The 19thC Australian Republican philosophy, best represented by Dan Deniehy and Charles Harpur, was an evolutionary step from the American Republicanism of the 18thC. Australian Republicanism was also partially influenced by the American transcendentalists who were their social peers of the time, however, Deniehy and Harpur did not embrace the socialistic and communistic components of the American transcendentalists.

Australian Republicanism owed much of its political philosophy to the clash of the conservative strictures of the Old World [Europe] with the optimism and opportunity of the New World [Australia]. Additionally it was a time of constitutional activity in New South Wales and Victoria who came to constitutional self-government during the period. We know Dan Deniehy as the great orator through his Bunyip Aristocracy speech opposing a constitution containing a New South Wales House of Lords.

Sadly, Australian Republicanism has been largely forgotten in Australian history and politics. Which is a massive oversight as the 19thC republicans added not only to the philosophy of Australian Republicanism but to Republicanism itself as a political philosophy and science. The challenge for 21stC Australian Republicans is to explore the 19thC republican philosophy in the modern context and determine where it can still inform social organisation, liberty and public policy; and where it requires an evolution from its basic principles to apply to the modern world. This includes areas of public policy such as the economy, education and health.

Britain, France and Germany dealt with their booming population in the 19thC largely by industrialisation. Britain supplemented this with emigration and France with a revolution that changed agrarian patterns into a martial one. South and West of Germany William H. McNeill identifies the inability of industrialisation to "keep pace with population growth." McNeill argues that this political fault line or area of 'acute political distress' manifested itself in the Hapsburg Empire and the Balkans. It was the assassination of a Hapsburg Prince by a Slavic political revolutionary that started the mechanics of what would be World War I.

It is my contention that the Royal Navy and the French Army won World War I. The Royal Navy were past masters at blockading, it is how they dealt with all continental wars in the centuries past and only the American Revolutionary War slipped past their grasp using this strategy. The British sea blockade and their halting of the German ability to source materials through neutral nations placed direct pressure on German ability to expand their war economy.

The French Army was important as it bore the brunt of the fighting and the largest amount of the front. The French ability to absorb the German offensive in March of 1918 and stop it from reaching Paris or the coast is what saved the allied cause. After that the German back was broken and the pressures of lack of manpower, materials and food all came together to collapse Germany's ability to conduct war.

William H. McNeil writes in The Pursuit of Power that France was also the arsenal of democracy in World War I.

Many times throughout history liberalism has wrapped itself in the cloak of conservatism and the rationalistic leap has been hidden under the reclamation of rights from some mythical age. The American Republic is a good example. The revolutionaries of the day stated they were reclaiming their rights as Englishmen which the King had removed through tyranny. In reality the republic and American constitutionalism was something completely new which transcended the Whiggish order and English constitutionalism.

The Barons who put together the Magna Carta followed the same process. Danny Danziger and John Gillingham write:

When the rebels, by drawing up their big charter, a detailed program of government reform, took the revolutionary step forward, they deliberately looked to the past, to Henry I's charter and to what they believed had been a 'golden age' before the more oppressive government of recent kings. But precisely because they saw the past in this way, not as it really was, they in fact created something entirely new.

This seems to be a consistent pattern in human history.

One of the more contentious aspects of George W. Bush's term as President has been the use of Executive Orders to determine the constitutional action by the executive in response to legislation. Executive Orders do not have the force of law, they only have the force of procedure within the Administration, but as the executive executes the laws formalised by Congress in legislation, they can have serious effect in how the laws are enforced.

Because the President is using Executive Orders to outline the constitutional boundaries between executive and legislative there is concern that the Executive Orders are being used to legislate from the executive pulpit. It is probably more meaningful to see these actions under Jefferson's doctrine of higher obligation which effectively nullifies the doctrine of judicial review.

The American innovation on English Constitutionalism was that there is fundamental law - expressed in the constitution - that cannot be ignored by the executive and cannot be statutorily pasted over by the legislative. The Americans called them natural rights and entrenched those political rights in their federal and state constitutions.

Where an English judicial had to be activist, the American judicature could be constructionist. The English judicial established Habeas Corpus as accepted practice through activism two hundred years before it was legislated in 1679. The American judicial had a series of ongoing and increasing 'rights' laid out in fundamental law for them to protect from executive and legislative over-reach.

Leonard E. Levy writes, "They [America] resorted to arms in 1775, the Continental Congress believed, not to establish new liberties, but to defend old ones. In fact, they did establish many new liberties but convinced themselves that those liberties were old."

Via Westminster Wisdom, Vino discusses assymetrical devolution of the British political system. Australia uses the technology of federalism and a written constitution to separate the political responsibilities between the national government and the states.

The British constitution is a mix of practice, convention and statutes over time but until recently there has not been a growing layer of government outside the national parliament in London and the local councils. The devolution and establishment of Scottish parliament, the Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland parliament, without the clear cut separations of federalism or confederacy have raised some issues.

Francois Debrix has a review of Jean-Claude Paye's Global War on Liberty. I have not read the book, but from the review it appears it focuses heavily on state of exception governance becoming the norm and 'morphing' a new legal order.

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob

These are excerpts from the UK Chambers' Hansard of Gordon Brown's speech on Constitutional Reform.

Promoted by Colman -- So what do you think of the prospects for one of the EU's important leaders? I caught some of his speech on TV yesterday and he didn't seem cut from the same cloth as Blair. He seems to be proposing to undo some of Blair's Presidential changes and reduce the power of the executive.

David S. Landes argues that the Medieval era, often seen as a dark period of stagnation between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, was a period of important technological innovation. It produced advances in the water wheel, spectacles, the mechanical clock, printing and gunpowder. Landes writes that the decentralised nature of European politics meant that there was greater impetus for political and economic advantage through technological innovation.

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob

Anthony Barnett asked the six candidates for deputy leadership of the British Labour Party their opinion on a written constitution. He got full replies on open democracy. The questions are excellent and the replies, for the most part, are straight forward.

from the diaries. -- Jérôme

In his military campaigns into Gaul, Julius Caesar used Roman citizenship through service in the Legion as a means to introduce Roman property law; and more importantly displace Celtic tribal law. Citizenship became a mechanism for establishing Roman legal control in conquered Gaul.

An interesting article in the Independent titled: Brown may bring in written constitution. Britain's constitution is a non-written one, unlike America's and Australia's. Britain has non-contiguous acts which make up what would be called a constitution, but they are not in one entrenched or statutory act. A written constitution would bring Britain into line with modern constitutional practice.

Senator Annette Hurley has an interesting speech on geothermal energy [pdf] in South Australia. She argues that a responsible greenhouse gas policy will lead to new industries and jobs, an opinion which has been discussed on ssr in the past, and that South Australian leadership in geothermal energy investment is one such example.

Crikey reports that the British Commons voted on several measures to make the House of Lords a democratic house rather than the titled house it is now.

The Iraqi government is contemplating using the Malaysian Constitution as a template for its own. Malaysia is an Islamic state that has constitutional freedom of religion. Malaysia also has three large ethnic groups; Malay, Chinese and Indian. It appears that the Iraqis see similarities between Malaysia and the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish issue.

Italy established electorates in their Senate for the Italian Diaspora in 2001. They divided the world outside of Italy into the districts of Europe, South America, Central/North America and the rest of the world which includes Australia. Consequently Italian citizens not currently residing in Italy have representation.

The thesis for Chalmers Johnson's book, Nemesis, is that democracy and empire are incompatible. A nation must choose between one or other as the two cannot co-exist.

The constant warring with Spain and France meant the Royal Navy went through many structural and strategic changes as their power grew and waned - but mainly grew. In the 1700s Britain was using the restrictive trade technology of Mercantalism which meant many political decisions and confrontations were based on trade. Pitt turned trade on its head stating that it was the oceans, and the Royal Navy's dominance of them that tied Britain's Empire together.