Part 19 – Australia’s Founding Fathers learned from the American experience
Every Australian has access to the verbatim words of our Founding Fathers, captured in the Federation Debates and the later Constitutional Debates that took place over an intensive ten (10) year period commencing in 1890.
Every Australian can hear in their own words the reverence and respect they had for the Founding Fathers of America.
It was not lost on any one of Australia’s Founding Fathers that they must take the lessons learned in America and elsewhere and avoid the horrors and mistakes made.
It took them over ten years of dedicated work.
That is because, as with all Constitutions the vast bulk of the worth of our Australian Constitution comes from the foundational jurisprudence and common law which gives every word and phrase deep meaning.
Every word of our Australian Constitution meticulously and carefully drafted.
Every sentence interrogated. Every aspect deeply investigated and debated over the course of ten years by our most hard working and most brilliantly self educated generation that ever called themselves “Australians”.
Our inheritance as Australian Individuals, is the most carefully crafted brilliant Constitution that has ever existed anywhere in the World.
It is a superior Constitution to the American Constitution.
Yet over the course of the last several decades, the Enemies of Australia have sought to wipe all knowledge of this from the minds of every Australian.
Merely one ploy, of the dozens attempted thus far has been to try to convince you that your Constitution was imposed upon you by Elites. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Part 20 – USA: Australia is not the USA
Australia is NOT the United States of America!
Australia is not a Republic like the United States of America. Australia is a Representative Democracy within the framework of a Constitutional Monarchy.
They are very distinct forms of government, but have some common features.
The Founding Fathers of Australia were avid scholars of the Declaration of Independence, the later American Constitution and the later Bill of Rights.
All of our Founding Fathers had the benefit of having an extensive knowledge and understanding of what went right, and what went so very tragically wrong in America.
The American Constitution provided significant inspiration for the drafting of our Australian Constitution, but it established a very different type of government.
We hear much of the extraordinary bravery of the Americans, and the almost impossible victory of the Americans during the War of Independence in 1776. Our Australian Founding Fathers were in awe too.
But our Founding Fathers were keenly aware that the American War of Independence cost the lives of over 6 thousand Americans who were killed in action.
During the War of Independence, at least a further 6 thousand American Men were horribly wounded and more than 20 thousand were taken as prisoners. About half of those prisoners of war died horrendous deaths whilst being held as prisoners of the British. Further to that, over 17 thousand died as a result of disease.
The total population was only 2.5 million.
The lessons of securing independence from the Monarchy were well learned by Australia’s Founding Fathers.
Australia’s Founding Fathers intensively studied all of the deficiencies which subsequently came to light, in the drafting of the American Declaration of Independence, the subsequent American Constitution and the later Bill of Rights.
Our Founding Fathers identified and avoided the mistakes.
One of Australia’s Founding Fathers Mr. O’Connor observed that to sever ties as the Americans did, was to knowingly embark upon another dangerous experiment. He urged this tragedy would not be followed in Australia.
During the Australian Constitution debates he stated:
“. . . no Constitution has ever succeeded which has been a creation rather than a growth; that no Constitution has ever succeeded that has not been a development of institutions which had their roots deep down in the hearts of the people for whom the Constitution has been enacted. . .”
This was a popularly shared view of the Australian Founding Fathers who sought to proceed meticulously and carefully, knowing that the “Great Experiment” with the American Republic had been anything but peaceful. It had devastated the young independent Country, and the cost of life and human suffering was incalculable.
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