Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  Pennsylvania had a similarly complex structure of local government but was also in some respects the least representative of the northern colonies. Philadelphia was governed by a closed corporation on the English model with a mayor, aldermen, and councillors, who coopted someone as a vacancy arose. The rest of the province was divided into counties, with a sheriff and bench of justices appointed by the proprietor or his representatives. However, in 1711 the assembly reduced the powers of the justices when it created county tax commissioners, positions which became elective in 1722. The post of sheriff was also partially democratized. The freemen elected two nominees, leaving the governor to make the final choice. There was a similar arrangement concerning the townships into which each county was divided. The inhabitants elected two nominees for constable and local tax assessor, giving the governor the final say. There were no town meetings.

  The third middle colony, New Jersey, had a system similar to that of New England; towns elected their own officials and county justices were appointed by the governor. However, the representative element was strengthened by the requirement that the justices, when dealing with administrative rather than judicial matters, were assisted by a panel of supervisors, elected by the freemen of each township in the county.

  The southern colonies, in contrast, had almost no representative element in their local government. They followed English practice, especially in the Chesapeake. At the lowest level was the parish, whose governing body was the vestry. This body was invariably self-coopting and chosen from the gentry. Its responsibilities included appointing Anglican ministers, the upkeep of the established church, the provision of welfare for the indigent sick and elderly, and the setting of a parish rate.

  The next level of local government in the South was the county court, which consisted of a panel of justices, technically appointed by the governor, but in effect also self-coopting, since they filled vacancies by recommending names to the governor. The justices also selected the sheriff and other court officials. They dealt with most legal matters such as hearing civil actions and petty misdemeanors, the verifying of wills, and the sale of lands. The county courts also shared responsibility with the parishes for roads, bridges, and ferries. The only southern province to diverge from this county court pattern was South Carolina, where most judicial and administrative tasks continued to be handled by the vestries.

  Local government was clearly not representative, especially in the South. Only the New England town was fully elective, and historians once paid much attention to its system in the belief that it provided the bedrock of the subsequent democracy in the United States.

  It is often supposed that representative institutions are by definition democratic, but as the study of New England itself shows, such an assumption is not valid. During the seventeenth century only church members or proprietors could participate in the affairs of most New England towns, and even then only the wealthier members were elected to positions of authority. Widely shared assumptions held that the best-educated men from the oldest families and the most wealth had the wisdom required of rulers. Popular acquiescence in the authority of the elite was almost complete.

  Only in the last two decades of the century was elite domination challenged in a growing number of disputes about taxes, the level of the minister's salary, election returns, and the distribution of town lands. The consensus broke down for various reasons. In Massachusetts, one factor was the granting of a new charter in 1691, under which any male who possessed taxable property worth £20 could participate in town affairs. This qualification was a considerable reduction from the previous requirement of £80 under the 1670 franchise law, but it was still a far cry from the concept of one man, one vote. Nevertheless, more electors meant greater diversity of opinion. The need for voters to be in good standing in the church also seems to have been abandoned at this time. Although the colony still outwardly conformed to the values of its forebears, it no longer had the same commitment to them, perhaps being influenced by the spread of materialism as the towns became more susceptible to market forces.

  A further cause of discord among New England townspeople was the monopoly of the proprietary families over the distribution of unsettled lands. This was increasingly resented by the other inhabitants who had subsequently bought land, held office, and paid their taxes – only to remain excluded from entitlement to any dividend. Frequent attempts were made to widen access, but all were defeated by the general court because of its reluctance to interfere with the rights of private property. However, the proprietors of many communities eventually found it prudent to admit to their ranks the more prominent residents who were still excluded from their number.

  Analysis of the specific disputes, however, shows that there was another factor responsible for the loss of the consensus on local government: the growth of many towns. Community and agreement were possible when a town comprised just a few families pioneering in the wilderness. Eighty years later the population of many towns had increased several times. In the case of Dedham, founded in 1636, the initial grant from the general court had been very extensive. By the 1700s the spread of the population had effectively created new centers of population at Bellingham, Walpole, and Needham. These communities found it inconvenient to have their affairs managed from Dedham and increasingly wanted their own minister, school, town meeting, and selectmen. The result was a bitter series of disputes which in 1728 compelled the general court to intervene; in the end Dedham had to be divided into three precincts.

  Many other New England towns suffered similar disruption. Gloucester had originally been a small farming community. From the second decade of the eighteenth century a thriving port began to develop in the area known as Gloucester Harbor. When a new church was required in the mid-1730s the wealthy merchants there determined to have it rebuilt in their own part of town close to the harbor. The farmers and fishermen of the older Annisquam region of Gloucester resisted bitterly, since their control of the community was already being undermined in other respects. The controversy rumbled on until 1742, when the general court allowed the creation of two separate parishes.1

  The primary force behind these disputes was not a demand for democracy but rather a geographically motivated desire for reallocation of local government responsibilities. The towns continued to be run by small enclaves of relatively privileged people, in a manner far removed from the spirit of a modern democracy. One indication of their restrictive nature was their unwillingness to admit strangers, especially if they appeared to have no visible means of support. The first six decades of the eighteenth century witnessed a huge increase in the number of people being “warned out” of towns.

  Another reason for dissension after 1740 was religion. During the Great Awakening congregations in many towns became divided between the New and Old Lights over the selection of ministers, destroying the unanimity of the old order. Along the way the inhabitants became accustomed to electioneering, speech-making, and all other aspects of politics. This process in turn prepared the ground for the later growth of a more truly democratic spirit, though only after the colonial period had ended.

  Elsewhere local government remained relatively static in the hands of the traditional authorities. In the middle colonies towns did not have large landholdings and no problems arose concerning the location of their churches or government. Any excess population simply emigrated to the next county and sought incorporation as required.

  A similar picture pertained in the South, where the planter elites dominated government at both local and provincial levels. Many of those appointed to the county courts were also members of the council or house of representatives and were thus able to use their visits to St. Mary's, Williamsburg, New Bern, or Charleston to confirm themselves or their relatives as sheriffs and county justices.

  Not until the last decades of the colonial period did the arrival of a new population in the backcountry pose a challenge to this cozy arrangement. Interestingly, the response varied from one
province to another. Virginia acted quickly to establish vestries and county courts. The tidewater elite welcomed the new settlers both as a barrier against the Shawnees and other western Indian peoples and also as a means of increasing the value of their own lands. Accordingly, in 1738 Orange County was established on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, followed in 1745 by Augusta County in the valley itself. Although these counties were not elective, they did reflect the newcomers' desire for some framework of government. In addition, the vestries were left almost entirely free of Episcopalian influence, to avoid offending the religious sensibilities of the newcomers.

  In the Carolinas, by way of contrast, the authorities paid little attention to the new settlements in the piedmont. North Carolina created counties but staffed them with the tidewater elite, who used their position to further their own interests. In South Carolina the new settlements were simply administered as extensions of the existing coastal parishes. This lack of attention to the political needs of the backcountry population would cause serious trouble after 1760 with the rise of the Regulator movement.

  3 The Provincial Assembly: Crown versus People

  After 1689 all 12 British mainland North American colonies had an assembly, as did the main British West Indian colonies. As already noted, these had been won only after protracted struggles during the seventeenth century and were looked on as grants of favor rather than of right. Officially that view had not altered, but the Glorious Revolution in England, with its emphasis on property rights, had strengthened the assemblies' position considerably.

  Although the origins of the different assemblies had been diverse, by 1700 they had two main functions. The first was to make local laws for the convenience of colonial inhabitants – London was too far away to meet every legislative requirement. Second, the provincials believed that the assemblies, like Parliament, should act as watchdogs. The experience of the seventeenth century had demonstrated that the rights of the individual subject were constantly under threat from the executive branch of government.

  The assemblies normally met in the spring or fall, when the roads were passable and the weather temperate. The sessions usually lasted about four weeks. Most representatives were not professional politicians and were anxious to return home to their occupations as farmers and merchants.

  The main business was to vote taxes essential to cover the expenses of government, such as the salaries of the governor and the few other permanent officials. Members also addressed any other subjects which required government attention: poor crops, natural disasters, or lapses in law and order. Most sessions were not controversial, though an issue like paper currency might cause dispute.

  The right to vote for members of the assembly varied from colony to colony but always required a property qualification. In most places it was equivalent to the English 40-shilling freehold, that is, ownership of a property with a rental value of 40 shillings. In Virginia, for example, the law of 1736 required that a voter possess either 25 acres of improved land with a house of 400 square feet or 100 acres of unimproved land.

  Historians have long been divided as to just how democratic the provincial franchise was. At one time it was popular to argue that because wages were high and property was cheap, almost any male could qualify for the vote. In the past 50 years writers have tended to emphasize the hidden costs of landownership, the high incidence of tenant farming, and the presence of considerable poverty in both town and country, all of which suggest a lower proportion of enfranchised settlers, perhaps 50 percent of white males. This was a considerably higher proportion of men than possessed the right to vote in eighteenth-century England, but by modern standards it was very low.2

  Indeed the fact that virtually all women, African Americans, and Indians were excluded from the political process reminds us that by no means were the British American colonies democratic.3 Nor did they pretend to be, for although the representatives referred to themselves as the popular part of the system, they did so only in contrast to its monarchical and aristocratic components. Before 1760 no one believed that a crude head count could be the basis of political legitimacy. The popular view was that government should be a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, the three legitimate forms of government outlined by Aristotle. Democracy alone was thought likely to degenerate into mobocracy, the worst of all conditions, since property itself would be at risk. Here lies one of the crucial differences between eighteenth-century British North America and the present-day United States. In colonial times the belief that owning property should be a requirement for participation in the political process was virtually unquestioned on both sides of the Atlantic.

  Why did ordinary people who did not own property fail to protest their exclusion from the right to vote, or demand the right to be considered for responsible political offices? This question, too, has divided historians. Many argue that colonial political culture was deferential. In other words, ordinary people yielded to the judgment of the better-educated, upper-class elite because they lacked confidence in their own judgments, or were afraid to challenge their “betters.” This view has been disputed by other historians who point out that when ordinary colonists decided to protest the decisions of the elite, they could be remarkably forceful in asserting their interests. Poor people in colonial societies generally did not depend for their livelihoods on the patronage of the rich, as they did in the aristocratic societies of western Europe. Nonetheless the concept of deference is helpful for understanding ordinary people's unwillingness to challenge their noninclusive political system. Most people spent their formative years in patriarchal families where they were expected to defer to a property-owning male household head, so the habit of deferring to the decisions of another person would have been well ingrained for many, even as adults. Relatively low levels of literacy (compared to rates of literacy in modern Western societies) may have convinced many that they lacked the wisdom and the understanding needed for political leadership, or even voting. Finally the structures that would later emerge to mobilize the political energies of ordinary people, such as political parties, did not exist in colonial societies.4

  The absence of significant or widespread popular challenge to the political structure, however, did not mean that politics in the colonies was peaceful and harmonious. In fact, colonial political leaders engaged in frequent and contentious disputes. Two basic issues were generally at stake. One concerned the rights of the provincial assemblies, the other issues of legislative policy.

  The main points of contention in regard to the rights of the assemblies centered on their ability to control their membership, choose a speaker, audit expenditure, and adjourn when they wanted. Since these were all rights enjoyed by the House of Commons, the lower houses generally believed that they should enjoy them too. After all, the men who served in colonial assemblies considered themselves to be gentlemen; why should they not be entitled to the same rights as gentlemen in England, who were represented in the House of Commons? British officials, however, regarded such claims as unacceptable, believing that if granted, they would weaken royal government and undermine the whole purpose of the imperial relationship. In their view the colonies were constitutionally akin to borough corporations, which also held royal charters allowing them to make bylaws and raise local taxes. Such institutions could never be equated with the majesty of Parliament; what the colonists assumed to be rights were in British eyes merely privileges.

  Hence when Francis Nicholson was appointed governor of South Carolina in 1720 he was warned how “the members of several assemblies in the plantations have of late assumed to themselves privileges no ways belonging to them.” One such assumption was that “of being protected from suits at law during the term of the assemblies.” Freedom from arrest was something that only members of Parliament ought to enjoy. Equally unacceptable was the practice of many assemblies to adjourn “themselves at pleasure without taking leave from his Majesty's governor first obtained.” This habit sugge
sted that it was the assemblies which were determining business, not the Crown.

  The same reasoning induced the Crown to ensure that the speaker of the house was at least approved by the governor, so that some control could be exerted over that body's proceedings. This policy produced a fierce battle in Massachusetts during the 1720s. The clash began in 1719 when the house nominated Elisha Cooke, Jr. to be speaker. The recently arrived Governor Shute vetoed the nomination because Cooke had been critical of his predecessor. The assembly disputed Shute's right to do this and decided to adjourn, whereupon Shute dissolved the house and called new elections. The house remained adamant over its choice of speaker and in the end Shute appealed to the Privy Council, which issued an explanatory charter in 1725 affirming the right of the governor to veto the nominee of the lower house. Significantly, the assembly accepted this ruling, fearing that further obstruction might mean the loss of the 1691 charter.

  The extension of representation was another area of dispute. The Crown took the view that representation was a privilege which only it could grant. The lower houses asserted that it was part of their inherent right to determine their own membership. The matter was potentially explosive, since the need for additional representation often arose in light of the continuing westward spread of the population. In practice the lower houses were not always quick to act, since the creation of new constituencies would weaken the influence of the existing tidewater areas. In most colonies the Crown did permit limited increases in representation. Nevertheless, from 1747 to 1752 the issue provoked a bitter dispute in New Hampshire between the assembly and Governor Wentworth, who asserted that membership had been fixed at the time of the original charter and could not be unilaterally increased by the house.