This is the transcript of the speech that Daniel Deniehy gave at the Victorian theatre in Sydney, and the speech that effectively removed William Wentworth's desire to have an aristocracy created in Australia and reflected in a titled upper house of NSW. It was no longer publicly palatable. As it was, the NSW government ended up with an appointed Senate anyway.

Deniehy had a habit of writing and speaking of himself in the third person. Which can make his speeches and writings confusing. In this speech when he says, "he" he means himself in the third person. Deniehy is putting himself in the position of the naive outsider looking into Australian society and being shocked by the "Dunghill Nobility" and "Bunyip Aristocracy" . It was all in one big chunk, so I have taken the liberty of editing it so that it is more palatable to the internet medium. I have added paragraphs, and added small blockquoted notes to describe historical aspect that he is lampooning.

This speech was also published in; Our First Republicans. Lang, Harpur and Deniehy , Editors are David Headon and Elzabeth Perkins. The publication of the speech in the book carries, "Sydney Morning Herald, 16 August 1853".

The Bunyip Aristocracy Speech

Mr. Deniehy seconded the resolution [that this meeting pledges itself to resist, by every constitutional means in its power, the formation of a second chamber which is not based on popular suffrage]. Why he had been selected to speak to the present resolution he knew not, save that as a native of the colony he might naturally be expected to feel something like real interest, and to speak with something like real feeling on a question connected with the political institutions of the country. He would do his best to respond to that invitation 'Speak up,' and would perhaps balance deficiencies flowing from a small volume of voice by in all cases calling things by their right names. (Cheers.)

He protested against the present daring and unheard-of attempt to tamper with a fundamental popular right - that of having a voice in the nomination of men who were to make, or control the making of, laws binding on the community - laws perpetually shifting and changing the nature of the whole social economy of a given state, and frequently operating in the subtlest forms on the very dearest interests of the citizen - on his domestic, his moral, perhaps his religious relations.

The name of Mr. Wentworth had frequently been mentioned there that day, and that on one or two occasions with an unwise tenderness, a squeamish reluctance to speak plain, English , and call certain nasty doings of Mr. Wentworth by the usual homely appellatives, simply because they were Mr. Wentworth's. He for one was nowise disposed, as preceding speakers had seemed, in tapping the vast shoulder of Mr. Wentworth's political recreancies, to 'damn him with faint praise and mistimed eulogy. '(Loud cheers.)

Note : William Wentworth (1793 - 1872) was the Sydney Lawyer, Explorer and later New South Wales politician. Wentworth along with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson became the first non-aboriginals to cross the Blue Mountains. Wentworth received two land grants after 1810. He founded the the newspaper, "The Australian" and drafted the initial NSW Constitution, as well as having a hand in the drafting of the NSW Constitution of 1855.

Wentworth's draft bills included limiting suffrage to land owners, and renters who earned as much as their landlords. The electorates were to remain the same as the gerrymandered ones of 1851 that gave undue power to landed interests. The bill also created a colonial aristocracy to populate the upper house and ensure the power of the landed interests.

Wentworth left Australia in the late 1850's and lived the rest of his life in England.

He had listened from boyhood upwards to grey tradition, Mr. Wentworth's demagogic Areopagitas - his speeches for the liberty of unlicensed printing regime of Darling; and for these and divers other deeds of a time when the honourable member for Sydney had to the full his share of the chivalrous pugnacities of five-and-twenty, he was as much disposed to give Mr Wentworth credit as any man. But with these perpetual fantasies, these everlasting variations on the 'Light of the other Days,' continually ringing in his ears, he (Mr D.) was fain to enquire by what rule of moral and political appraisal, it was sought to throw in a scale opposite to that containing the flagrant and shameless political dishonesty of years, the democratic escapades, sins long since repented of in early youth. '(Loud cheers)

The subsequent political conduct-rather the systemic political principles of Mr. Wentworth - had been such as would have been sufficient to cancel the value of even a century of action. The British Constitution had been frequently spoken of that afternoon in terms of unbounded laudation. That Constitution certainly deserved to be spoken of with respect; he (Mr. D.) respected it, no doubt they all respected it.

But his was a qualified respect at best, and in all presumed assimilations of the political hypotheses of our colonial Constitution-makers with the Constitution of Great Britain, he warned them not be seduced by mere words and phrases-sheer 'talkee talkee.' Relatively, it was not only an admirable example of slowly growing and gradually elaborated political experience, applied, set in action, but it was also eminent and exemplary as a long history, still evolving, of political philosophy. But it was after all but relatively good for its wonderfully successful fusion of principles the most antagonistic.

Circumstances entirely alter cases, and he would warn them to be seduced by no mere vague association exhaled from the use of venerable phrases, that had, what phrases now-a-days seldom could boast, genuine meanings attached to them. The patrician element existed in the British Constitution as did the regal, for good reasons-it had stood in the way of all late legislatorial thought and operation as a great fact; as such it was handled, and in a deep and prudential spirit of conservatism allowed to stand-but as affecting the basis and foundation of the architecture of a Constitution-the elective principle neutralised for all detrimental influence, by conversion, practically, into a mere check upon the deliberations of the initiative section of the Legislature. (Loud cheers.)

And having the right to frame, to embody, to shape it as we would, with no great stubborn facts to work upon as in England, there was nothing but the elective principle and the inalienable freedom of every colonist upon which to work out the whole organisation and body of our political institution. (Loud cheers.)

But because it was the good pleasure of Mr. Wentworth and the respectable tail of that puissant Legislative body, whose serpentine movements (loud laughter) were so ridiculous, we were not to form our own Constitution, but instead of this we were to have an Upper House and a Constitution cast upon us, upon a pattern which should suit the taste and propriety of political oligarchs who treated the people at large as if they were cattle to be bought and sold in the market (loud cheers); or as they indeed were in American slave States, and now in Australian markets (tremendous cheering), where we might find bamboozled coolies and kidnapped Chinamen. (Immense applause.)

And being in a figurative humour, he might endeavour to make some of the proposed nobility to pass before the stage of our imagination, as the ghost of Banquo walked along in the vision of Macbeth, so that we might have a fair view of these Harlequin aristocrats (laughter), these Botany Bay magnificos (laughter), these Australian mandarins. (Roars of laughter.)

Let them walk across the stage in all the pomp and circumstances of hereditary titles. First, then, in the procession stalks the hoary Wentworth. But he could not imagine that to such a head the strawberry leaves would add any honour. (Cheers.)

Next came the native aristocrat Mr. James Macarthur, he would he supposed, aspire to the coronet of an earl, he would call him the Earl of Camden, and he suggests for his coat of arms a field vert, the heraldic term for green-(great cheers and laughter)-and emblazoned on this field should be a rum keg of a New South Wales order of chivalry. There was also the colonial starred Terence Aubrey Murray, with more crosses and orders-not perhaps orders of merit-than a state of mandarinhood. (Loud laughter.)

Note : James MacArthur 1767 - 1834. MacArthur as a lieutenant was sent to the New South Wales colony where he quickly established himself as the paymaster for the New South Wales Corps. MacArthur used the military unit's funds to purchase imports and effectively made rum a de-facto currency in the colony. It is from this the New South Wales Corps became known as the "Rum Corps". The Rum Corps established monopolies on imports, local trade, policing and the justice system. This was broken with the coming of Governor William Bligh to the colony. MacArthur resisted Bligh's changes and ultimately through Major George Johnston, overthrew Bligh as Governor of NSW. This became known as the Rum Rebellion . MacArthur managed to secure 60,000 acres of property through his contacts in England and this became the large sheep farming concern at "Camden".

Another friend who claimed a colonial title was George Robert Nichols, the hereditary Grand Chancellor of all the Australias (Roars of laughter.) Behold him in the serene and moody dignity of that portrait of Rodius' that smiled on us in all the public-house parlours- (loud laughter) - the gentleman who took Mr. Lowe to task for altering his opinions; this conqueror in the lists of jaw, and the victor in the realms of gab. (It might be well to ridicule the doings of such a clique, but their doings merited burning indignation-yet, to speak seriously of such a project would too much resemble the Irishman's kicking at nothing, it wrenched one horribly. (Laughter.)

But, though their weakness was ridiculous, he could assure them that these pigmies [sic] might do a great deal of mischief. They would bring contempt on a country whose interest he was sure they all had at heart, until even the poor Irishman in the streets of Dublin would fling his jibe at the Botany Bay aristocrats. In fact, he was puzzled how to classify them. They could not aspire to the miserable and effete dignity of the grandees of Spain. (Laughter.)

They had antiquity of birth, but these he would defy any naturalist properly to classify them. But perhaps it was only a specimen of the remarkable contrariety that existed at the Antipodes. Here they all know the common water mole was transferred into the duck-billed platypus, and in some distant emulations of this degeneration, he supposed they were to be favoured with a bunyip aristocracy . (Great laughter.)

Note : Antipodes is often used in England to refer to Australia and New Zealand. The genus is from "Antipodal points" which are diametrically opposite on the surface of a sphere.

He trusted that this was only the beginning of a more extended movement, and from its auspicious commencement he augured the happiest results. (Cheers.) A more orderly, united, and consolidated movement he had never witnessed. He must say that he was proud to belong to Botany Bay.

He took it as no term of reproach, when he saw that there was such a keen sensibility on the subject of their political sights-(cheers)that the instant the liberties of their country were threatened, they could assemble, and with one voice, declare their determined and undying opposition. (Cheers.)

But he would remind them that this was not a selfish consideration, there were wider interests at stake. In the present disturbed state of Europe, they must calculate on having to receive the poor Russian flying from the knout of his oppressor. (Cheers.)

And also, looking at the gradually increasing pressure of political parties at home, they must prepare to open their arms and receive the fugitives from England, Scotland, and Ireland, who would hasten to gain a security and a competence, that appeared to be denied them in their own country. (Cheers.)

The interests of these countless thousands were involved in their decision on this occasion, and they looked, and were entitled to look, for a heritage befitting the dignity of free men. (Great cheering.) Bring them not here with delusive hopes-let them not find a new-fangled aristocracy haunting these free shores. (Cheers.)

But it is to yours to offer them a land, where man is rewarded for his labour, and where the law no more recognises the supremacy of a class, than it recognises the predominance of a religion. (Great cheering.) But there is an aristocracy worthy of our ambition. Wherever man's skill is eminent, wherever glorious manhood asserts its elevation, there is an aristocracy that confers honour on the land that possesses it. That is God's aristocracy. (Great cheering.)

That is an aristocracy that will grow and expand under free institutions, and bless the land where it flourishes. (Cheers.) He hoped they would take into consideration the hitherto barren condition of the country they were legislating for. He was a native of this young but glorious continent. Its past was not hallowed in history by the achievements of men whose names reflected a light on the times in which they lived. They had no long line of poets, of statesmen, and warriors; in this country art had done nothing, but nature everything. It was theirs to inaugurate the future. (Great cheering)

In no country had the attempt been successfully made to manufacture an aristocracy pro re nata . It could not be done. They might as well expect honour to be paid to the nobles of King Kamehameha, or the ebony earls of the Emperor Soulouque of Hayti.

The aristocracy of England was founded on the sword. The men that came over with William the Conqueror were the masters of the Saxons, and so were the aristocracy. The soldiers of Cromwell were the masters of the Irish, and so became their aristocracy. But he should like to know how Wentworth and his clique had conquered the inhabitants of New South Wales - (great cheering) - except in the artful dodgery of doctoring up a Franchise Bill. (Great laughter.)

If we were to be blessed with an aristocracy he would rather it should not resemble that of William the Bastard but of Jack the Strapper. (Great laughter.)

But he trespassed too long on their time (no, no) and would only seek in conclusion, but to record two things. First, his indignant denunciation of any tampering with the purity of the elective principle, the only basis upon which good government could be placed; and, secondly, he wished them to regard the future destinies of their country.

Let them, with prophetic eye, behold the troops of weary pilgrims, from foreign despotism, which would, ere long, be floating to their shores, and let them now - give the most earnest assurance, that such men as composed the Wentworth clique, were not the representations of the spirit, the intelligence, of the freemen of New South Wales. (Vehement and prolonged applause.) The resolution was put and passed unanimously.

The history of Australian Republicanism has been dominated by the primary figures having a libertarian streak, and an individualistic stance that often placed the Republican movement on a back foot for lack of organisation. John Dunmore Lang founded the Australian League in 1849 to promote Republicanism, but it did not have any staying power. Until the Australian Republican Movement's founding in 1991 there was no real formal Australian Republican organization. Prominent Australian Republicans, such as Charles Harpur and Frederick Vosper have been more inclined to view Republicanism as an individualistic expression of civicism.

The Australian League

An early backer of John Dunmore Lang's Australian League was Henry Parkes, who had a flirtation with Republicanism before becoming a strident, and fawning monarchist. But Parkes soon dropped his support of the League once he determined that Lang was not getting the numbers to make the League a strong and permanent political entity.

Lang's early recruitment drive ended up with him being stuck in a Tasmanian jail, for debt, and the Melbourne chapter of the Australian League ended up having a drive to raise money to get Lang out of jail. Lang then used the Melbourne chapter as his electoral office in order to get elected to the Victorian seat of Port Phillip. Between Lang's jailing, and his spending time in Sydney, he was defeated at the polls.

Lang's speeches, did not overtly mention the establishment of a Republic, but contained many of the policies that were synonymous with Australian Republicanism in 1850. These included universal manhood suffrage, removing malapportionment and the cessation of convict transportation. Monarchists such William Wentworth who were entrenched in the squatter dominated Legislative Council, opposed such reforms, and moved to have Lang removed from the ballot, by attempting to exclude clergymen from public office. This was over-ruled by the NSW Attorney-General.

The Australian League had not been used by Lang as a political organization to advance Republicanism in Australia. It had instead been used to advance Lang's political aspirations for election, and once he was elected, it lost influence. When William Wentworth advanced his vision of a Kings, Lord and Commons version of NSW government in 1854, which Dan Deniehy pilloried as the "bunyip aristocracy" , Lang tried to revive the Australian League again, but to no avail. Possibly because Australian Republicans did not want their cause usurped to support Lang's political ambitions.

Charters Towers

Labor supporters in Queensland prior to the Shearer's Strike in 1891 formed an Australian Republican Association (ARA), which despite the contentiousness of the name, the association did not include a republic as one of its objectives. But this is a good example of what the word republic has come to mean in Australia. In 1890 it meant the establishment of individual and political rights.

One of the great Republican firebrands of the era, Frederick Vosper, became the editor of the Australian Republican, a publication which came out of the ARA's movement in Queensland. If the ARA didn't advocate open Republicanism, Vosper most certainly did, proclaiming;

a grand United Republic under the Southern Cross which, profiting by the experience and errors of others, shall be as pure and perfect as it is possible for things human to be.

Vosper was a purist, believing the Republicanism was an expression of the civic individual, and not subservient to factional politics or religion. I use one of his well known republican motto's in my signature on south sea republic - that of;

Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.

This was despite Vosper writing for a Labor backed publication. Audrey Oldfield wrote that, "Vosper sometimes forgot the political leanings of his audience" . During the Shearer's Strike, Vosper advocated the use of force, and threatened a Republican Revolution. This brought him before Horace Tozer's Queensland courts on a treason charge. Not a pretty notion at the time, as Tozer had enabled the arms of government, including the military, to act in violent and arbitrary manners against the Shearers. The judge which heard the case was an advocate for freedom of speech, and a republican to boot, but it required two juries for Vosper to be acquitted.

The Australian Republican newspaper only lasted fourteen months, and with the Shearers focusing on establishing Labor as a political party, and as a voice for their individual and political rights, the notion of an Australian or Queensland republic was not pursued. The ARA was replaced with what to become the Australian Labor Party.

The Lawsons

Another attempt to create a movement was by the Lawson family in 1887 to complement their newspaper, the Republican. The Australian Republican Union initially contained the same members as the contributors to the Louisa Lawson's paper. The Union gained some momentum, before being replaced by George Black's Republican League. Black later went on to become an editor of the rabidly Republican Bulletin .

The experience of the Lawson's and Black were similar throughout the country. Australian Republicans maintained a individualistic streak, not collapsing their belief in the superiority of a Republican form of government, and the precedence of individual and political rights into a popular political movement. For Australian Republicans it has been a personal belief system.

This is not to argue that Monarchists and Conservatives have been benign in the suppression of Republicanism. They have not, often going to tyrannous lengths to thwart, isolate and silence Republicans. As a consequence Republicanism in Australia has been one of individualism, and the resistance to government tyranny. This can be seen in the actions of people, and groups such as the Ballarat Reform League, whose charter contained ;

That it is the inalienable right of every citizen to have a voice in making the laws he is called upon to obey - that taxation without representation is tyranny.

That, being as the people have been hitherto, unrepresented in the Legislative Council of the Colony of Victoria, they have been tyrannised over, and it becomes their duty as well as interest to resist, and if necessary to remove the irresponsible power which so tyrannises over them.

This formal statement, is not much different to what Vincent Lingiari faced from the Vesteys. When Lingiari led the Gurindji people off the Wave Hill station to Wattie Creek in 1966, he did so as a strike against oppression and tyranny from the Vestry's and the Northern Territory government. Lingiari is under-celebrated in this country, his stamping his foot in the ground for his rights and liberties, led to the land rights movement. Vincent Lingiari is quite simply, Australia's greatest patriot.

Charles Harpur

No Australian Republican represented the individualistic streak more than Charles Harpur. Like Vosper, he was unable to give himself to a political faction to further the cause. His early beliefs were that Republican government was the natural evolution of social organization from monarchism as long as humanity was pursuing perfection. He later became depressed by the imperfectability of humanity, in corruption, nepotism, nomineeism and other negative factions. But his dominant belief that Republicanism was the natural social and moral progression of humanity was not shaken. Elizabeth Perkins writes;

Harpur regarded all other forms of government as unnatural, although explicable in terms of primitive social organizations and stunted human moral development. In the nineteenth century, it was only the continuing influence of courtly and aristocratic traditions, he believed, that prevented civilised people from embracing equality in the political and social obligations. Freed of these traditions, within a few generations, nations would abandon the aristocracy of the privileged. Civilised people, Harpur told the readers of the People's Advocate in 1849; 'are republicans ... and mostly democrats also, before they can render a definite reason, it may, for the faith that is in them.'

His last quote is a very apt description of the history of Australian Republicanism. Most have seen republicanism as an individual doctrine, a philosophy that is pursued as an intrinsic part of our social, moral and political being. I too see Republicanism in this way. One of the failings of the modern Republican movement is in communicating this aspect. A republican form of government is not only superior to a constitutional monarchy, but is a more accurate reflection of the people's inherent social, moral and political nature - it will mirror the values that we carry inside us.

We Are All Republicans

Harpur's and Vosper's view of Republicanism shows why Monarchists see it as a such a dangerous philosophy to their belief system. It cannot be eradicated while it is an internal expression that stretches to all aspects of our individual interactions in the social, cultural and political sphere.

This also explains why Republicans have not been able to form into a popular political movement, for Australian Republicans, it is fait accompli, the inevitable republic, as utterly rational. This describes why the Australian Republican Movement during the 1990s just said, "republic" to the Australian people and expected it to be accepted. Ironically it nearly was, Australians are republicans inside, but they are pragmatic ones, and know when conservative professional politicians are pulling the wool over their eyes.

The next step for Australian Republicans is take it beyond Harpur and communicate a wider Republican philosophy and doctrine. One which reflects the republican leanings of the Australian people, and the Australian desire to transcend themselves. From such a point the difficult process of Constitutional change to one of Australian Republicanism can begin - and be ratified via referendum.

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