How the British Commonwealth Finally Accepted that the American Founders Were Right...

1931 and the Reformation of the British Empire

Photo by Simona Marinkova on Unsplash

In 1754, delegates from the northern colonies of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and the host colony of New York met in Albany to consider how to unite Britain’s North American colonies, support the common defense against rivals such as France and Spain, and secure the frontier. Initially, their idea was not to create a single government, but to prepare for war and, if possible, to create a common framework for better relations with Indigenous peoples. But in this meeting, as in many early American endeavors, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania was ahead of the curve. He proposed a Plan of Union that became the major point of debate.

Franklin proposed a confederation of the colonies:

It is proposed that humble application be made for an act of Parliament of Great Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America, including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony may retain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may be directed by the said act, as hereafter follows.

That the said general government be administered by a President-General, to be appointed and supported by the crown; and a Grand Council, to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several Colonies met in their respective assemblies…

The full Albany Plan of Union proposed creating one general government for all the British colonies in North America. Each colony would keep its own government for local matters, but a new central government would handle issues they shared. This union would have a President-General chosen and paid by the British Crown and a Grand Council chosen by the colonial assemblies, as the later United States Senate would be before the Seventeenth Amendment. Philadelphia was to be the union capital.

At first, the Grand Council would have 48 members divided among the colonies by population; in this case, Virginia would have had seven. Council members would be elected every three years. After the first three years, the number of seats for each colony could change based on how much money each colony contributed to the common treasury, with a limit of at least two and at most seven seats per colony. The Council would meet at least once a year, pick its own speaker, and would not be kept in session longer than six weeks without consent. Members would be paid for their time and travel. The President-General had to approve all laws the Council passed and was responsible for carrying them out in the name of the Crown.

The union handled shared defense and relations with Native nations. The President-General and Grand Council could make treaties, declare peace or war with Native nations and regulate trade with them, buy land for the Crown, and create new settlements with temporary governments. They could raise troops, build forts, and equip ships to protect coasts and trade, but could only draft men in colonies where the legislature approved a draft of its manpower. To fund this, they could pass laws, collect taxes and duties, appoint general and local treasurers, spend money only by joint order of the President-General and Grand Council, and report the accounts yearly to the colonies. Interestingly, Union laws had to match English law as closely as possible and be sent to the Crown for final approval but if the monarch did not reject them within three years they became permanent. It also foresaw the need for a double majority for quorum to maintain the support of the colonial governments, with majority of delegates representing a majority of the colonies being present to conduct business. And finally it inverted the responsibility over military and civilian appointments:

That all military commission officers, whether for land or sea service, to act under this general constitution, shall be nominated by the President-General; but the approbation of the Grand Council is to be obtained, before they receive their commissions. And all civil officers are to be nominated by the Grand Council, and to receive the President-General’s approbation before they officiate. —Albany Plan of Union Article 23

The Albany Convention approved Franklin’s plan, only for Britain and the colonies to reject it; yet his plan influenced the development of the Continental Congress, the Articles of Confederation, and the ideas he would advocate during the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

A Third British Empire?

Between the World Wars, the British Empire again faced questions of imperial defense, autonomy, and how to keep the colonies—now Dominions—in accord with Britain and the Parliament at Westminster. The Great War significantly influenced the push for dominion autonomy by strengthening national feelings and highlighting the dominions’ contributions. Many felt that their sacrifices on the battlefield entitled them to a greater say over imperial policy. After the war, the dominions demanded and won the right to sign treaties separately and to become members of the League of Nations, signaling their emergence as full-fledged members of the international community. However, losses of Australian and New Zealand troops meant those governments wanted to maintain command and control over their men, even when fighting for the empire. In Canada there was, if anything, more intense pressure for clear equality with London.

The Canadian government was concerned about maintaining binational unity between English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians, which would be threatened if it appeared that Canadians would again be drafted to fight in Britain’s wars. The issue of the draft burden and fighting for Britain had caused the 1917 Conscription Crisis, which frightened the government. Another Conscription Crisis would occur in 1944. Canadian elites wanted to remain in the Empire but not on terms that threatened to split Canada. Earlier, the 1926 Balfour Report, named for Lord Arthur Balfour’s Committee on Inter-Imperial Relations at the Imperial Conference in London, redefined ties between Great Britain and the Dominions: Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free State.

The report declared Britain and the Dominions constitutionally equal and “autonomous communities” that controlled their own domestic and foreign affairs while remaining united by allegiance to the Crown. Accordingly Canada took the lead in appointing its own foreign service, in 1926 appointing its first ambassador to the Untied States —separate from the British Ambassador— Charles Vincent Massey who would later become Governor-General of Canada. These developments were outgrowths of the same pressures that, in 1917, led the British government, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, to establish the Imperial War Cabinet to direct the war effort and plan for peace, with the dominions’ prime ministers as members.

This came to a head with a formal law: the Statute of Westminster 1931, passed by the British Parliament, which put into full effect the recommendations of Balfour’s committee.

And whereas it is meet and proper to set out by way of preamble to this Act that, inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom — Statue of Westminster 1931

With the new declaration, the role of the monarchy was secured: the Crown connected the autonomous Dominions rather than being bound by decisions of the British Parliament—except in limited judicial matters—and no changes to the style or nature of the monarchy could occur without the unanimous consent of the realms. Additionally, and critically, the British prime minister no longer had any role in directing the monarch on how to interact with governors general and prime ministers in the Dominions. This made them united in a personal union by consent. The British monarch was simultaneously monarch of Australia, but that relationship and its responsibilities were separate from British policy. During the Second World War, King George VI was at war with Germany as king of Great Britain and at peace with Germany as king of Ireland. In this form, the British Empire continues as the Commonwealth of Nations, a critically important international association of 56 member states—one that the United States is eligible to join, and probably should.

In the end the British Empire evolved, two centuries too late, in something like what Franklin had envisioned, with Governor-Generals instead of a President-General. Similar enough for us to wonder about how things could have been different in 1754, or 1776.

Looking back on the events of the previous five decades, in the winter of 1789, Benjamin Franklin noted to himself that if his plan had been adopted the American Revolution would not have been needed.

For the Colonies, if so united, would have really been, as they then thought themselves, sufficient to their own Defense, and being trusted with it, as by the Plan, an Army from Britain, for that purpose would have been unnecessary. The Pretenses for framing the Stamp-Act would then not have existed, nor the other Projects for drawing a Revenue from America to Britain by Acts of Parliament, which was the Cause of the Breach, and attended with such terrible Expense of Blood and Treasure: so that the different Parts of the Empire might still have remained in Peace and, Union. —Benjamin Franklin Feb 1789

The British learned this lesson in the 19th and 20th centuries with Canada and the other Dominions. How might history have been different if Parliament had embraced the wisdom of trusting the American colonies with a common authority under the crown? Perhaps Americans would still sing God Save the King and Charles III and the House of Windsor would be welcomed to these shores as princes rather than as foreign curiosities. What might have been if they had heeded Dr. Franklin.