opinion

U.S. President Donald Trump at a memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, on Sept. 21. After Kirk's death, Trump vowed to crack down on left-wing groups.

More than three centuries ago, the Parliament of England passed a law whose principles remain a foundation for government in Britain, Canada, the Commonwealth – and the United States.

King James II tried to rule as an absolute monarch, but the 1689 Bill of Rights put an end to that. It declared “that levying money for or to the use of the Crown … without grant of Parliament … is illegal.” Also illegal: “The pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority.”

Parliament deposed James II, and the new monarch, William of Orange, accepted that henceforth laws would be passed by Parliamen

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