The Bill of Rights: A Century of Progress

Abstract

In an otherwise mundane tax opinion construing language in the Internal Revenue Code, Oliver Wendell Holmes observed that word . . . is the skin of a living thought.' As the years pass, an idea may mature, changing its shape, its power, and its complexion, even while the symbols that identify it remain constant. There is a special vitality in words like commerce, equality, and liberty. In southwestern England, the huge sarsen pillars that primitive astronomers erected and arranged at Stonehenge centuries ago convey a profound message about man's ability to reason and to create. Even though the intent of the framers of Stonehenge is shrouded in mystery and obscurity, their message is nevertheless majestic and inspiring. Only a few miles away, the highest church spire in England, the Salisbury Cathedral, stands as a symbol of the creativity, the industry, and the faith of the Christian architects and engineers of the thirteenth century. A visitor to that cathedral may view one of the four remaining copies of a famous document that was signed at Runnymede early in that century. The message to be found in the text of the Magna Carta is neither clear nor unambiguous because its language is not plain and its style and lettering are unfamiliar. It is, nevertheless, an im-