Stardate 20030626.1504

(On Screen): I posted comments yesterday about the fact that European claims that the US is "young" are absurd given that we've had the same continuous government form longer than any of the important European nations.

Whenever I make this comment, people always write and say, "What about the UK?" The problem with the UK is that with their non-written system, it isn't really all that easy to say exactly what represents inflection points. There are really only three in history which are totally unambiguous: the Battle of Hastings (1066), the Magna Carta (1215), and the English Civil War and dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century. The problem is that the governmental form in the UK after the Civil War, say in 1700, bore little resemblance to the modern British government. So clearly there were other significant changes since then. But which ones were the most critical?

The problem is deciding what is "revolutionary" and what is "evolutionary". For instance, it's arguable that the modern American system really begins in 1970 with the ratification of the 26th Amendment, which gave 18 year olds the right to vote in federal elections, but few would take that seriously. You can argue that it changed in the Reagan presidency, or in the Johnson presidency, or the FDR presidency. But just how big a change must one identify in order to consider it a true dividing point? I don't credit any of those as being significant enough.

BruceR says that most British historians consider the most important change establishing the modern government there to be the passage of the Reform Act of 1832, which considerably broadened the franchise and made representation in Parliament substantially more fair. I can see that point.

Others have written to me about the Parliament Act of 1911, which eliminated the ability of the House of Lords to veto bills passed by Commons. That's also a watershed. As I understand it, in the modern system bills passed by Commons are sent to Lords, who may amend them if they wish. They are then sent back to Commons who may strip back out every change that Lords made, and again pass the bill. The bill must then be signed by the Monarch before becoming law.

The US has had similar changes in its history, sometimes formally and sometimes not. Some historians date the modern US government to the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Before that point, it was pretty much the case that only property owners could vote, but in that era the franchise was broadened considerably (more or less the way that the British 1832 Reform Act did later). Others have pointed out that the American Civil War was certainly a watershed, which truly established the supremacy of the federal government over the states (which was then further formalized with the passage of the 14th Amendment).

On a political level, after the ratification of the 17th Amendment (1912) US Senators were directly elected instead of being selected by the state legislatures. And what may be the single biggest political change in US history in the last 200 years was the 19th Amendment (1920), which gave women the right to vote.

And the granddaddy of all changes was the passage of the Bill of Rights by the nascent Union.

And yet for all of that, I still consider our system to be far more similar to what was established in 1787 than the modern British system is compared to 1787. The official foundation of the United States is July 4, 1776, but I generally think of the US as starting with the Constitutional Convention in 1787, though it can also be argued that it started in 1789, when Washington was sworn in as President. But though our governmental system has changed in many ways since 1787 (which is good, because successful systems must evolve to deal with changing situations), at its deepest fundamentals it's still really the same. There's still a Supreme Court; there are still two chambers of Congress; there's still a President. The three branches of government are still coequal. But the British system of 1787 isn't the same as the modern one.

Ultimately, I still find the most critical single change in the history of the modern British government to be the end of active rule by the monarch. In 1787, the King could still directly control the government (albeit substantially hampered by Parliament when trying to do so). In 2003 the Queen doesn't.

In the modern system, the monarch is a passive figurehead. Even the yearly speeches she delivers to Commons are written for her by the cabinet; her Prime Minister tells her what to say. But though the 1911 act eliminated the formal power of the peerage, I don't believe that it formally affected the monarch.

In fact, I've read elsewhere that no one is actually sure whether the monarch still has the power to rule by decree. The Queen must sign bills passed by Parliament in order to make them law. But what if she didn't? What if she refused to sign a particular bill? When I said "must sign", does that mean she's compelled to do so, or that she has a veto which hasn't been exercised by the monarchy in the last 150 years?

Or what would happen if she directly and formally issued an order to the government? Would they be legally bound to obey her? What would happen if she formally announced her own lack of confidence in the serving Prime Minister? Woul