WI: Written constitutions considered the exception, rather than the rule?

[Analytical Engine]

Whilst there's a bunch of threads on the site about constitutions, I've yet to find one on this subject:

"WI: most countries didn't have a written constitution?"

That doesn't mean that countries can't have constitutions, of course, they just have to be uncommon.

(1) What sort of POD would be required to do this? The later the better, ideally. Does the French Revolution have to be averted? Does the US have to fail? Do the Revolutions of 1830/1848 have to be squashed?

(2) What suitable alternatives are there? Can just codifying the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen into law work, along with expanding the franchise? Or just going for the very British "it just works" option?

I am aware that various countries had constitutions and sort-of-constitutions prior to the US and (first) French constitutions - e.g. the Netherlands, Sweden, England/Britain during the Protectorate Era.

 

[DracoLazarus]

I think the States General of France would have had a good shot at becoming an unofficial parliament of France if they were called more regularly by the Crown.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

I could be wrong, but the Holy Roman Empire had dozens and dozens of laws, precedents, edicts etc, but AFAIK no formal written constitution for its 1000 year history. Not unlike the UK actually.

As my title character points out: a constitution is a "useless scrap of paper if it relies on a man to enforce it who has his interests in thwarting it"

 

[Legofan4]

I could be wrong, but the Holy Roman Empire had dozens and dozens of laws, precedents, edicts etc, but AFAIK no formal written constitution for its 1000 year history. Not unlike the UK actually.

As my title character points out: a constitution is a "useless scrap of paper if it relies on a man to enforce it who has his interests in thwarting it"

The same can be said of all laws. If no one enforces it then what does it matter.

 

[kholieken]

Maybe some popular scholarly treaty in 18/19th century that expand definitions of constitution and no US fetish on founder worship ??

Written constitutions is actually minor part of how any government is run. Cabinet is not written on us constitution. Definitions of "commerce clause" is expanded through dozens of court decisions. Filibuster and Debt Limit is not written in constitutions.

So with 19th century realizations that single document cannot define how government is run. New modern nations just use numerous documents / law to decide how to run things. With no single all-importan written constitution.

 

[odieluck]

I think no French Revolution would be the best POD. The ‘it just works’ model as you describes comes from a monarchy evolving into a democracy slowly over time. Written constitutions generally only are written after a change of power or a revolution, so the more countries without revolutions the more likely they are to organically develop a constitution. Maybe an earlier POD could be more successful noble rebellions since that’s what led to the Magna Carta and the whole British system

 

[snerfuplz]

The idea of a written democracy was important in the development of democracy. A written constitution was almost always a demand of liberal revolutionaries as it is an important check on the power of the monarch. Symbolically, it is a demonstration that power comes from the people, not from God, and rights are not given by the King but are natural rights.

This is why the French kings often wanted a charter, not a constitution.

 

[Workable Goblin]

I think no French Revolution would be the best POD. The ‘it just works’ model as you describes comes from a monarchy evolving into a democracy slowly over time.

Rather, from a smooth evolution of the political system over time, so that no one feels the need to codify the changes in a single place because each individual change is usually pretty small. It’s no accident that the United States has, in practice, a largely uncodified constitution (as noted above). It would be interesting to compare other old constitutions such as Norway’s to observe how much uncodified constitutional law they have.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Written constitutions is actually minor part of how any government is run.

I dispute this, however. All of your examples come from the U.S., but the United States is unusual because of the age, brevity, and relative lack of significant amendments to its constitution. In countries that have newer constitutions they play a more significant role in how the government actually runs and in what it can do.

 

[Remus Augustus]

Whilst there's a bunch of threads on the site about constitutions, I've yet to find one on this subject:

"WI: most countries didn't have a written constitution?"

That doesn't mean that countries can't have constitutions, of course, they just have to be uncommon.

(1) What sort of POD would be required to do this? The later the better, ideally. Does the French Revolution have to be averted? Does the US have to fail? Do the Revolutions of 1830/1848 have to be squashed?

(2) What suitable alternatives are there? Can just codifying the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen into law work, along with expanding the franchise? Or just going for the very British "it just works" option?

I am aware that various countries had constitutions and sort-of-constitutions prior to the US and (first) French constitutions - e.g. the Netherlands, Sweden, England/Britain during the Protectorate Era.

Are we considering things like the States General of France and the German Common Law, constitutions by another name or an alternate to constitution but something that fulfills the same role?

 

[Maburo]

I think the most obvious POD is the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic invasion of Spain led to the 1812 Constitución de Cadiz, the third constitution in the world. While this one wouldn't last, it would entrench the idea of constitutions in Spain, and all of Latin America. If you want to cut this at the bud though, go back slightly further and stop the French from having a written constitution. The US is a peripheral colony, it doesn't *need* to influence all of Europe at the time. Stop the French from spreading the idea of a constitution, and most of europe doesn't have written constitutions.

 

[DracoLazarus]

I think the most obvious POD is the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic invasion of Spain led to the 1812 Constitución de Cadiz, the third constitution in the world. While this one wouldn't last, it would entrench the idea of constitutions in Spain, and all of Latin America. If you want to cut this at the bud though, go back slightly further and stop the French from having a written constitution. The US is a peripheral colony, it doesn't *need* to influence all of Europe at the time. Stop the French from spreading the idea of a constitution, and most of europe doesn't have written constitutions.

The Convention never manages to agree on something and keeps acting as a de facto National Assembly with legislative powers ?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Are we considering things like the States General of France and the German Common Law, constitutions by another name or an alternate to constitution but something that fulfills the same role?

I'm using the term "constitution" here to mean "one primary document" rather than "entire corpus of constitutional law and tradition". Because Britain has entire rooms filled with constitutional documents - they just aren't all compiled into one document.

 

[Maburo]

The Convention never manages to agree on something and keeps acting as a de facto National Assembly with legislative powers ?

For example

 

[Workable Goblin]

I think the most obvious POD is the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic invasion of Spain led to the 1812 Constitución de Cadiz, the third constitution in the world. While this one wouldn't last, it would entrench the idea of constitutions in Spain, and all of Latin America. If you want to cut this at the bud though, go back slightly further and stop the French from having a written constitution. The US is a peripheral colony, it doesn't *need* to influence all of Europe at the time. Stop the French from spreading the idea of a constitution, and most of europe doesn't have written constitutions.

I'm not sure that Latin Americans won't have constitutions anyway, at least when they become independent, since a codified constitution is very logical to have if you are a postcolonial country (especially if you obtained independence through revolutionary violence or at least a significant break with your colonial heritage). Since you are undergoing a substantial constitutional change anyway, it makes sense to take the time to write everything down and perhaps revise other areas that are a bit out of date.

 

[Fulano]

The Napoleonic invasion of Spain led to the 1812 Constitución de Cadiz, the third constitution in the world. While this one wouldn't last, it would entrench the idea of constitutions in Spain, and all of Latin America.

I'm not sure that Latin Americans won't have constitutions anyway, at least when they become independent, since a codified constitution is very logical to have if you are a postcolonial country (especially if you obtained independence through revolutionary violence or at least a significant break with your colonial heritage).

Honestly, I don't know if the French Revolution was necessary to inspire the young American Countries into having their own constitutions.
And yes, the French Revolution was necessary for the American Colonies to gain independence thanks to the power vacuum Spain had at that time in the Napoleonic Wars, but I think a lot (if not the majority) of the South American "Liberators" found inspiration in American Republicanism instead of the French one.
They usually saw the United States as the "Golden Standard" to follow, and for this it was mandatory to have a written constitution and a multicameral (usually bicameral) system with an elected Head of State, thing that they did.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

(2) What suitable alternatives are there? Can just codifying the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen into law work, along with expanding the franchise? Or just going for the very British "it just works" option?

"It just works" is always a good option.

Honestly I think the benefits of having a written constitution are over-rated. Most post-colonial African and Latin American states had written constitutions, and turned into political basket-cases anyway. Political culture is the more important deterimant of how a country ends up -- if you don't have a widely-shared set of legal and constitutional norms which everybody obeys even when it's not in their short-term interests to do so, a scrap of paper isn't going to keep people in line.