to have been framed on the same idea, inasmuch as it provides that
"no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law." [28]

Whether the word VEL should be rendered by OR, or by AND.

Having thus given the meanings, or rather the applications, which
the words vel per legem terrae will reasonably, and perhaps must
necessarily, bear, it is proper to suggest, that it has been supposed
by some that the word vel, instead of being rendered by or, as it
usually is, ought to be rendered by and, inasmuch as the word vel
is often used for et, and the whole phrase nisi per judicium parian
suorun, vel per legem terrae, (which would then read, unless by the
sentence of his peers, and the law of the land,) would convey a
more intelligible and harmonious meaning than it otherwise does.

Blackstone suggests that this may be the true reading. (Charters, p.
41.) Also Mr. Hallam, who says:"Nisi per legale judicium parium
suorum, vel per legem terra;. Several explanations have been
offered of the alternative clause; which some have referred to
judgment by default, or demurrer; others to the process of
attachment for contempt. Certainly there are many legal
procedures besides trial by jury, through which a party's goods or
person may be taken. But one may doubt whether these were in
contemplation of the framers of Magna Carta. In an entry of the
Charter of 1217 by a contemporary hand, preserved in the
Town-clerk's office in London, called Liber Custumarum et
Regum antiquarum, a various reading, et per legem terrae, occurs.
Blackstone's Charters, p. 42 (41.) And the word vel is so frequently
used for et, that I amnot wholly free from a suspicion that it was