Political developments within the STATES

What text gave republicanism wide currency in America?

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776)

What is republicanism, put simply?

Implies a form of government which represents the whole people, essentially a government by consent of the governed

In what ways was America quite well suited to republicanism?

• 1763 colonial assemblies → substantial power, most white men could vote

• 1770s even more democratic → e.g. gentry passed resolutions against British tyranny in assemblies, men standing in streets to intimidate stamp distributors and royal officials, Sons of Liberty, Committees of Safety (spread across colonies 1774-5) brought many new men into politics

Once allegiance to Crown was repudiated, what was the only acceptable system of political values? Why?

• Republicanism

• Legitimacy for government and authority

• Central proposition of popular sovereignty (political power held by the people)

When British authority collapsed 1774-5, what did colonial assemblies do?

Reconstructed themselves as provincial conventions

Why did Congress falter in 1775?

When asked whether it would recommend colonies (soon to be states) drawing up new constitutions; some states changed their constitutions before Congress decided

What did Congress do May 1776?

Adopted a resolution by John Adams → it called on all states that did not have a permanent constitution based on popular sovereignty to adopt one

1776-80 how many states adopted new constitutions?

All but 2 (exceptions Rhode Island and Connecticut, which revised their colonial charters, deleting all reference to royal authority)

New state constitutions

Embodied the principles of republicanism

After 1775-6 what were two key groups in America?

Elitists and Democrats

Who were the elitists?

• Men who had led the assemblies

• Felt while governments should maintain liberty, must also preserve order

• Feared too much democracy might make unstable governments → anarchy

• Wanted to design republics where people would exercise their sovereignty by choosing the best people to govern and then standing aside to let them do so

What did the elitists seek to do?

Create governments along the lines of the former colonial system:

• Franchise → property holders

• High property qualifications for office holding

• Right to vote → exercised relatively infrequently

• Two-housed (bicameral) legislature → one represents people, one elite

• Governors wide powers

Who were the democrats?

Often men from humble backgrounds

What did the democrats want?

• A broad franchise (although not enslaved people or women)

• No/low property qualifications office holding

• Frequent elections

• One-housed (unicameral) legislatures → no aristocratic second chamber

• A weak executive

New state constitutions - who did sovereignty reside with?

The people

New state constitutions - separation of powers

All were concerned about separation of powers (powers shared between legislative, executive + judiciary so no one is dominant) - Virginia first to spell out explicitly that each branch would be separate and distinct

New state constitutions - legislature

Usual provision for legislature of two houses → exceptions Pennsylvania and Georgia

Lower house → directly represented people

Upper house/senate → represented ‘gentlemen’

New state constitutions - qualifications to vote

Original states needed property ownership/payment of taxes to vote

Property qualifications for voting generally low

Most states over 2/3 white men over age of 21 could vote

New state constitutions - office holding

Qualifications for office holding remained much the same as under colonial governments - largely based on property ownership, with only male property owners typically eligible

New state constitutions - executive

• Every state (except Pennsylvania) had a single executive head - the governor

• Was chosen by legislature

• Often governors denied many of powers enjoyed by their royal predecessors as deep suspicion of executive power

• 10 states set 1-year terms

• Many little more than figureheads

How was power of legislatures limited new state constitutions?

Usual requirement to hold annual elections, inclusion in most constitutions of bills of rights

Which state provided the model for a Bill of Rights?

The Virginia Declaration of Rights - 1776

What was a bill of rights (laid out by Virginia)?

• Fundamental liberties which Americans had come to regard as their own

• Freedom of expression, worship and assembly

• Subordination of military to civil power

• Right to jury trial

• Protection against cruel and unusual punishments

• Guarantees against self-incrimination, arrest without knowing accuser, and against search warrants

In which states did elites retain their power?

For example South Carolina and Virginia

Why, in some states, did elites retain their power?

Property qualifications restricted the electorate in virtually every state and for office holding were sometimes so high as to exclude all but very wealthy (elites)

Why did new men start to enter office?

• Reduced property qualifications for voting - many state governments more responsive to popular opinion

• Departure of many loyalist office holders - more vacancies for new men, often of modest means

Pre-1775 - 1783 proportion of men from old elite families in legislatures

Dropped from 46% to 22%

Pre-1775 vs afterwards smaller farmers and artisans proportion in assemblies vs legislatures

About 1/5 assembly members, then majority in some northern legislatures and a sizeable minority in south

Cosmopolitans vs localists

Agrarian-localist interests on one side and commercial-cosmopolitan interests on the other

Locations of cosmopolitans

• North → from commercial areas

• South → comprised large property owners

• Most → along navigable rivers, connections in towns + with large-scale commerce, wealthy

Opinions + interests of cosmopolitans

• Wide interests + experience, broader outlook than fellow citizens

• Activist government (a government that actively engages in taking action to achieve specific social, political, or economic goals)

• Conservative monetary policies

Locations of localists

• Predominantly rural

• Owned smaller properties

• Remoter interior areas

Opinions + interests localists

• Narrower intellectual, economic and social horizons

• Suspicious of government, banking + urban interests

What was the period where individual states remained the main state for political activity

1775-1787

What did states do + control?

• Own finances, trade + economic policy

• Political + social issues

What happened in 1777 states?

Two New York counties - Gloucester and Cumberland - formed separate state of Vermont in 1777

When did Vermont receive official recognition?

1791

Issues for states - army

• Operations of both armies → civil administration difficult, sometimes impossible

• Occupation by British of New York City (1776-83), Philadelphia (1777-8) and Charleston (1780-2) → things hard for these cities, especially financially

Issues for states - money

• Increase taxation - but revenue raised insufficient

• Thus → finance war by issuing paper currency

• INFLATION

Issues for states - loyalism

Each state required men to take oaths of allegiance to the state, those who refused could be barred from practising their trade or profession, had to pay extra taxes, could be banished or imprisoned

All states laws for confiscation of loyalist property

Which states prohibited established Churches after 1775?

New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia (9 states)

Religion in Virginia post-1775

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson worked to ensure religion became a private matter

1786 what happened regarding religion?

Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (Jefferson) finally approved by state legislature - prohibited all forms of state intervention in religious affairs, no Church to enjoy privileges denied to others, no many to suffer formal disadvantages due to religion

However, all the New England states except Rhode Island → taxpayers still had to support ‘public Protestant worship’