“Neither the same Nation Nor Different Nations”: Constitutional Conventions in the United States and Australia

Abstract

Debates in constitutional conventions in the United States in 1787 and Australia in 1897 reveal similarities and differences that illuminate the process by which nations became increasingly meaningful forms of social organization. Although the tone of these debates tended to be technical and pragmatic, focusing on specific concerns about the machinery of “good government,” convention delegates showed in their assumptions, their omissions, and in the claims and comparisons they repeated, what they were coming to perceive as commonalities. Claims about what identified the new nations were part of the repertoire of debate used by delegates as they addressed their tasks. So the conventions distilled ideas available to political elites about what was taken to be distinctive about and shared by prospective citizens.