Believing that the Lower House should rest 'upon universal suffrage', he advocated that the second chamber should also be representative and argued that the power of such a senate to amend money bills would cause less friction than an outright veto.
He begged the convention and colonial parliaments to 'secure the abolition of the jurisdiction of the Privy Council'. When Clark succumbed to influenza, Barton became a member of the drafting committee, and 'strenuously and industriously' devoted himself to its work, winning the praise of its chairman Sir Samuel Griffith.
He soon had to uphold the draft constitution bill against Sir George Reid , who maintained that certain clauses were unfair to New South Wales.
He astounded political circles when he announced that 'So long as Protection meant a Ministry of enemies to Federation, they would get no vote from him'. He bitterly attacked Reid and asserted that on Federation 'Mr. Dibbs is a daily conundrum. What can we do but give him up? In the new parliament Barton voted in all major divisions with Parkes, who remained in office with Labor Party support.
In August, again refusing office, he explained that he did not see its acceptance 'as a public duty' at that time. The government fell in October, and Parkes persuaded him to take over leadership of the Federal movement in New South Wales. On 23 October Barton became attorney-general, with the right of private practice, in Dibbs's new Protectionist ministry, which was lukewarm towards Federation.
Assailed on all sides, he defended himself: 'if the question of Federation is to be satisfactorily handled … its conduct should be in the hands of a Minister, and that Minister, an ardent Federationist'. He had extracted a promise from Dibbs of ministerial support for the Federal resolutions, to be introduced early in the next session. However, his acceptance of a protective tariff to remedy the large treasury deficit roused a storm of criticism and charges that he was putting 'provincial protection first, and Federation in the dim future'.
Many free traders in his electorate felt betrayed. Barton worked hard and late to introduce order and punctuality into his department. Also acting premier while Dibbs was in England from April to September , he had to contend with the Broken Hill miners' strike. He refused to send military forces to keep order as he wanted to 'avoid undue causes of irritation', but did dispatch fifty policemen.
When the leaders were charged with conspiracy in September, he instructed the crown prosecutor to conduct all cases 'with absolute fairness', but accepted advice to transfer the trial to Deniliquin, as no Broken Hill jury was likely to convict, thus provoking the antagonism of Labor members and the Australian Worker.
Preoccupied with the strike, hindered by indifferent colleagues, and encumbered with a complex electoral bill, Barton was unable to introduce the Federal resolutions until 22 November: he finally carried them on 11 January Frustrated in his attempts to get the draft constitution bill considered in committee, he was caught up in the depression and bank crisis in May and had to pilot the bank issue and current account depositors bills through the assembly. In December Barton had visited Corowa and Albury and, with local co-operation, had set up branches of the Australasian Federation League.
In July the Central Federation League was formed in Sydney; blaming Barton for failing to get the draft bill considered in parliament, Parkes disapproved of him seeking support from the people. Exhausted, he visited Canada from July to September. In October the resolutions were finally considered in committee, but the adjournment was carried. They had not been restored to the order-paper by December when Barton and O'Connor, minister of justice, were challenged in the House for holding briefs against the Crown in Proudfoot v.
He immediately returned his brief and Governor Sir Robert Duff reported that 'the matter would have ended there', but Barton defended the right of cabinet ministers 'in their professional practice, to appear against a government department' in the courts. The adjournment was carried against them and Barton immediately resigned.
An able attorney-general, he had gained valuable administrative and ministerial experience, but his reputation as a Federation leader had suffered and both free traders and Labor members now distrusted him. In the general election of July he was defeated for Randwick. When Reid precipitated another election a year later Barton told Parkes that 'a return to active politics would be just now disastrous to the interests of my family'; throughout the s his finances were precarious.
However, reconciled with Parkes, he campaigned for him. Barton devoted the next three years to tireless work for Federation. He left the organization of the leagues, springing up all over the colony, to non-political enthusiasts—but was always willing to give advice—while he 'stumped the country', addressing some meetings. He was helped by a band of 'young disciples' such as Atlee Hunt , Sir Robert Garran and Sir Thomas Bavin ; Garran recorded that at Ashfield Barton triumphantly asserted that 'For the first time in history, we have a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation'.
He kept in close touch with prominent federationists in other colonies and by March he had become 'the acknowledged leader of the federal movement in all Australia': his prestige had been vastly increased by 'his years of patient advocacy'. He was elected to the Australasian Federal Convention, first of forty-nine candidates. On 22 March the convention met in Adelaide.
Barton was elected leader and, later, chairman of the drafting and constitutional committees. Night after night Barton drove the drafting committee to exhaustion but it produced a constitution by mid-April. He was alert, patient, willing to explain, to intervene and to make notes of amendments for drafting.
He was rarely provoked, except by Sir Isaac Isaacs , whom he rebuked as 'a pedant'; he unwisely neglected some of his suggestions. Before Reid left to attend Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, he recommended Barton's appointment to the Legislative Council to take charge of the draft bill. Barton demurred as 'he had been sitting for months as arbitrator' in McSharry v. However, Reid considered his continuance as sole arbitrator 'perfectly consistent', and he was appointed to the council on 8 May.
This freed John Henry Want , Reid's attorney-general, to attack the draft bill in a council already intransigently opposed to Federation. So many damaging amendments were carried that on 26 August Barton refused to have anything more to do with the mutilated bill and claimed 'you might as well say you would improve a horse by cutting his legs off! When the adjourned convention met in Sydney in September to consider the amendments proposed by the colonial legislatures, Barton kept the delegates to their task.
The convention reconvened in Melbourne on 20 January The summer was hot and by March the members were irritable and weary of inconclusive debates on finance, rivers and railway freights. Barton kept on until the drafting committee was satisfied, but blunders crept in: he defended the wording that trade and commerce should be 'absolutely free'.
John La Nauze has paid tribute to Barton's achievement. Yet he led them all, with an authority never questioned, and sustained by the visible and irrefutable example of plain hard work and conscientious devotion to a task'. The convention finally rose on 17 March and Barton returned home to campaign for the referendum to approve the draft constitution bill.
Strong opposition from leading businessmen and the Daily Telegraph was reinforced when Reid adopted an equivocal attitude. In June the referendum failed by votes to reach the required minimum of 80 Barton, who had been warned by Governor Hampden , realized that concessions would have to be made if New South Wales were to accept the constitution.
On 22 July Barton resigned from the council to stand against Reid in the general election. He advocated three modifications to the bill: the Federal capital to be in New South Wales, cancellation of the Sir Edward Braddon clause on finance, and removal of the three-fifths majority at a joint sitting to resolve a deadlock. No match for Reid's wit, he was narrowly defeated in 'a historic political duel'. In September he won a by-election for the Hastings and Macleay assembly seat after a bitter campaign against Sydney Smith , who was assisted by James Henry Young.
Back in the assembly Barton was immediately elected leader of the Opposition and soon had to face fierce criticism for his association with the McSharry case, which had lasted for more than two years. At the head of a motley group of Federalists who were also protectionist and of protectionists who were anti-Federation and anti-Reid, Barton, somewhat inconsistently with his reputation as 'Australia's noblest son', now pursued tactics of harassment against Reid and turned a blind eye to the obstructive antics of his dubious supporter William Crick , thereby endangering the new Federal resolutions.
He became a barrister in and set up a successful legal practice, joining the Sydney Mechanics Institute to learn the art of debating. He married Jane Jeanie Mason Ross in , and together they had six children. National Museum of Australia. Barton entered New South Wales colonial politics in , standing unsuccessfully as a candidate for the University seat in the Legislative Assembly, but winning the seat in He switched to the Wellington seat in , then in to East Sydney, which he held until Barton was an appointed member of the Legislative Council from to , then regained East Sydney in , held it until , and lost it again.
He became a member of the Legislative Council again from to , and was then re-elected to the Legislative Assembly for Hastings-Macleay, which he represented from to He held various positions while a member of colonial parliament, including Speaker of the Legislative Assembly —87, Attorney-General and —93, and Leader of the Opposition — Barton attended the Australasian Federal Convention in Sydney in March as a delegate for New South Wales, and was a member of the constitution committee.
Parkes had called for a strong central federal parliament. At the first Federal Convention in March , 46 delegates from all six Australian colonies and New Zealand met in Sydney and produced a draft constitution bill. When Parkes lost government in October he asked Barton, by now a convinced federalist, to take over the leadership of the federal movement.
Barton worked tirelessly to promote federation through the formation of local branches of the Australasian Federal Leagues. From to he addressed meetings in New South Wales.
In January the premiers met in Hobart. They agreed that enabling acts should be passed in colonial parliaments to allow for popular election of delegates, and for a referendum to approve a draft constitution.
Barton topped the New South Wales poll to elect delegates to the second Federal Convention, gaining 75 per cent of the total votes. Barton and his supporters conducted a vigorous pro-federation campaign preceding the June referendum on federation. From April to July a second referendum on federation was conducted in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, each of which accepted an amended constitution by a larger majority than in June On 2 September that year, Queensland, voting for the first time, approved the bill.
Barton led the Australian delegation to London in early to negotiate amendments to the Constitution Bill the UK Government desired, and to oversee the safe passage of the Bill through the UK parliament. Learn more. Find out what events are coming up at Parliament House.
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