.
The court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), brought an end to the contested presidential election of 2000, and in the aftermath, Breyer noted, there were no riots, no acts of violence, no guns, no deaths.
“We have decided to decide our major disagreements under a system of law,” he said Tuesday in the Coolidge Auditorium. “That is a remarkable thing, that people actually follow that. It has a long history, and that history does begin 800 years ago with [Magna Carta].”
Philanthropist David Rubenstein interviewed Breyer in the Coolidge as part of a Library of Congress symposium marking Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary and exploring how the charter’s political and legal traditions carried into modern times.