-The British Constitution
-Theory
-Practice
-Radical Whigs
-Colonial Replicas and Realities
The British and Colonial Political Systems did very little during the 18th century, especially by today's standards. People were subjects, not citizens, and the ranges of government were limited to: defending the nation, providing security, regulating trade, handling diplomacy for the country, and securing the lives and property of the people. All things considered it was a very limited government.
British Government and the British Constitution:
The people of Britain had liberty, and it was secured through the political system. Their definition of liberty was that you were free to pursue your own interests as long as you didn't commit crimes or infringe on others. People were secure in their property rights, the only way that property could be taken was through crime or the government, which was an elected representative who approved the seizing of property.
The people of Britain also compared themselves favorably to other countries, such as France who was a completer monarchy. The British Constitution had a bit of genius-ness to it, and according to the population it was the ideal governmental system. There was no formal constitution, it was more of a concept. One of the elements was English common law, and the practice of it evolved over time. Another element to the constitution were the historical documents they treasured such as the Magna Carta. Acts of Parliament, Judicial decisions, and Political writings were all considered part of the constitution as well, but due to the lack of writings on the actual document, all of the elements can be subject to interpretation. For what people couldn't understand they relied on John Locke's writings to tell them what the constitution meant. He had said that liberty and property are inherently linked, and unless you control property you don't have liberty.
Theory:
The geniusness of the constitution was evident in the fact that it looked at human experience and history as examples for their form of government. They believed that history had lessons to learn from, and they looked at worldwide examples. The noted that liberty and power always exist in tension of one another, meaning liberty at the expense of power or vice versa. If there is too much power, you lose liberty and then you have tyranny. Tyranny is almost impossible to recover from. If you have too much liberty you have anarchy. The British see many examples of this, such as Rome, and agree that you have to have balance. How to achieve this? There needs to be a balance among the various aspects of Government. There were three types of government:
1. Monarchy- which was ruled by Kings and Queens, Britain also had a Parliament. This type of government can become tyranny if unchecked, for example, France and Turkey.
2. Aristocracy- uses hereditary nobility such as Duke's and Earl's, etc. Aristocracy by itself can become an oligarchy, which can be dangerous if they take total control, because they can dismiss King's and Queen's at will. Ex. Poland in the 15th and 16th century.
3. People- though not all of the people count, only those who had a stake in society, such as landowners and merchants (who own something), and doctors, lawyers, and educators (who were people with an education that had something to provide). If People run the government you could end up with a democracy, which to the British was bad.
All of these groups can be incorporated into a "mixed government" which can prevent any one group from taking over so they can balance out (checks and balances). In order to create the mixed government they had institutionalize the types of government:
-Monarchy: the King-who rules through a ministry (ex. cabinet)
-Aristocracy: the House of Lords
-People: the House of Commons-they secure the subjects liberty and things like money bills start here
You have to have all the approval of all the elements in order to have good legislation, which regulates everything.
In Theory:
It doesn't quite work that way in theory, even though it is a good goal. The Monarch has the real power even though there is some limits in the constitution. One of the limits on the Monarch was the Act of Settlement from 1701, this came about because Queen Anne was going to die with no direct line to replace her as leader, so Parliament found a distant descendant of James I to become King. The Monarch also had to be Protestant and accept Parliament's control over bills even though they had very little control of the King himself. Another problem would be that the Aristocracy would most likely align with the Monarch (giving him even more power), they were natural allies and had nothing in common with the People. Plus, the King can appoint nobles who are then indebted to him, or he can remove nobles if he so chooses. Consequently, most Aristocrats sign with the King. The next step is to get the Commons to align with the King as well. They had limited voting rights, with only about 10% being able to vote, and since the House can have very little direct elections there is less allegiance. Some areas of Britain have limited amounts of seats in the House, or the representatives are selected-these were were called "Rotten Boroughs", where the voters were controlled by the Aristocracy. Some had no representatives, others were selected representatives who were not aligned with the population. There was supposed to be virtual representation, where their job was to work for everyone, not just their district, and it all should be for the common good.
By the time of the American Revolution there were 588 seats in the House of Commons and the King controlled 240 outright. Other ways that he could gain control of votes were:
-the bribing of voters
-he also had the use of patronage, and he would assess reluctant voters. He was willing to give contracts to businesses based on their support, in other words, he bought their support. Or, their were a growing amount of government positions that could be given to whoever the Monarch chose, many of the jobs no longer actually exist, but they are still on the books.
-another 30-40 representatives were known as the Country Gentleman, they were men who were in the Commons because they were 'wanna be' nobles whom the King could count on for votes, and then the House of Lords would green light the Kings propositions.
By the 1720s Robert Walpole, the King's Chief Minister, had completely institutionalized this corrupt form of government, and unfortunately this was how the government would work now. The interesting thing was that none of this government practice was a secret. Everyone knew about it and most people didn't care about their corrupt practices because the government worked the way it was. England was doing very well during this time.
Radical Whigs:
The Radical Whigs, or the Commonwealth Men, were the only ones complaining about the corrupt government at the time. They were on the fringes of society, and they wanted a Republic. They saw the current form of government as a threat to liberty, and thought that conspirators could get into the ministry, destroy liberty, and then it would become tyranny. They saw the King as impervious to corruption, he was smart and loyal, but he could be deceived. Virtue and disinterestedness were their only solutions to this problem, because a virtuous person can't be corrupted and a disinterested person doesn't have a personal interest, they only have interest for the common good. People could take action by protesting to the King, and protesting to the Lords to get out the conspirators. The Whigs said that the conspirators would invent wars and wars lead to three things:
1. Increased taxes
2. Britain would be in debt- people wouldn't be able to resist participating in the war effort due to patriotism
3. It would create a standing Army- the government could use these troops to subdue resistance and squash liberty.
Once all this was obtained they would start chipping away at other rights such as habeas corpus, trial by jury, and take all the property of their subjects according to their whims-then everyone would become slaves. The Whigs appeal the public by publishing pamphlets and books, and they write in newspapers in order to get the word out, but people don't care in Britain.
In contrast you have the colonial people who loved to read. The American colonists were very literate, and they sent off to England requesting books. The merchants in England don't send back the popular books that they were making money on, and so they send the pile of publishing's from the Whigs over. The colonists assumed that this material was mainstream thought, so when the British start to impart the corrupt governmental procedures on the colonists they don't want it.
Colonial Replicas and Realities:
Since the British form of government was so great and working so well they wanted to replicate it in the colonies, so for the colonies:
-the Monarch would be the Royal Governor
-the Aristocracy (the House of Lords) would be the Royal Council
-the People (House of Commons) would be the Royal Assembly.
The problem was that this idea did not transfer to the colonies smoothly. The Governor in the colonies was not as revered as the King, in fact, they were fairly weak and the Assembly tended to take over. The Council also didn't have the same prestige because they didn't have the same inherited nobility, many of them started and worked their way up in the Assembly, so they were more likely to side with them. Also, in the colonies 50-60% of the men could vote; many of the men owned land plus the certain professions that could vote, and their were more of them in some regions. Because of this fact the Assembly has a much greater voice and the people expect work from their representatives.
One exception to this was Benning Wentworth, the Governor of New Hampshire. He came to America to redeem his fortunes, and he was a very effective governor that practiced corruption. He would give towns to people for votes, allowed smuggling for a cut, and looked the other way for others. Even through all this the people of New Hampshire liked him, as did the English Government. However, most other governors lose their power to the people of the state.
Notes taken from class lecture: Dr. Jim Piecuch, Kennesaw State University
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