After the Revolutionary War and the establishment of Congress and President in the United States, party lines hardened between Hamilton's and Adams' Federalists and Jefferson's and Madison's Republicans. In 1801 Thomas Jefferson became the President of the United States, this was to start a twenty-four year Virginian presidential dynasty that ultimately defined the US Republic.

The electors in 1800 were locked in votes between Jefferson and New Yorker, Aaron Burr. Ultimately Alexander Hamilton and John Adams feared, or detested, Burr more than Jefferson and convinced the electoral college to support Jefferson. This became known as the "Bloodless Revolution". There was much partisan antipathy at the time.

At ten in the morning on the fourth of March, 1801 Jefferson declined a coach and instead walked from his boarding house to Capitol hill to be inaugurated. This humbleness was to become a hallmark of the Jeffersonian presidency. He met ministers from Britain in his slippers, he refused to put guests of honour at his tables, prefering more egalitarian adhoc dinner placements.

Fast forward to today. Politicians are surrounded by retinues of Secret Servicemen, bodyguards and excessive security regimes. When minor officials visit areas of the US, security becomes crushing. Already gridlocked New Yorkers and Washingtonians complain heavily when government officials close down whole blocks of the city. Often politicians jam up parts of the city, not for reasons of state, but for fund raisers and other partisan pursuits. Aircraft get delayed at airports, roads are shut down - commerce interrupted.

My wife is currently in Alabama on business. She is sharing a hotel with Condaleeza Rice and Jack Straw. Her taxi could not stop infront of the hotel, and my wife had to enter the hotel from the rear. Security was everywhere. Rice was recently pilloried in the media for being on a shoe shopping spree in New York while Hurricane Katrina lashed at New Orleans. What is the chance the Rice will meet Straw in her slippers, let alone an ordinary citizen like my wife?

Buckleys and none.

Hardt and Negri on Liberalism;

The arguments of Madison, who thought representation the key to breaking apart any monarchy of power, now seem merely like mystifications; Montesquieu, who advocated radical division of constitutional powers, has been silenced by the unity of the system; and Jeffersonian free expression has been monopolized by corporate media. The political lexicon of modern liberalism is a cold bloodless cadaver.

They continue;

Liberalism never really even pretended to represent all of society - the poor, women, racial minorities, and the rest of the subordinated majority have always been excluded from power by explicit or implicit constitutional mechanisms.

Today liberalism tends not even to be able adequately to represent the elites. In the era of globalization it is becoming increasingly clear that the historical moment of liberalism has passed.

Big statements.

Is representation purely liberal? It was a democratic advance for its time that connected the increasing equity of social and technological organisation.

On South Sea Republic we are constantly discussing post-representative forms of governance such as ratification and sortition . These technologies were not unknown at the time of the American revolution. Juries are an essential part of American Constitutional rights.

Juries are used to ensure that an individual is judged by the peers under the technical guidance of a specialist, ie a Judge. This was deemed the most efficient, and just form of judicial organisation.

There is no reason why modern liberalism cannot adjust those same principles to Executive and Legislative government. A Harpurian Republic reflects the most advanced form of social organisation that capable at the time.

Madison's beliefs on representation have been overtaken by advances in education, technology, health and enfranchisement. They have also been undercut by political organisation which seeks to increase the alienation and abstraction between representative and voter. Gerry-mandering is one such technique.

Our recent discussion on appointed or elected Ministers raised the issue of division of constitutional powers. The consensus was that factionalism has combined to make the government run pay party than by division of powers. Yet, many parliamentary systems, including Australia's, are specifically set up this way.

Australian government has no real recognition of division between executive and legislative responsibilities. Unicameral systems such as Queensland's and the ACT's have even less recognition of that separation.

Queensland's upper house was suicide squadded by Labor members, but the ACT and Northern Territory systems were created when people were more sensitive to separation of powers. Parliamentary systems are specifically set-up to ensure there is as little conflict between Executive and Legislative as possible.

Is that a failing of Liberalism? I think it is rough to throw that in its lap.

As to the corporate media being monopolised to such an extent that it is a statist mouthpiece, this is nothing new, and something that individuals have chafed under, even back in Jefferson's time. Jefferson himself, was an extraordinary muck-raker who would happily co-ordinate attacks on his opponents through the publishing media of the time.

But is the political lexicon of modern liberalism limited to representation, separation of powers and a free mass media?

It can be argued, rightly in my opinion, that sites like South Sea Republic represent modern liberalism as much as any other; and innovations such as sortition, independent constitutional review, abundant media, technology, etc are all part of the common lexicon on this site.

The American Republic had to update the responses in political science and philosophy to eradicate the ills they saw that damaged liberty and democracy. Republicanism is not static, nor is it conservative. It is an expression of the maximal political innovation and achievement of the time.

Today our list of ills is larger than in 1787 or 1901. The lexicon advances to innovations and technologies that can eradicate the attacks on liberty, democracy and justice.

cam

Malcolm Turnbull in 1998;

Our Constitution read in isolation provides a most misleading and inadequate description of our system of government. Is it too much to ask that our most important law should be written in a manner that makes sense to people who are not lawyers and politicians?

That is a strong statement which correctly identifies the biggest problem in Australian federal government and the strength of Australian Republicanism; its formal grounding in constitutional issues.

Yet this strength, the recognition that our constitutional arrangements are largely in court law, rather than the constitution itself, was politely ignored during the republican referendum.

Monarchists took what Turnbull called an ain't broke don't fix it "cave-man conservatism", while many influential republicans decided that a pragmatic stance of language change was best but no effort to address the problems in the constitution itself.

In 1992, during a speech to the National Press Club, Turnbull said;

.. some conservatives fail to come to terms with the debate. The most common defence of the monarchy is a shoulder shrugging 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' cave-man conservatism.

Consider for a moment where human progress would be if that approach had been taken to art, literature, technology or politics?

The truth is that all human progress has been based on the desire to make something which is better.

Societies that have turned their back on social or political progress have invariably atrophied and collapsed.

That is a very Jeffersonian and Harpurian statement. It shows the republican belief that constitution is not only a progressive document which must match its people, rather than its political elite, but also that it must represent that maximal social and political achievement that is possible.

Thomas Jefferson covered this issue in great detail in a letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1816;

Some men look at constitutions with a sanctimonious reference, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.

They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it.

It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book--reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions.

I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects.

But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.

The colonial Australia at Federation, which was enthralled by its British ancestry and found its sense of meaning and purpose in the Commonwealth and under the Crown is long gone.

The same mindset which feared a popularly elected Head of State, a Bill of Rights and other constitutional innovations is also long gone.

People don't fully trust politicians, or Canberra meddling in constitutional affairs, and quite rightly too. At best it is mildly self-serving, at worst blatant. Despite the difficulty of constitutional amendment forced by the constitution, Australian referendum results have shown a distrust of Canberra, with very few making it across the line.

The referendum for Federation in 1899, given its low franchise, would not pass muster under today's constitutional arrangements.

One of the challenges for Australian Republicanism will be having public opinion come around to the viewpoint that the constitution can be trusted as a working document in the hands of republicans.

In the letter, Jefferson comes to a quite logical point of view, that of constitutional sunsetting;

And lastly, let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates.

By the European tables of mortality, of the adults living at any one moment of time, a majority will be dead in about nineteen years. At the end of that period, then, a new majority is come into place; or, in other words, a new generation.

Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before.

It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure.

It is now forty years since the constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables inform us, that, within that period, two--thirds of the adults then living are now dead.

Have then the remaining third, even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two--thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present mass of adults?

If they have not, who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation.

They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made by their majority.

That majority, then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution what they think will be the best for themselves.

In that passage Jefferson shows his faith and trust in future generations.

cam

I am currently reading through Harry Ammon's tome on James Monroe who was the US President after James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. It is interesting to note how the revolution had its effect on the early Republicans where they came to see their form of government as promoting republicanism to the world.

Monroe was younger than Jefferson and Madison. Jefferson started mentoring Monroe in the philosophies of public office when he was young and while Jefferson was Governor of Virginia.

Madison also corresponded with Monroe, but Monroe was more pragmatic and practical than Jefferson and Madison who wrote back and forth on all matter of republican philosophy.

Monroe was ambitious for public office even though he saw the public service as the height of a citizen's duty, especially a planter's.

During the Revolutionary War, Monroe made a strong friendship with the Frenchman Pierre DuPonceau who leant Monroe French books of the enlightenment just as Jefferson was to open his library to Monroe.

Monroe was a young officer, fighting a revolutionary cause and being exposed to enlightenment principles in the same environment. Ammon writes;

... it is evident that Monroe no longer thought of the Revolution in the narrow terms of a family quarrel between George III and his American subjects.

He now viewed the conflict - as the first step in a world-wide struggle to liberate mankind from the baneful effects of despotism.

This sense of commitment to a movement for political freedom with world-wide implications had a profound effect upon Monroe and his contemporaries.

The identification with a force greater than themselves gave a particular stamp to every aspect of their later careers.

In its simplest form it could be called a sense of mission - they felt themselves called upon to achieve something previously unattainable in human experience.

Thus Monroe, for the rest of his life, worked to convert the ideals of the Revolution (expressed only in the most general terms) into a basic reality of American life - a reality which would serve as a model and as an example to the rest of the world.

I have seen this called recently the "American Creed", though I cannot recall where I read that.

When Monroe was the American Ambassador to France just after the French Revolution, he wrote;

Republics should be near each other ... their governments are similar; they both cherish the same principles and rest on the same basis, the equal and unalienable rights of men.

DuPonceau wrote similarly at the same time;

... it is the sweetest fraternity ... that must unite us [America and France] ... this union shall forever be indissoluble, as it will forever be the dread of tyrants, the safeguard of the liberty of the world, and the preserver of all the social and philanthropic virtues.

DuPonceau was a practising lawyer in Philadelphia and had picked up the American zeal. The French Republic never became what the American Republic promised to be. France's revolution was more social than political.

In Australian Republicanism the closest philosophy to that kind of political destiny comes from Charles Harpur. Vosper had the pen, Deniehy the oration and Dunmore-Lang the shoulder at the grind-stone; but Harpur is the only one that intimated toward a republicanism that would be in a state of perpetual advancement.

One that would kindle and reaffirm the promise in us, and ensure the constant reach for a more perfect, social, moral, ethical and political form of organisation.

The Australian Republican creed starts in Charles Harpur.

in 1821 the United States was shocked to see an outburst of partisanship develop in Congress, partially due to growing political divisions, but also because there was no obvious Presidential successor to James Monroe. This is more curious as the Federalists ceased to exist as a viable opposition during the Madison presidency. Monroe was perturbed by the displays of partisanship and wrote to Madison on the issue.

Thomas Jefferson was a shrewd and calculating political operator who manipulated the media of the day to his political ends while maintaining anonymity.

There was also growing ideological divisions between the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian view of an American future. This divide manifested itself as the Federalist and Republican parties.

This split led to many famous historical incidents such as Jefferson ending up the Vice President to the Federalist John Adams. The later Presidential tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, which ultimately fell in Jefferson's behaviour and the duel between Burr and Hamilton which resulted in Hamilton's death.

The successor for Jefferson as President was James Madison who had been the Secretary of State in the Administration. Madison oversaw the war of 1812 which eventually led to the fraying of Federalist support and left the US a one party state at the end of Madison's second term.

Monroe had been Madison's Secretary of State and through the electoral college became President essentially unopposed. In Monroe's first term there appeared the Old Republicans who were heavily states rights oriented and conservative.

They mainly made their effect known on the military budget. Federal government was exceptionally smaller back then, way smaller than the size of government we take for granted today.

For example in modern dollars the GDP in 1818 was $11.95 billion . The total budget at the time was $25.5 million in 1818 dollars with nearly 8 million spent on defence. The Old Republicans chopped that defence budget in half.

The other source of partisanship in Monroe's second term was that there was no strong successor to the Presidency. Consequently several members of the Administration and Congress took anti-administration stances to differentiate themselves in the political groups that influenced the electoral college.

Most one-party systems survive on the lack of dissent when passing on the mantle to the next leader. Monroe thought a unified non-party American could still exist. Harry Ammon records;

We have undoubtedly reached a new epoch in our political career, which has been formed by the destruction of the federal party [Federalists] ... by the general peace, and the entire absence of all cause, as to public measures, for great political excitement, and in truth, by the real prosperity of the Union.

In such a state of things it might have been presumed that the movement would have been tranquil, marked by common effort to promote the public good in every line to which the powers of the general government extended.

It is my fixed opinion that this will be the result after some short interval, and that the restless and disturbed state of the Commonwealth, like the rolling of the waves after a storm, tho' worse than the storm itself, will subside, and leave the ship in perfect security.

Surely our government may get on and prosper without the existence of parties. I have always considered their existence as the curse of the country, of which we had sufficient proof, more especially in the late war. Besides, how keep them alive, and in action?

The causes which exist in other countries do not here. We have no distinct orders.

Madison's view of partisanship, or factionalism, is covered in detail by Federalist No.10 in the Federalist Papers. Madison wrote that the only way to stop factionalism is to stamp out liberty, which he believed was worse than removing factionalism from politics.

Consequently he sees it as a messy, albeit likely, outcome of free government. Madison's take on it is that the political system of government should be structured to stop factionalism becoming a destructive force. For this he proposed a representative system with separation of powers and checks and balances.

Madison replied to Monroe's letter, again recorded by Harry Ammon, with;

There seems to be a propensity in free governments, which will always find or make subjects, on which human opinion and passions may be thrown into conflict. The most, perhaps, that can be counted on, and that will be sufficient is, that the occasions for party contests ... will either be so slight or so transient, as not to threaten any permanent or dangerous consequences to the character and prosperity of the Republic.

Jefferson also had an opinion on the issue which he wrote about in a letter to Albert Gallatin in 1822;

You are told indeed that there are no longer parties among us, that they are all now amalgamated in peace, the lion and the lamb lie down together in peace. Do not believe a word of it, the same parties exist now as ever did. No longer indeed under the name of Republicans and Federalists. The latter name was extinguished in the Battle of Orleans.

Those who wore it finding monarchism a desperate wish in this country, are rallying to what they deem the next best point, a consolidated government. Although this is not yet avowed (as that of monarchism, you know, never was) it exists decidedly and is the true key to the debates in Congress, wherein you see many, calling themselves Republicans, and preaching the rankest doctrines of the old Federalists.

One of the candidates is presumed to be of this party, the other a Republican of the old school, and a friend to the barrier of state rights, as provided in the constitution against the barriers of consolidation ...

Jefferson's words are more extreme than necessary but he is politically acute enough to pick the partisanship that was prevalent, and like Madison suggested a "propensity of free government".

cam

One of my favourite Frederick Vosper quotes is; "Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I." Thomas Jefferson was asked in a letter from Francis Hopkinson whether he was a federalist or anti-federalist. Jefferson answered that where he could make his own opinions he required no creed to speak for him.

In Jefferson's letter to Hopkinson, 1789;

You say that I have been dished up to you as an anti-federalist, and ask me if it is just. My opinion was never worthy enough of notice to merit citing: but since you ask it, I will tell you. I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.

Such an addiction, is the last degredation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Therefore I am not of the party of the federalists. But I am much farther from that of the anti-federalists. I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new Constitution: the consolidation of the government: the subdivision of the legislative: the happy compromise of interests between the great and little states, by the different manner of voting in the different houses: the voting by persons instead of states: the qualified negative on laws given to the executive, which, however, I should have liked better if associated with the judiciary also, as in New York: and the power of taxation.

I thought at first that the latter might have been better limited. A little reflection soon convinced me it ought not to be.

What I disapproved of from the first moment also, was the want of a bill of rights, to guard liberty against the legislative as as the executive branches of the government: that is to say, to secure freedom in religion, freedom of the press, freedom from monopolies, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a permanent military, and a trial by jury, in all cases determinable by the laws of the land. I disproved, also, the perpetual re-eligibility of the President.

...

These, my dear friend, are my sentiments, by which you will see I was right in saying I am neither federalist or anti-federalist: that I am of neither party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. These, my opinions, I wrote within a few hours after I had read the Constitution [Jefferson was in France during this period], to one or two friends in America.

Jefferson was a wily and perceptive politician. His main pattern was to write that he was above politics and instead have others do his attacking for him, but that was later when he was involved in Executive Cabinet and Presidential politics. In this period, being in France, he was far removed from the political manouverings between the States in the drafting of the Constitution. The speed of the wind across the Atlantic was the main determinant in how up to date his news from America was.

It is interesting that he wrote about term limiting the period. The convention of a President not sitting beyond two terms remained from Washington until Franklin Roosevelt broke it. After which there was a quick constitutional amendment.

Freedom from a standing army is nice sentiment as the military can suck up a lot of a nation's capital and productivity, but in the age of increasing technical complexity and the violence that goes on between nations it proved an impossibility. Adams created his 'wooden walls' which was the US Navy and Jefferson used those wall as President in battles against pirates which were threatening US shipping. Much of the unpreparedness and sacking of Washington DC in the war of 1812 was due to the lack of a strong professional army.

Plato argues that a state which goes beyond need, into want, must necessarily organise itself constitutionally for warfare. This may be where the Jeffersonian appeal to a nation of yeomanry comes from. It is one of meeting needs, rather than the capital investment into luxury which Alexander Hamilton's central bank enabled. Then again, Jefferson was a shameless debtor, who, while in France, spent heavily on powdered wigs and other forms of European adornments and vanities.

From Plato's Republic:

Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of way They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.

True, he said.

Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music --poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them.

He continues to describe the a state which requires luxury, and who border's states who require luxury must inevitably deal with war:

And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?

Quite true.

Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?

That, Socrates, will be inevitable.

And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?

Most certainly, he replied.

Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.

Undoubtedly.

And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above.

Because war is an art according to Plato, then the state must organise to promote the skill of war and soldiery in order to protect itself from other states seeking expansion, as well as expand itself to meet its own demands of luxury.

Which is all a bit simplistic and more a moral tale than one that can inform political structures. Given the imbalance of politics even today, not to mention in antiquity, yes avarice and vice contribute to war, but not from the common men and women who make the state. More likely it is the greed and glory of the tyrant, the king, the aristocracy and oligarchs.

Even the democratic structures in antiquity were very top heavy. For instance one of the three assemblies in Rome, who could declare war from a Senate consultum, was a military assembly made up of Roman citizens who were close enough to Rome to form on the fields of Mars. It is also believed that the military assembly was formed as a body in Regal Rome for tax purposes.

I don't doubt however that Plato's reading of luxury appealed to Thomas Jefferson's moral pique of the modern American Cato; which, incidentally, was totally at odds with how he lived personally.

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 Bush Administration has not really coherently argued why they seek to expand the power of the executive. Like many of their policies it is a mish-mash of convenient media grabs, often inconsistent, often absurd, but always effective in expanding the reach and power of the executive.

Since 2001 the US has been in a state of emergency due to the September 11th attacks, which has been renewed each year, and according to Congress and the Supreme Court, the US is in a state of war. John Yoo has argued that the President has absolute power under such situations but this has been refuted by Congress and the Judicial - yet the executive has increasingly expansive powers under emergency and wartime.

Constitutional practice in countries with written constitutions has led to the doctrine of Judicial Review. This is where the High Court or Supreme Court is the final arbiter in interpreting the constitution and determining whether a law or action is constitutional.

We have seen in recent Australian High Court cases judges re-assert that doctrine even in times of national emergency. For instance Spender wrote:

True it is that the executive is charged with a heavy responsibility in matters of national security, but parliament has defined the limits defining the discharge by the executive of that responsibility, and it is for the judicial arm of government "to ensure that ministerial or other official action (is) lawful and within jurisdiction"

Separation of powers do not break down in national emergency.

Thomas Jefferson was a strong exponent for separation of powers, however, he rejected the doctrine of judicial review; instead preferring the whig doctrine of higher obligation. This is similar to Locke's discretionary power of prerogative which Locke described as the power to act:

for the public good, without the prescription of law, and sometimes against it.

Locke's description enables emergency government and executive rule. That is consistent with Whig philosophy which sees popular sovereignty as dominant over fundamental law (constitutional law). When Howard argues for "aspirational nationalism" he is claiming the whig view that electoral success is higher politically than a written federalist constitution.

Consequently, under Whig doctrine, the executive can act unconstitutionally without penalty as long as it is within popular sovereignty. Conservative commentators in Australian media often dub this "in the national interest".

Many self-described Australian liberals and conservatives are Whigs rather than Republicans for this reason. This is why whig philosophy is more comfortable with a statutorial constitution (non-entrenched) which can be amended by the executive/legislative. It is also why whigs are comfortable with the mix of executive and legislative power in a parliament where republicans prefer stronger separation of powers.

Jefferson's doctrine in this area has since been discredited by his peers, including John Marshall and James Madison, as well as successive presidencies. The doctrine of judicial review is well established as being pivotal in restraining the executive and legislative and maintaining a constitutional system of limited government rather than maximilist executive governance.

Jefferson's doctrine also enables emergency governance or a state of exception. Something that Madison warned against when he wrote that the emergency of war is one of the fastest ways for executive tyranny to occur:

No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.

But we can see in Jefferson's doctrine the actions of George W. Bush and how he has asserted the executive's constitutional right to determine whether legislation that has passed the houses of congress, been signed into law by the executive and passed judicial muster can still be interpreted through an Executive Order as to the constitutional restrictions on the executive.

Judicial Review has become a lynchpin component of limited government. Jefferson's doctrine did not survive his presidency two centuries ago. The allowance for a state of emergency places Jefferson's and Locke's doctrine in opposition to Madisonian and Harpurian Republicanism. It has no place in a modern republic or liberal democracy.