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James Bryce and the Australian Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Stephen Gageler
Stephen Gageler*
Affiliation:
Justice of the High Court of Australia
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Abstract

James Bryce was a contemporary of Albert Venn Dicey. Bryce published in 1888 The American Commonwealth. Its detailed description of the practical operation of the United States Constitution was influential in the framing of the Australian Constitution in the 1890s. The project of this article is to shed light on that influence. The article compares and contrasts the views of Bryce and of Dicey; Bryce's views, unlike those of Dicey, having been largely unexplored in contemporary analyses of our constitutional development. It examines the importance of Bryce's views on two particular constitutional mechanisms – responsible government and judicial review – to the development of our constitutional structure. The ongoing theoretical implications of The American Commonwealth for Australian constitutional law remain to be pondered.

Type
Article
Information
Federal Law Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 177 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 The Australian National University

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Footnotes

This is an expanded version of the ‘Sir Anthony Mason Lecture in Constitutional Law’, sponsored by the Law School of the University of Sydney, delivered in the Banco Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney on 12 February 2015. My thanks to Roshan Chaile and Heather Anderson for their research assistance.

References

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115 60 US 393 (1857).

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117 Ibid 358.

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