Political Parties before the Constitution

By Jackson Turner Main

This is the first book dealing with any period in American history which attempts to describe and analyze national politics through studying voting patterns in state legislatures. During the 1780s two relatively stable legislative parties" emerged in every state, and each state possessed common characteristics. Main labels these parties "localists" and "cosmopolitans" and show how such issues as funding of debts, paper money, and land prices provided a battlefield for those early part division.

Originally published in 1972.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Omohundro Institute and UNC Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780807839850

Jackson Turner Main

The late Jackson Turner Main (1917-2003) taught history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Book preview

Political Parties before the Constitution

The Institute of

Early American History and Culture is sponsored jointly by

The College of William and Mary in Virginia and

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Political Parties before the Constitution

by Jackson Turner Main

Published for the

Institute of Early American History and Culture

at Williamsburg, Virginia

by The University of North Carolina Press

Chapel Hill

Copyright © 1973 by

The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Printed by Kingsport Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tennessee

Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN 0–8078–1194–7

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71–184228

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main, Jackson Turner.

Political parties before the Constitution.

Bibliography: p.

1. Legislative bodies—United States—States—History. 2. Political parties—United States—History. I. Title.

JK2484.M33    320.9’73’03    71–184228

ISBN 0–8078–1194–7

THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY PRINTED.

FOR JACKSON AND EIFIONA AND JUDSON

The days this book demanded

You freely lent to me,

I give them back to you, with love

And thanks, paternally.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART I. BACKGROUND

Chapter I. Political Parties before the Revolution

Chapter II. The Subject and the Method

Methodological Note

Chapter III. The Issues

PART II. POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE STATES

Chapter IV. Massachusetts

Chapter V. New York

Note to Chapter V

Chapter VI. New Jersey

Chapter VII. Pennsylvania

Chapter VIII. Maryland

Chapter IX. Virginia

Note to Chapter IX: Petition from Washington County, November 3, 1787

Chapter X. South Carolina

Chapter XI. The Other States

New Hampshire

Rhode Island

Connecticut

Delaware

Georgia

North Carolina

Summary

PART III. CONCLUSION

Chapter XII. Conclusion: The Issues

Chapter XIII. Conclusion: The Parties

Appendix: The Party Leaders

Bibliographical Essay

Index

Tables and Maps

Tables

CHAPTER II

2.1. Votes in the New York Assembly, October–November 1784 [20–22]

2.2. Composition of the State Legislatures [25–27]

2.3. Most Consistent Legislators in New York, 1784–1788 [37]

2.4. Characteristics of Legislative Parties in New York, 1784–1788 [38–39]

2.5. Computer Codes for Sample Alignment in New York, 1784 [42]

CHAPTER IV

4.1. Interrelationship of Votes on Return of Loyalists and Other Issues [92]

4.2. Composition of the Massachusetts Assembly, 1784–1788 [93–94]

4.3. Percentages of Delegates Opposing the Supplementary Fund [98]

4.4. Bloc Voting in Massachusetts, 1784–1788 [107]

4.5. Factors Affecting Voting on Selected Issues (in Percentages) [108–109]

4.6. Composition of Massachusetts Parties by Occupation (in Percentages) [112]

CHAPTER V

5.1. Composition of the New York Assembly, 1780–1787 [124]

5.2. Correlation of Slaveholding and Votes on Negro Rights [142]

5.3. Illustrative Votes, New York (in Percentages) [144–145]

5.4. Party Preference in New York: Economic Status in Relation to Residence (in Percentages) [148]

CHAPTER VI

6.1. Composition of the New Jersey Legislature [159]

6.2. Illustrative Votes, New Jersey, 1779–1783 (in Percentages) [160–161]

6.3. Illustrative Votes, New Jersey, 1785–1787 (in Percentages) [166]

6.4. Party Preference in New Jersey by Economic Status (in Percentages) [171]

CHAPTER VII

7.1. Composition of the Pennsylvania Assembly, 1780–1788 [175–176]

7.2. Two Illustrative Votes, Pennsylvania [196]

7.3. Party Preference in Pennsylvania by Residence (in Percentages) [207]

7.4. Party Preference in Pennsylvania by Occupation (in Percentages) [209]

7.5. Party Preference in Pennsylvania: Economic Status in Relation to Residence (in Percentages) [209]

7.6. Pennsylvania Constitutionalists: Presbyterianism in Relation to Residence (in Percentages) [210]

7.7. Pennsylvania Constitutionalists: World View in Relation to Residence (in Percentages) [211]

CHAPTER VIII

8.1. Composition of the Maryland Assembly, 1780–1788 [214–215]

8.2. Illustrative Tax Votes, Maryland (in Percentages) [221]

8.3. Prodebtor Support in February 20, 1786, Vote (in Percentages) [226]

8.4. Alignments on Maryland Votes, 1784/1785 Session [233–234]

8.5. Bloc Voting in Maryland [235]

8.6. Party Preference in Maryland Sections (in Percentages) [236]

8.7. Occupation and Party Preference in Maryland (in Percentages) [238]

8.8. Illustrative Votes, Maryland (in Percentages of Pro-Cosmopolitan Votes) [241–242]

CHAPTER IX

9.1. Composition of Virginia’s House of Delegates, 1784–1788 [246–247]

9.2. Illustrative Votes, Virginia (in Percentages of Pro-Cosmopolitan Votes) [262–263]

CHAPTER X

10.1. Composition of the South Carolina Legislature, 1787–1788 [272–273]

10.2. Bloc Voting on Representative Issues, South Carolina (in Percentages of Pro-Cosmopolitan Votes) [288]

10.3. Party Preference in Economic Groups, South Carolina (in Percentages) [290]

10.4. Party Preference in South Carolina: World View in Relation to Residence (in Percentages) [292]

CHAPTER XI

11.1. Composition of North Carolina Parties by Occupation (in Percentages) [316]

11.2. Composition of North Carolina Parties by Economic Status (in Percentages) [316]

11.3. Composition of North Carolina Parties by World View (in Percentages) [317]

CHAPTER XII

12.1. Votes on Government Expenditures (in Percentages) [323–325]

12.2. Multivariate Analysis: Votes on Salaries (1) and Government Expenditures (2), (in Percentages) [328]

12.3. Occupation with Economic Status: Votes on Higher Salaries (in Percentages) [329]

12.4. Multivariate Analysis: Votes on Lower Taxes and Postponement (in Percentages) [334]

12.5. Occupation with Economic Status: Votes on Lower Taxes (in Percentages) [334]

12.6. Economic Issues I (in Percentages) [336–338]

12.7. Multivariate Analysis: Votes on Legal Tender (in Percentages) [343]

12.8. Economic Issues II (in Percentages) [345–347]

12.9. Residence with Economic Status: Pro-Localist Votes (in Percentages) [347]

12.10. Social and Political Issues (in Percentages) [348–350]

12.11. Multivariate Analysis: Votes for Confiscating Estates (1) and against Readmitting Loyalists (2), (in Percentages) [352–353]

CHAPTER XIII

13.1. Residential Scale I (in Percentages) [368]

13.2. Residential Scale II (in Percentages) [369]

13.3. Occupational Scale (in Percentages) [372]

13.4. Economic Status and Party Preference (in Percentages) [373]

13.5. Residence and Party Preference (in Percentages) [375]

13.6. Occupation and Party Preference (in Percentages) [376]

13.7. Religion with Residence: Party Preference (in Percentages) [379]

13.8. National Origin and Party Preference (in Percentages) [379]

13.9. Family Background and Party Preference (in Percentages) [380]

13.10. Social Origin and Party Preference (in Percentages) [381]

13.11. Education and Party Preference (in Percentages) [383]

13.12. World View and Party Preference I (in Percentages) [384]

13.13. World View and Party Preference II [386]

13.14. Bloc Votes on Major Issues [393–394]

Figure 13.1. Residential Composition of Parties

Residential Composition of Parties [370]

Figure 13.2. Occupational Composition of Parties [370]

APPENDIX

A.1. Summary Table: Characteristics of Most Consistent Party Voters [454–455]

Maps

Prepared by Richard J. Stinely

Approximate Residences of Legislators, Massachusetts [110]

Approximate Residences of Legislators, New York [146]

Approximate Residences of Legislators, New Jersey [170]

Approximate Residences of Legislators, Pennsylvania [208]

Approximate Residences of Legislators, Maryland [237]

Approximate Residences of Legislators, Virginia [261]

Approximate Residences of Legislators, South Carolina [289]

Approximate Residences, Most Consistent Voters [367]

Preface

The American Council of Learned Societies did not know it, but when in 1962 it helped to finance a year’s sabbatical leave, it was subsidizing this book. At that time I projected a study of the social structure of the Revolutionary period, part of which would correlate society with politics. The latter part of the plan proved too ambitious. When I returned to the fray, the nature and quantity of the evidence required the use of a computer, and this time the ACLS knowingly came to my aid. Its assistance enabled me to complete my preparations. Mrs. Laura Cummings helped even more. As a research assistant, she took over almost the entire responsibility for preparing the data for computer analysis, did all the programming, and patiently educated me. Even after she had shifted majors, she continued to give unselfishly of her time, and any technical compliments should be directed to her.

Others have also contributed much to this book. The State University of New York supplied money for travel through a research grant. Several graduate students furnished advice and information, notably Louise Allen, Edith Lechleitner, Leonard Sneddon, and Barry Stow. Jacqueline Liebl and Kathy Carne typed carefully and intelligently. My friends Jerome Nadelhaft and Van Beck Hall allowed me to read key portions of their manuscripts on South Carolina and Massachusetts, and the latter criticized chapter 4. My colleague Robert Marcus read the entire manuscript, criticized it brilliantly, saved me from some serious misinterpretations, and suggested ideas that now parade as mine. Ronald Formisano of the University of Rochester performed the same invaluable service. As with other historians, my gratitude goes far beyond any narrow circle to include all those working in the field whose research and ideas I have appropriated. The footnotes will testify to the contribution of the fine state archives and historical society libraries that make the writing of history possible and fun. Finally, I thank my wife, who interrupted her own scholarly career to assist mine.

Introduction

Political parties, as we know them today, developed quite recently. Nowadays they often have national organizations, which may even continue between elections; they write platforms that distinguish them from each other; they attract faithful adherents, so that most voters align themselves with respect to parties; and they campaign vigorously. These attributes appeared gradually during the nineteenth century and scarcely existed before 1800.

During the eighteenth century political divisions remained in many ways amorphous. With a handful of exceptions voting groups even at the local level lacked formal organization, produced no platform, attracted no permanent membership, and electioneered unsystematically if at all. Nevertheless politics were not chaotic. On the contrary, politicians formed into consistent blocs, the precise nature of which varied with time and circumstance but which displayed continuity and cohesion. These blocs took the form of, not national, but legislative parties, which are revealed primarily in the votes of the representatives as well as by their letters, writings, speeches, and occasionally in their campaigns.

Most men of the eighteenth century condemned these political alignments. Ideally all the members of society cooperated with one another, subordinating selfish individual or local interests to the common good. Those in authority acted—or were supposed to act—for the best interests of the whole. Opposition to those in power subverted this harmony, substituted confusion for order, chaos for government. Whig philosophy, of course, did justify resistance to despotism. Ordinarily, however, any challenge to authority was presumed to stem from corrupt men or from demagogues. From their disruptive activities grew the factions or parties so characteristic of eighteenth-century politics.

People used both of these terms, faction and party, loosely and at times interchangeably. Now one critical distinction seems useful. The faction, in England and America, referred to a group of men united by a desire for office rather than by any common principle. It usually revolved around one individual or a family. The party, on the other hand, possessed some unifying ideology or interest, and its members sought power, not exclusively for its own sake, but to accomplish their aim. One referred to the whig party but the Newcastle faction, the court or country party but the DeLancey faction. The faction was ephemeral; the party might endure because it depended upon ideas or interests rather than upon persons. Thus Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his first dictionary (1755), defined a party as a number of persons confederated by similarity of designs or opinions in opposition to others. This very loose usage of the word, though still preserved in our dictionaries and language, contrasts sharply with its modern connotation. When we encounter it in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, therefore, we must divest it of recent accretions.

The precise attributes and the significance of these preparty parties in America form the subject of our investigation. With a couple of exceptions, we will not describe organizations, nor must we expect systematic electioneering, though we will discover a little of it. We will find no platforms, though we will devote much space to principles of concert; and we will seldom uncover party or even factional affiliations among the electorate, though we will examine remarkable bloc voting by legislators. We will not find modern parties, but we may explain much about American politics.

Following the Namierist school, the usual interpretation of preparty politics stresses the influence of persons or emphasizes the role of ideology. In recent years historians have minimized disagreements and emphasized consensus in colonial America. Conflicts among social groups, economic interests, and classes have been deemed relatively unimportant. Instead historians have considered religious and factional disputes to be the major determinants of political behavior, together with the century-long contest between the assemblies and the prerogative.

A case can be made for this approach in eighteenth-century England, governed as it was by a ruling elite that agreed on almost every matter of consequence. Factions developed within that elite, but they had little to do with principles. In the colonies, as chapter 1 will show, factions were also the most prevalent form of political division, although not the sole one. Where the reins of authority were slack, parties appeared, sometimes directly challenging to the prerogative and occasionally arising out of divisions among the colonists themselves. These parties in many ways anticipated the political alignments of the post-Revolutionary era.

After Independence the merchants, lawyers, and great landholders tried to reinstitute the former habits of deference and establish a new consensus. They failed. The Revolutionary experience wrought fundamental changes in attitudes, institutions, and political alignments. The people had been taught to challenge authority in the name of liberty, to doubt the decisions of their governors: the Revolution legitimatized opposition. At the same time ordinary folk had exercised power themselves as never before. They furnished officers for the armies, members for powerful committees, representatives for the legislatures. Political divisions ceased to be simply factional contests; instead they separated men who differed fundamentally.

The very absence of modern parties lends a peculiar interest to the study of post-Revolutionary alignments. The people’s representatives in the legislatures could follow their own desires or reflect the wishes of their constituents almost free from external influences. No strong government enforced conformity, no parties required orthodoxy, and (with some exceptions) no entrenched upper class compelled obedience. One might expect that under such circumstances the legislators would vote at random or form into miscellaneous groups, each representing some faction, area, interest, or ideology. Actually, as we will see, they divided into two distinct groups. These appeared sooner or later in every state and everywhere possessed common characteristics. The legislators, then, formed legislative blocs, or parties, as Dr. Johnson and others used the word and as we will use it here.

How can we account for this process? Clearly certain general principles, operating throughout the states, await our discovery and analysis. The present investigation grew out of a study of the state senates during the 1780s, which revealed this bloc voting and the existence of similar divisions in the several states. The votes in the senates, while suggestive, proved inconclusive. They were too few, did not involve enough individuals, and above all did not furnish enough different kinds of issues and voters. The senates had been only partly democratized and contained almost no artisans, few plain farmers, and in general few men of the middle rank. Most of the lower houses before the Revolution shared the same characteristics. But after 1776 they changed their nature and became, in many instances, ideal for this analysis. Ordinary farmers, as distinct from large landowners, now formed about a third of the membership, while manufacturers and artisans, together with many lesser professionals, shopkeepers, and the like, furnished a fourth. Indeed, almost every kind of American above the rank of laborer sat in these assemblies. They contained men of small property as well as large, men of little education and college graduates, men of limited experience and cosmopolitan men, men with a variety of church affiliations, of all military ranks, and of all ages. Moreover, the number of representatives in the lower houses increased greatly: this permitted quantitative analysis for our study. In addition, roll-call votes, scarce before 1776, became numerous and involved every important issue. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina especially met the requirements for a thorough investigation.

The technique employed for identifying and analyzing the political divisions within the legislatures is described in chapter 2. During the investigation the two major blocs of delegates were denominated party A and party B. These are not memorable names. Instead let us anticipate one aspect of the general conclusion and adopt, as an expedient and without prejudice, the titles Localist and Cosmopolitan. Chapter 3 discusses the major issues that created these legislative parties. The next eight chapters present the main body of evidence, drawn primarily from the votes but derived also from other sources that explain the pattern. The beginnings of organization and electioneering are noted here. The final two chapters summarize the alignments on major issues and suggest some conclusions concerning the causes, characteristics, and significance of the political divisions.

Part I: Background

Chapter I: Political Parties before the Revolution

The usual species of political division in colonial America was the faction. In England this became almost the sole form during the eighteenth century. The colonies, however, also produced parties based upon broad differences in opinions and objectives. Two primary factors created somewhat different alignments. First, the struggle between the governor and assembly, between the prerogative and local self-government, led to court, or proprietary, parties on one side and country, or popular, parties on the other.¹ The division resembled that between tory and whig in seventeenth-century England and of course culminated in the debate over independence. While the two groups might differ in principle, they often simply separated the ins from the outs. Second, economic, religious, and political differences created alignments that might or might not correspond with the foregoing groups. These appeared because political arrangements in some of the colonies were less restrictive and more tolerant of variety than in others. A brief summary of politics in the several colonies will indicate the factional or party conflicts during this early period.

No religious or other cultural differences seriously divided the people of New Hampshire,² but opposing economic interests contained the elements for potential conflict. One area, centering around Portsmouth, was maritime, while the rest of the colony, much of it isolated, was agricultural. The Wentworth family, however, transcended sections and encompassed every economic interest. Wielding power through the office of governor and other major posts, they entered into commerce, land speculation, and lumbering (which they monopolized). They succeeded in crushing other family groups that challenged them and, by denying representation to most of the agricultural towns, established an almost monarchical regime that favored entrepreneurial rather than agrarian interests.

In Massachusetts, on the other hand, the governorship changed hands more often, and no one family—not even the Hutchinsons—rivaled the Wentworths’ stature in New Hampshire. Moreover every town might elect representatives to the lower house, which had always wielded considerable power. The colony produced various factions, but Massachusetts politics concerned more than just a struggle for power: it reflected religious developments, disputes between the commercial and agricultural towns, and conflicts over economic, especially monetary, policy. One participant, Dr. William Douglass, summarized the alignments as they had existed and as they were in 1749: The parties in Massachusetts-Bay at present are not the Loyal and Jacobite, the Governor and the Country, Whig and Tory, or any religious sectary denomination, but the Debtors and Creditors.³ The most spectacular dispute pitted the hard-money merchants of Boston, who backed a bank based on silver that would serve their monetary needs, against the farmers and lesser entrepreneurs of the interior, who preferred a land bank so organized as to loan money with land as security and relieve the general shortage of currency. The victory of the former, made possible by help from England, created bitterness for a generation. A different yet related alignment during the pre-Revolutionary years pitted the government party against the country party of the eastern agricultural towns, while beginning about 1761 a popular party was formed under the leadership of James Otis and Oxenbridge Thacher.⁴

Rhode Island produced the first two-party or, more accurately, two-factional system in America. It resembled the factional type in that it primarily involved a struggle for power rather than a contest between different ideas or interests, but it possessed the stability, continuity, and degree of organization that we associate more with parties than with factions. The Ward group, based in Newport but colony-wide in scope, included merchants as well as farmers and manufacturers; the Hopkins interest, based in Providence, contained the same elements; and the leading historian of the colony cannot discover any difference in their principles or policies. Both defended Rhode Island’s existing form of government, which was unusually democratic, and neither sought change. Their controversy therefore took the form only of a political dispute between two factions for control of the government.⁵ What distinguished Rhode Island’s factionalism was the advanced organization built by the leaders of the two groups, who drew up lists of candidates, circulated them, spent large sums of money on campaigns, bribed, published diatribes, and rewarded the faithful with office.⁶

In contrast, Connecticut developed no enduring political blocs. The major officials came primarily from a limited number of families representing the leading business and professional men, including the clergy, together with some large landowners. Drawn from all parts of the colony, they cooperated with one another in most ways and patiently waited their turn along the ladder of preferment until someone died or retired. Their authority, however, was gradually being undermined as the eighteenth century wore on,⁷ and the solid phalanx began to crack in the 1760s. At that time disputes over western land policy (the Susquehanna Company), religion, and the Stamp Act created an east-west division and climaxed in the displacement of the governor and several of his supporters. Nevertheless the dispute did not cause any permanent political alignment, and the colony’s rulers had repaired most of the breaches by 1776.⁸

New York, like Rhode Island, produced two major political groups that fought for supremacy, but more was involved than just power. True, the DeLanceys and the Livingstons behaved rather like the Wards and Hopkinses, seeking popularity by posing as the colony’s friends, defending government while in office and attacking while out of it. Both contained merchants, lawyers, and great landowners; both included men of wealth (although the DeLanceys perhaps attracted a greater number), and both began with, if indeed they did not continue to share, the same political ideology and social values. But New York’s parties proved dissimilar in at least three respects. First, the DeLanceys defended the Anglican church and won the support of most Anglicans, while the Livingstons, themselves Presbyterians, attacked the Anglicans and obtained the backing of many dissenters. Second, the DeLanceys’ center of strength lay in the south, where they usually carried New York City, Queens, Kings, Richmond, and Westchester, while the Livingstons predominated in the upper Hudson valley and eastern Long Island. The sectional division suggests that the Livingstons, despite their own entrepreneurial nature, may have been more successful than the DeLanceys in attracting agrarian support, but that they enjoyed less success in the trading centers. Finally, during the years immediately before Independence, the Livingstons became whigs, and the DeLanceys, tories. A series of nineteen votes during the period 1768 to 1770, dealing with a variety of issues, helps to identify these two sides. The DeLancey faction consisted of seventeen members who cast 200 out of 263 votes as a bloc (84 percent); of these men nine belonged to the Anglican church and only one was a Presbyterian. The ten Livingstons, who voted just as consistently on the other side, included three Presbyterians, five members of the Dutch Reformed Church, a Quaker, a Lutheran, and no Anglicans. The Livingstons represented the upstate areas and Suffolk County, while most of the DeLanceys lived near New York City. All of the Livingstons became rebels, but a majority of the DeLanceys remained loyal. Thus, in a very general way, New York’s political alignment took the form of an upstate-dissenter-incipiently rebel group versus a downstate-Anglican-tory element, each having some allies in the enemy camp.

The contest between the major interests stimulated some lively campaigning. Nominations were made by leaders or even by public meetings. The faithful then circulated tickets and printed broadsides or newspaper articles that announced the issues. Writing in 1907, one historian stated that in certain elections the voters were as fully informed of the position of the opposing candidate as modern voters are through the party platforms.⁹ Although the colony’s elite led both factions, they found themselves forced to appeal to public opinion, especially during the years just preceding Independence. By that time both showed characteristics of the modern parties.¹⁰

New Jersey’s political history had been distinguished, during the early years, by a division between East and West Jersey. The former, settled by the Dutch and by English settlers from New York and New England, maintained economic and cultural relations with New York City; the latter, containing a strong Quaker influence, looked toward Philadelphia. The sectional differences ceased to be politically important by mid-century, though they revived again after Independence. Divisions within each of the sections, including that between proprietors and small landowners, complicated the political situation. Votes in the legislature—if those cast during the 1769/1770 session are typical—followed neither geographical nor religious lines but suggest instead the existence of several groups.

Two such blocs opposed each other fairly evenly on every issue that came to a vote.¹¹ One consisted primarily of merchants and lawyers who defended their own interests and tended to support the government. In particular they approved subjecting the real estate of nonresidents (absconding debtors) to seizure for debt, defended the dignity of government against abuse, killed a bill to regulate lawyers, granted the governor money in a controversial matter, allowed the chief justice a higher per diem, and approved a resolution condemning Samuel Tucker for taking excessive fees, probably because Tucker was undercutting the lawyers who seem to have started the investigation.¹² Most of these men held offices from the governor, and several belonged to the colony’s richest families. The opposite group consisted of men who were engaged in agriculture and who (with one exception) did not hold office or form part of an economic elite. The contrast must not be pushed too far, for only half of the assemblymen divided in this fashion. Thus we deal, not with stable legislative parties, but with a tendency toward bloc voting by different interest groups. Its extent may be judged from these figures: in the sixty votes under consideration, affirmatives formed 55.2 percent of the total; legislators who were not farmers voted pro 80.6 percent of the time, while farmer delegates voted pro 42.1 percent of the time. Clearly parties, even of the colonial species, remained no more than incipient in colonial New Jersey.

A precisely opposite situation existed in Pennsylvania, where parties played so important a role that historians continue to analyze the intricate electioneering. The ingredients, though far from simple, are clear enough in rough outline. The Quakers organized to defend their long-held dominance over the colony. They controlled the assembly, which reflected the Friends’ pacifism and tried to protect the Indians. In these objectives they usually obtained the support of like-minded German sects. They posed as a popular party by seeking less interference from the proprietor in local affairs, trying to tax the Penns’ land, and attempting to place the colony under royal control. The Penns defended their economic interests and tried to balance what they regarded as the excessive power of the assembly by a stronger executive. They also supported the expansionist desires of the westerners, appealing to anyone who opposed the eastern, Quaker-dominated, pacifist, Indian-coddling, undemocratic Assembly party.¹³

Politics in Pennsylvania were never dull. At the local level contests for office furnished ample experience in electioneering and even in combat. Much of the furor involved personalities or factions, but colony-wide campaigns, though sometimes undignified, concerned important principles. While it is true that, as one historian has remarked, the parties were in no way formal organizations, [but] consisted of a loose association of men drawn together by mutual likes and dislikes,¹⁴ these associations prepared tickets, vigorously attacked each other, stood for well-recognized ideas, got out the vote, and in at least one case established a newspaper as a party organ. One of the most entertaining incidents in American political history occurred when the pacifistic Quakers blocked access to the Philadelphia ballot box and then implored their allies to fend off the sailors that the proprietary party had enlisted to break the blockade. The campaign of 1764 marked the climax of pre-Revolutionary politicking. The proprietary-Presbyterian alliance pushed their New Ticket, which included Scotch-Irish candidates, ardently supported by their ministers, together with friends of the proprietor, many Germans, and even some Quakers. Both sides spent money and got out the vote. The Quaker party lost in Philadelphia and the westernmost counties, but retained control of the legislature.¹⁵

After 1765 the Quaker party began to lose ground, and the political alignment slowly shifted. The Friends themselves divided as British measures led some to perceive that life in a royal colony might not be preferable to conditions in a proprietary one. Most Quakers failed to support the resistance movement, so some of their adherents fell away, while the mechanics and shopkeepers of Philadelphia now organized their own Patriotic Society in an effort to increase their political influence. Party lines began to blur, as the leaders of both sides tried to preserve the old order. The Presbyterians broke with the Anglicans and the Penns, leading the opposition to British measures, and in 1776 old alignments gave way to the new.

Maryland’s legislature contained equally sharp divisions. The party names suggest an alignment like that in Pennsylvania: proprietary versus antiproprietary, court versus country. Maryland, however, lacked the religious differences. Catholics could not vote or hold office and so exercised no political power, and dissenters never became numerous enough to challenge the Anglican majority. The legislative parties did not arise out of local contests, for the proprietor appointed all officials. Therefore, even more than in Pennsylvania, politics revolved around a struggle for power between men who supported the proprietary interest and those who took the more popular side. The division, however, carried over into matters unconnected with the Baltimores. The so-called court and country parties became conspicuous several decades before 1776 and remained central to Maryland’s political life.

The legislative session of 1765/1766 affords a convenient opportunity to examine this alignment. The house, in four meetings, took some fifty roll-call votes on a variety of issues. Among the fifty-eight delegates, eleven cast only a few votes, eleven shifted erratically, and thirty-six divided into two precisely even groups that took opposite sides on almost every issue, casting in fact over 80 percent of their votes in unison.¹⁶ One of their major voting blocs consisted principally of men from the northern part of the Chesapeake and the upper Potomac—from Maryland’s more recently settled areas. Almost all lived on the western side of the bay. The other centered in the Eastern Shore, especially the more southerly counties, and the region directly across the bay, south of Annapolis. This area, the oldest part of the colony, contained most of Maryland’s slaves but a minority of her electorate. Otherwise economic differences between the opponents seem slight, most of the delegates coming from the planter elite and both containing a few lawyers and businessmen. A crucial factor was the presence in the eastern group of nine holders of proprietary office, whereas the western party contained only one. On the other hand, most of the militia officers (who were unpaid) belonged to the latter. The easterners, therefore, formed the court, or proprietary, party, their opposites the country, or antiproprietary, party.

The character of the two groups appears also in the issues that divided them. Naturally the country party tried to reduce the power of the proprietors—the prerogative. For example, the questions that were debated during the 1765/1766 session included the payment of the clerk of the upper house out of public funds, the control of certain revenues, and the relative strength of the council and the lower house. The country party tended to oppose government expenditures that might fall upon the people, as when the governor suggested that the colony contribute to the victims of a fire in Quebec and when a bill called for a poll tax to maintain roads. The same delegates favored an issue of paper money backed by local resources rather than by Bank of England stock, thus taking a kind of soft money position. They vigorously fought plural officeholding, and may deserve the appellation of popular party to some degree. Certainly they posed as such.

At the same time, however, circumstances prevented the rise of a genuinely popular party in Maryland. The lively electioneering that would have accompanied such a development was missing. The reason lay primarily in the aristocratic nature of the power structure. The delegates from all counties were large property owners, primarily great planters, so that control of the legislature remained in the possession of an agricultural elite. Probably the representatives divided only because the determined and in some ways extreme position taken by the proprietor and his supporters polarized Maryland’s politics.

If that interpretation is correct, then the absence of comparable pressure accounts for the lack of such divisions in Virginia. At first glance one would expect to find in this largest British colony internal disputes that would lead to an advanced stage of party development. Virginia’s society had early become so diverse that Bacon’s Rebellion seems a natural consequence of social strain, and indeed historians have had difficulty in accepting an interpretation of that event that eliminated sectional and class antagonisms as causes. With their tidewater and piedmont and Shenandoah Valley and mountains, her Northern Neck and Southside; with her extensive trade, rich plantations, and small farms; her merchants, lawyers, pioneers, great landowners, tenants, debtors, and farmers; her cultured elite and remote backwoodsmen; her numerous dissenters, strengthened by the Great Awakening, and her influential churchmen, Virginia seemed destined for a turbulent history. But she experienced no land-bank controversy, no Leisler Rebellion, no Paxton riot, no Regulation, produced no court or country or Quaker or DeLancey party—not even a Ward or Hopkins faction. Instead the colony’s politics concentrated on the House of Burgesses’s successful struggle for autonomy and the westward advance against French and Indians. Internally Virginia gives the appearance of unity: the Burgesses certainly contained no disruptive elements or basic divisions until a few years before Independence. The reason, as is well known, lay in the unchallenged dominance of the planter elite, who obtained their election even in rather remote areas because the voters were accustomed to choosing such men and either thought them worthy or never questioned their merit. The planter elite itself remained unified by a community of interest and ideas, and the governor never became strong enough to consistently drive a wedge into this solid front. Far from producing parties, Virginia scarcely produced factions.

To some extent this serene uniformity changed after 1760 because of the Two Penny Act and the rise of Henry, the Robinson affair, which called into question the honesty of the elite, and the division of opinion concerning the resistance to England. These events set the stage for the postwar divisions that culminated in the 1790s.

Farther south internal conflicts, far more turbulent than those in Maryland or Pennsylvania, produced violence rather than parties. North Carolina contained several political forces. A number of small trading towns sent delegates to the Commons House. They voted as a bloc and may have exerted considerable influence. The northeast, settled from Virginia, contained many slaves and tobacco plantations and vied for supremacy with the southeast. The latter region may have contained a less stable society and more men who had acquired debts for the purchase of slaves: Governor Martin referred in 1771 to a Majority from the Southern district in which the people are almost universally necessitous and in debt and whose policy it seems has been to overflow the province with paper money.¹⁷ As a rule the sectional struggle concerned offices rather than issues. The governor’s power decreased rapidly with distance from the capital city because primitive transportation and the colony’s geography placed most residents beyond his reach. Besides, he had to contend with North Carolina’s local officials, whose loyalty lay not with the governor but with the Commons, where indeed many of them sat. Finally, the interior, rapidly expanding in population and area and containing fewer slaves and a more democratic social structure than the east, had its own problems. The legislature failed to cope with western grievances because the eastern majority did not sympathize with them and because the westerners themselves were disunited. The contest took on the appearance of a class war between an arbitrary, powerful group of officials and the majority of the people. As a result westerners did not organize into a legislative pressure group, but engaged in the Regulator Movement.

These elements appeared in the legislature when on rare occasions someone demanded a roll call. Four votes in 1771 show the legislators dividing roughly into two groups: one that included the delegates from the towns plus most easterners and another that consisted primarily of representatives from the interior. The former may have contained the seeds of a court party, but the governor was never able to organize a consistent following. Instead North Carolina’s politics remained chaotic.

In contrast, South Carolina’s political system was a little too well organized. It resembled Virginia’s in that the planters, together with some native merchants and lawyers, completely controlled the lower house; but whereas Virginia’s dominant minority allowed the participation of men from the interior, even from the frontier—from areas characterized by small farms rather than plantations—no such areas chose delegates to South Carolina’s House of Commons. Virginia’s gentlemen ruled with the assent of the humbler sort, South Carolina’s without it. The Commons contained almost no representatives from the interior, and the artisans and shopkeepers of Charleston also lacked a voice except when some radical merchant or lawyer expressed their aspirations. No factions developed among the governing elite. Conflicts took the form simply of clashes between a single harmonious group and outsiders, notably the western Regulators and the British government. The former failed to obtain power, and the latter, though exerting a good deal of influence, never could successfully oppose the united strength of the planters.

A precisely opposite situation existed in Georgia, where we return finally to the New Hampshire style of government. Militarily weak and economically immature, the colony depended on the mother country, and the people dared not oppose their governor. Indeed, Georgia’s rulers, unlike the Wentworths, did not need to build a political following in order to govern almost without opposition.¹⁸

This survey of colonial politics raises the question of what factors or forces existed that might have and occasionally did create factions or the eighteenth-century variety of parties but that normally inhibited their emergence prior to 1776. The answer will clear the way for a discussion of how Independence affected political alignments.

Royal and proprietary governors tried to attract enough support so that they could rule supreme or, if that proved impossible, compete as successfully as the king did at home. They gathered about them a factional following of dependents and sympathizers, and if they received fairly constant support from England, they constructed a court party. The desire for political preferment led colonial leaders to attach themselves to some clique or faction and seek power from the governor or, more rarely, in England.

Local economic interests also affected political alignments. Colonial merchants, representing the desires of the trading towns, exerted pressure on the legislature. Large landowners always possessed great power. In Massachusetts and perhaps elsewhere creditors determined monetary policy; debtors rarely succeeded. Small farmers could vote and might hold office, but they often identified their interests with that of the large landowners and usually were content to elect someone of superior rank. They emerged, however, as a powerful political force in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and threatened to do so in other colonies. Everywhere their numbers made them potentially strong. On the other hand, artisans, shopkeepers, and other members of the urban middling sort rarely formed a cohesive pressure group, though in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and some lesser centers politicians competed for their votes. The importance of these economic interests is attested by a petition from Newbury, Massachusetts, requesting a division of the town, as the inhabitants of one Part of the said Town are mostly Farmers and of the other principally Merchants, Tradesmen, and Sea faring Persons; and as the Interests of said Parties are so different, and in some respects opposite.¹⁹

Religious differences proved to be the only significant cultural factor. Some had disappeared with time, and several colonies either contained only one major church, or suppressed dissent. However, religious divisions among Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Old Light and New Light Congregationalists, Baptists, and occasionally some other group affected politics in many areas.

Finally, although most politically important colonists adhered to the whig ideology, American thought ranged all the way from defense of a truly democratic government to toryism. Much political writing took the form of ideological debate that expressed (or in some cases may have concealed) basic differences.

Why did these many influences create divisions in some colonies and none in others? Clearly factions or parties developed only when no single political force became omnipotent. In New Hampshire and Georgia the governors achieved such power that they suppressed dissent. In Virginia and South Carolina members of the colonial elite united sufficiently among themselves and exerted enough weight to prevent the rise either of an effective court party or of an internal opposition.

Elsewhere political power never became so concentrated, and opposition groups appeared. Connecticut stands closest to those colonies dominated by a native elite, but her leaders did divide on particular economic, religious, and political issues. Parties failed to develop in New Jersey, not because any centralized power prevented them, but apparently because no major issue crystallized them, although votes in the legislature do suggest a consistent division along economic lines. Massachusetts produced a fascinating set of factions and interest blocs that coalesced occasionally into major antagonistic groups. In both Pennsylvania and Maryland the proprietors had enough influence to build a court party but not enough to prevent the rise of strong opposition. The proprietary versus antiproprietary dichotomy intersected with or overlapped internal, sectional, religious, and economic divisions. The court, country, Quaker, and Anglican parties became permanent features possessed of continuity, principles, and rhetoric; Pennsylvania added a certain amount of organization and a great deal of campaigning.

Religion and politics also mixed in New York. Here the two major factions, in their struggle for power, appealed to the people through vigorous electioneering. Their constituencies were similar in many respects, yet they drew strength from different areas and religious groups. The DeLancey-Livingston controversy presently coincided with a basic disagreement concerning the resistance to British measures. The term faction clearly seems too limited to describe entities that involved real principles and interests.

Finally, Rhode Island produced her usual unique response to problems in the creation of the Ward and Hopkins factions. The two groups were factional in the sense that they did not differ in their economic, social, or cultural objectives, but they resembled parties in their longevity, their conglomerate membership, and their quite modern techniques. The most democratic colony contained the most uninhibited system of politics.

The events beginning in 1774 profoundly affected political alignments. The earliest, most obvious, and perhaps most important development was the annihilation of the royal and proprietary influences. Their expulsion meant in some cases that internal divisions appeared where none existed before, as in New Hampshire; in others, that a significant force vanished; in still others, that one-half of the power structure disappeared, leaving a huge vacuum. The proprietary parties in Maryland and Pennsylvania and lesser equivalents elsewhere were now destroyed and their like would not be seen for many years. Power in these instances reverted to the legislature or to the locality.

A second factor contributing to a new political situation was the weakening or disappearance of those factions or groups that failed to support the Revolution. These included the Hutchinson family and its adherents, the DeLancey faction, the Anglican party and most of the Quaker party in Pennsylvania, and various less important groups. The positions and influences of these thereupon fell into the possession of different, sometimes new men.

Third, institutional changes also encouraged a different structure of power: (1) several states allowed much greater representation to the backcountry, resulting in a sharp westward shift in the locus of power and at the same time increasing the influence of small landholders, dissenters, and (as will be seen) those espousing certain economic interests and political ideas.²⁰ This process occurred notably in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, and quite possibly the formation of new political units took place more rapidly in Virginia and North Carolina than would have been the case within the empire. (2) The franchise was widened in certain cases (as in Philadelphia), and the right to hold office was extended. The latter reform particularly affected the upper houses, where basic divisions quickly appeared. (3) Access to power widened because more offices became elective or, if appointive, controlled by the legislative rather than the executive branch. This applied even to judges in some states. (4) The political process was gradually democratized in various ways. Secret ballots became less rare. Laws received better publicity, sometimes being printed for consideration before taking effect. In a few states newspapers carried accounts of legislative proceedings. The practice of instructing representatives how to vote increased in frequency. More sessions were opened to the public. (5) Finally, the practice of requiring and publishing roll-call votes, quite limited during the colonial period, gradually became almost universal. Public opinion grew in importance, and politicians could more easily build popular followings.

A fourth circumstance that contributed to a new political era was the greater participation by ordinary folk in public life. They joined various local committees of observation, correspondence, or safety; became officers in the militia or the Continental army; and served in a variety of civil offices, especially during the war. They now sought election to the legislature, and the voters, who had previously selected members of the better sort (whatever comprised the local equivalent of a gentry), began to choose men like themselves. This gradual and partial displacement of the elite occurred for several reasons. In many areas they lost the public’s confidence because some failed to defend the rebel cause and thus called into question the superior wisdom of any elite. The people turned from Thomas Hutchinson to Samuel Adams, from William Allen to Timothy Matlack, from John Robinson to Patrick Henry, from Cadwallader Colden and James DeLancey to George Clinton, from William Bull to Christopher Gadsden and then to Alexander Gillon—instances that could be multiplied. Simultaneously the people gained confidence in their own ability to judge and to govern. Moreover this change of attitude gained strength ideologically through a greater emphasis upon the democratic element in government. This occurred partly within the whig tradition, as Americans stressed the influence of the popular branch, and partly outside it, as men applauded a government by the people. In either case theorists argued that power originated from the people, and no great leap was required to conclude that the people should govern themselves.²¹ That conclusion ultimately justified a popular party.

The implications of these developments appeared unevenly from state to state over several decades. The legislatures gradually opened to admit men or representatives of men previously excluded or possessed of little power: small farmers, debtors, artisans, shopkeepers, those of humble families, little education, limited experience; members of dissenting sects; delegates from small towns, subsistence farm areas, the frontier. These now competed with the merchants and lawyers and planters, the social elite, intelligentsia, cosmopolitans, the Anglicans and Congregationalists, the men from the trading centers and commercial farms. Out of these many elements emerged new political alignments and presently new parties.

1. See particularly Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American Politics (New York, 1968).

2. See Jere R. Daniell, Politics in New Hampshire under Governor Benning Wentworth, 1741–1767, William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XXIII (1966), 76–105.

3. Quoted in Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1716 (New York, 1955), 12.

4. The fullest account is Leslie M. Thomas, Partisan Politics in Massachusetts during Governor Bernard’s Administration, 1760–1770 (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1960).

5. David S. Lovejoy, Rhode Island Politics and the American Revolution, 1760–1776 (Providence, 1958), 18. Evidently Rhode Islanders used the words faction, party, and interest indifferently except that the first two, being derogatory, applied to the opposition.

6. Ibid., 21–30; note the method of choosing sheriffs and justices, ibid., 59–62.

7. See Richard L. Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).

8. Oscar Zeichner, Connecticut’s Years of Controversy, 1750–1776 (Chapel Hill, 1949).

9. Carl Lotus Becker, The History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760–1776 (Madison, 1909). See Patricia U. Bonomi’s excellent book, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York (New York, 1971).

10. Historians of the subject use the words party, faction, and interest, following the usage of