Communications lag in a republic--how long?

This is both past and future relevant.
When the Constitution of the United States was established, even post riders took several weeks to travel from Washington to Northern Massachusetts (now known as Maine) and Georgia. As the nation expanded, it took even longer; roads to the west were even worse. How long a communication delay could a republic under the US Constitution or a similar made of government thrive under long term? (California was soon bound tighter to the USA with the Pony Express, then the telegraph.) How far flung a USA could be managed without the telegraph? I’m referencing full states, not territories that don’t participate in national elections, etc.

And in the far future, some science fiction has extra-solar states of the USA, sometimes with weeks of communication lag between the extra-solar state and Washington. Could the modern USA function if several states were weeks away in communication? Or would the arrangement become too cumbersome, and need to be revised?
 
I think there are two situations that need to be considered...

  • If a state government requests assistance from the federal entity (due to, e.g., sudden foreign invasion or unforeseen natural disaster), how quickly does that assistance need to arrive before the state government loses control of the situation and the state falls into lawless chaos?
  • If the federal government sees fit to impose order on a state (due to, e.g., state-government-led rebellion or civilian-led insurrection), how quickly do the federal forces need to arrive in order to prevent the rebels from arming troops and erecting defenses?
It seems like a combination of communication speed and transportation speed, to me. First, the communication needs to be sent from the state to the federal government; then, the humanitarian/military personnel need to be transported from the federal government's hospitals/barracks to the state.

I don't know enough to be able to say anything about what particular speeds are necessary for a cohesive federal structure, though.
 
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Emergency responce, and general government

Emergency response and war are one important consideration, of course, as is imposing order. For emergency responses, clearly the distant state/planet would need to be more self sufficient than say, Massachusetts, and have a decent military base.

But--how would having such things as an election waiting 2 weeks longer on returns influence the whole political process?
 

jahenders

Banned
The criticality of communication varies not only with the size of the country involved, but also with the governmental processes used. When the constitution was established, quite a few decisions stemmed from the fact that communication between different parts of the nation could take weeks. Therefore, that (along with the need to get it accepted) was a strong driver for giving states broad powers to operate on their own, which was then further extended (within states) to counties and cities.

Limited communications from founding until the mid 1800s meant that states (especially Western ones) HAD to operate largely independently much of the time and that government officers there often used MUCH greater latitude than those close to DC. This was true of military organizations, embassies, etc. It was especially true in embassies and ships at sea where ambassadors and captains were essentially kings unto themselves much of the time.

Now that we have instantaneous communication, the federal government can (generally) interact with any government entity anywhere on the globe and can, thus, tightly control them. We see examples of this in Johnson/McNamara's approval of bombing targets in Vietnam (8K miles away) and the SECDEF and JCS monitoring events in AFG (7K miles) in near real time. There is a strong tendency for a leader or 'expert' in the states to try to use a 'thousand mile screwdriver' and 'fix' things from HQ.

There is also a strong tendency for central governments to consolidate more and more power, closer and closer to the center, and (in many cases) restrict the power of places and organizations that once enjoyed great freedom of action. In consolidating, one typically sees the expansive growth of bureaucracies at the center -- certainly something VERY PREVALENT in DC.
 
adding time lag after the fact, and forms of government

The criticality of communication varies not only with the size of the country involved, but also with the governmental processes used. When the constitution was established, quite a few decisions stemmed from the fact that communication between different parts of the nation could take weeks. Therefore, that (along with the need to get it accepted) was a strong driver for giving states broad powers to operate on their own, which was then further extended (within states) to counties and cities.

Limited communications from founding until the mid 1800s meant that states (especially Western ones) HAD to operate largely independently much of the time and that government officers there often used MUCH greater latitude than those close to DC. This was true of military organizations, embassies, etc. It was especially true in embassies and ships at sea where ambassadors and captains were essentially kings unto themselves much of the time.

Now that we have instantaneous communication, the federal government can (generally) interact with any government entity anywhere on the globe and can, thus, tightly control them. We see examples of this in Johnson/McNamara's approval of bombing targets in Vietnam (8K miles away) and the SECDEF and JCS monitoring events in AFG (7K miles) in near real time. There is a strong tendency for a leader or 'expert' in the states to try to use a 'thousand mile screwdriver' and 'fix' things from HQ.

There is also a strong tendency for central governments to consolidate more and more power, closer and closer to the center, and (in many cases) restrict the power of places and organizations that once enjoyed great freedom of action. In consolidating, one typically sees the expansive growth of bureaucracies at the center -- certainly something VERY PREVALENT in DC.

This makes sense. I wonder how a modern nation like the USA would deal with having a section (like an extra-solar planet that becomes a state) that isn't part of the instant communications, due to it taking a courier ship a week in hyperspace to reach the extra state.

And--could the USA manage to have a state such as Hawai'i in the days before telegraph and radio? In steamship days, with it being a week or so? Or--even harder--in sailing ship days?

What changes in the government process might be needed?
 
If the US uses a huge number of semaphore lines for communications, then we could see a state as far as eastern Texas being a fully participating state, but even then elections would be substantially delayed. We would see the electors vote for candidates several weeks after the people have elected them, which admittedly is not very different from OTL, but perhaps elections would need to be held in summer, not in fall/winter.

Of course, such semaphore lines are extremely implausible.
 
When USA was founded, Congress was elected at the beginning of November as now - but routinely did not meet until next December, 13 months after election! Presidents took office on 4th of March, 4 months after election - except when there was a contingent election.
So, if distant States were added, should lame duck sessions be restored?
 
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