Explain how magna carta was an important step toward limited government.

The importance of the magna carta in this regard was that it established that the law had higher power over government - that government was not infallible. The barons who developed it with King John wanted specifically to limit his power over them, and the conditions to that extent contained within served as the blueprint for future contracts between governments and their people, including in the United States, where it was referenced in the Massachusetts state seal in 1775.