The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

by Bernard Bailyn

  23. Charles Turner, speech in the Massachusetts convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 30–32; Henry, speech in the Virginia convention, ibid., III, 324, 314.

  24. “Federal Farmer,” III, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 242 (38–39); and above, pp. 61–63, 112–119.

  25. “A Columbian Patriot” [Warren], Observations, Doc. Hist., XVI, CC 581 (280); Mason, speech in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 378–381 (for the full documentation of Mason’s view of standing armies and the threat to militia troops, see Robert A. Rutland, ed., Papers of George Mason, 1725–1792 [Chapel Hill, 1970], III, 1073–1081); Patrick Dollard, speech in the South Carolina convention, Elliot, Debates, IV, 338; “A Democratic Federalist,” Doc. Hist., XIII, CC 167 (390) — on Burgh, see above, p. 41 and references there; “Brutus,” VIII, Doc. Hist., XV, CC 437 (337–338); “Federal Farmer,” III, ibid., XIV, CC 242 (39); Caldwell, speech in the North Carolina convention, Elliot, Debates, IV, 62 (emphasis added); Holmes, speech in the Massachusetts convention, ibid., II, III (emphasis in original).

  26. Taylor, speech in the Massachusetts convention, ibid., II, 53; Lowndes, speech in the South Carolina convention, ibid., IV, 289.

  27. William Symmes, Jr., to Peter Osgood, Jr., Andover, Mass., November 15, 1787, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 262, at III; “Brutus,” III, ibid., CC 264 (123–124); Mason, “Objections to the Constitution,” ibid., CC 276A (151); Martin, Genuine Information, IX, ibid., XV, CC 484 (496–497). Suppose, wrote “Cincinnatus” in his fifth essay (ibid., XIV, CC 307), the Privy Council in England, the official advisory body to the king, “were vested with the sole power of trying impeachments. Would any man say that this would not render that body absolute, and impeachment, to all popular purposes, nugatory?” The most elaborate reply to Mason’s and Martin’s specific charges against the pardoning power was Iredell’s “Marcus” III essay (ibid., XVI, CC 596), in which he concedes that it is possible a President would pardon a co-conspirator to “prevent a discovery of his own guilt,” but not probable, if only because the pardoned accomplice would then be free to testify against the President with no fear of retribution. Further, the President would be more, not less, exposed if he pardoned his accomplice than if he let the law take its course. In any case, against any possible danger the pardoning power might have, Iredell argued, must be put the necessity of protecting the nation’s secret agents when revealed as collaborators by the enemy in time of war and subject to popular fury for their apparent treason. No one else — neither the courts nor the juries — could rescue such a “useful but dishonourable character”; for him, the “prerogative of mercy in the chief magistrate of a great country ought to be at hand.” See also “Impartial Citizen,” V, Doc. Hist., VIII, 428–430; Federalist LXIX and LXXIV [Hamilton], ibid., XVI, CC 617, 644.

  28. Samuel Nasson, speech in the Massachusetts convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 137; Henry, speech in the Virginia convention, ibid., III, 147; “Agrippa” [Winthrop], IV, V, and esp. VI and VII, in Ford, Essays, pp. 63 ff., quotation from IX, 79.

  29. Singletary, speech in the Massachusetts convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 101; United States Chronicle (Providence, R.I.), August 5, 1788 (quoting Hopkins); “An Old Whig,” III (referring to “the publications of the years 1774, 1775, 1776, and 1777”), Doc. Hist., XIII, CC 181; “Centinel,” II, III, ibid., CC 190; XIV, CC 243; Robert Whitehill, speech in the Pennsylvania convention, ibid., II, 527; on Burgh, n. 25 above; Henry, speeches in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 396, 411; “A Columbian Patriot” [Warren], Doc. Hist., XVI, CC 581 (esp. 281–282). Cf. above, pp. 28–29, 53.

  30. Henry, speech in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 148, 149, 164, 165, 327. For another antifederalist’s similar view of “the principle of self-love,” see “Brutus,” IV, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 306; for a federalist’s version, see “A Countryman” [Roger Sherman], II, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 284.

  31. Mason, speech in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 32; speeches of Joseph McDowell and William Lenoir in the North Carolina convention, ibid., IV, 150, 203–204; “Cato,” V, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 286; Charles Turner, speech in the Massachusetts convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 30–32; Patrick Dollard, speech in the South Carolina convention, ibid., IV, 337. Cf. Paine, Common Sense, quoted above, p. 143, and “A Georgian,” Doc. Hist., III, 236.

  32. “Brutus,” I, ibid., XIII, CC 178, quotations at 417, 418. For an identical argument, see “Agrippa” [Winthrop], IV, in Ford, Essays, pp. 63–65.

  33. “Cato,” III, Doc. Hist., XIII, CC 195; “Federal Farmer,” II, ibid., XIV, CC 244, quotation at 29; “Agrippa” [Winthrop], esp. VII, in Ford, Essays, p. 73; Mason, speech in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 30. For the use of Montesquieu as the great authority on such matters, see Paul M. Spurlin, Montesquieu in America, 1760–1801 (University, La., 1940), chap. vi.

  34. Henry, speech in the Virginia convention, ibid., p. 150; “An Old Whig,” V, Doc. Hist., XIII, CC 224; “Federal Farmer,” II, ibid., XIV, CC 242, quotation at 27.

  35. Pickering to Charles Tillinghast, Philadelphia, December 24, 1787, ibid., CC 288C (197); Federalist XXIX [Hamilton], ibid., XV, CC 429; Hamilton, speech in the New York convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 262–263, 320; “Impartial Citizen,” V, Doc. Hist., VIII, 428; “Aristides” [Hanson], Remarks, ibid., XV, CC 490A (536); Federalist XXX [Hamilton], ibid., CC 391 (164); “Cassius,” in Virginia Independent Chronicle, April 2, 1788; Madison, speech in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 433; Federalist XIV [Madison], Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 310.

  36. [Noah Webster], An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution … by a Citizen of America (Philadelphia, [1787]), in Ford, Pamphlets, p. 52; “An American Citizen” [Coxe], IV, Doc. Hist., XIII, CC 183A.

  37. Pickering to Tillinghast, ibid., XIV, CC 288C (203); Samuel Holden Parsons to William Cushing, Middletown, Conn., January 11, 1788, ibid., III, 570; “Aristides” [Hanson], Remarks, ibid., XV, CC 490A (532); “Marcus” [Iredell], IV, ibid., XVI, CC 616 (385); Corbin and Nicholas, speeches in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 112–113, 389–390.

  38. Federalist VIII and XXVI [Hamilton], Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 274; XV, CC 366; “An Impartial Citizen,” VI, ibid., VIII, 498.

  39. Federalist XXII, XV, XXVII, XXXII–XXXIII [Hamilton], ibid., XIV, CC 347, 312; XV, CC 378, 405.

  40. Ellsworth, speech in the Connecticut convention, ibid., XV, CC 420 (278–279, emphasis added) — cf. above, n. 13; Federalist XX [Madison], ibid., XIV, CC 340. Madison’s view of federalism as a fulfillment and resolution of the ancient fear of dual sovereignty was a commonplace in federalist thought. Thus the Connecticut lawyer Samuel Holden Parsons, writing a month after the publication of Federalist XX, expressed the same idea in similar words, explaining that dual sovereignty is a political absurdity only when both powers are “coextensive in their objects.” Towns, surely, or counties have legislative powers for some purposes: does that mean a state cannot exist and legislate too? Parsons to Cushing, January 11, 1788 (above, n. 37), p. 573.

  41. Randolph and Corbin, speeches in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 85, 69, 107, 108; Federalist IX, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 277 (160).

  42. Wilson, speech in the Pennsylvania convention, ibid., II, 352–353, 355; Federalist IX [Hamilton], ibid., XIV, CC 277; see also Bowdoin, speech in the Massachusetts convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 128. For more on Montesquieu’s concept of a confederated republic as a possible solution to the problem of size, see Spurlin, Montesquieu, pp. 196–200.

  43. Stevens’ seven “Americanus” essays, not yet included in the Doc. Hist, series, were published in the New York Daily Advertiser, November 2, 23, 30; December 5–6, 12, 1787; and January 12, 21, 1788. The quotations and specific citations in the text are from nos. I–IV, VI.

  44. Federalist LXXXIV [Hamilton], Cooke ed., pp. 582, 583. Cf. n. 5 above.

  45. Madison to Jefferson, October 24, 1787, in Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., Papers of James Madison (Chicago
and Charlottesville, 1973–), X, 205–220; Federalist X, LI, Doc. Hist. XIV, CC 285; XVI, CC 503. The famous passage quoted at length below is from CC 285, at 181.

  46. For the passionate antifederalist James Winthrop’s defense of state sovereignty in terms of protecting local interest groups, see “Agrippa,” VII, in Ford, Essays, p. 73: “It is only by protecting local concerns that the interest of the whole is preserved. No man when he enters society does it from a view to promote the good of others, but he does it for his own good. All men having the same view are bound equally to promote the welfare of the whole.” For a federalist’s view of “interest,” published three days before the appearance of Federalist X, see “Philanthrop,” Doc. Hist., III, 468–470 (“surely real true self interest, considered on a large extensive scale, is public good”).

  47. It is worth noting that Federalist X, far from constituting a sudden new theory of politics, was the expansion of ideas Madison had long been considering. It was in his pre-convention memorandum “Vices of the Political System of the United States” (April 1787) that he had first recorded his concern for “the insecurity of private rights” in majoritarian republics and argued that the larger the sphere of the republic, the greater the probability that factions would check and neutralize each other and the less likely that any one of them would be a threat to the preservation of private rights. When he came to deal with the operational mechanics of the Constitution, he used the idea of extended spheres in a more specific way, to justify his proposal, which the convention rejected, of a Congressional veto over state legislation deemed to be in conflict with the Constitution, federal laws and regulations, and individual rights. Why would Congress not itself be factious, partial, unfair, even exploitative in using such a veto? Why would it be impartial? When, in his letter to Jefferson of October 24, he came to answer that question and hence to justify his advocacy of a Congressional veto, he explained that the multitude of interests and factions in America’s extended republic would guarantee Congress’ impartiality. No one group would be able fully to control Congress, hence no one group would be in a position to use Congress’ veto for its own, selfish purposes. Madison thought so highly of this justification of his defeated idea of a Congressional veto that he excerpted that entire section of the letter in his own hand, apparently for later use. He did not wait long to reuse it. Within a month he took over this passage, written to Jefferson to justify the Congressional veto, and developed it along the lines of his earlier, more general “Vices,” simply to argue, in Federalist X (November 22), that an extended republic reduced rather than increased the dangers of factionalism; and he used it again, similarly, in Federalist LI (February 6, 1788). Madison would have been surprised to learn that these familiar ideas, of factionalism and its relation to extended spheres, would at one point, generations later, be hailed as the advent of a new political science, at another as the justification for patrician rule. Cf. Papers of James Madison, X, 205–206; excerpted passage at 209–214.

  48. Federalist LV, ibid., XVI, CC 525 (114–115); Madison, speech in the Virginia convention, Elliot, Debates, III, 536–537.

  49. Washington to the Marquis de Lafayette, Mount Vernon, February 7, 1788, Doc. Hist., XVI, CC 509; “Fabius” [Dickinson], IX, in Ford, Pamphlets, p. 215; West, Thompson, and Ames speeches in the Massachusetts convention, Elliot, Debates, II, 32–33, 33–34, 10; Winfred E. A. Bernhard, Fisher Ames (Chapel Hill, 1965), pp. 6, 73; Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government (Stanford, 1970), pp. 70–74, quotation at 71; Federalist LXXVI, Cooke ed., pp. 513–514. Cf. Hamilton’s earlier statement (Federalist XXII, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 347) that only “minds animated and guided by superior virtue” can overcome the natural corruptibility of ordinary people suddenly elevated to positions of power in a republic, and on such minds, protected and favored by a proper constitution, the survival of freedom will depend.

  50. Murray, “Political Sketches,” American Museum, II, no. 3 (September 1787), 220, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232. Cf. Alexander deConde, “William Vans Murray’s Political Sketches: A Defense of the American Experiment,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 41 (1954–55), 623–640. Murray was a political disciple of John Adams, who was ambassador in London when Murray was writing his essays, and addressed the essays to Adams. Adams himself was then writing his Defence of the Constitutions … of the United States of America (3 vols., 1787–88), which similarly disparages Montesquieu’s ideas. In a long passage in volume III (1788), Adams followed Murray’s ideas closely and, independently of Webster and Stevens, developed views similar to theirs as well. Adams, Works, VI, 206–216, quotations at 208, 211.

  51. Webster, Sketches (facsimile ed., New York, 1937), p. 24n; Examination, in Ford, Pamphlets, pp. 57, 59, 60 — echoed in Webster’s “To the Dissenting Members of the Late Convention of Pennsylvania” (December 31, 1787), Doc. Hist., XV, CC 399 (195). For the federalists’ request to Webster, see Thomas FitzSimmons to Noah Webster, Philadelphia, September 15, 1787, in Noah Webster Collection, New York Public Library; reproduced in microfiche addenda to Doc. Hist., II, at mf. pp. 707–708.

  52. “Americanus” [Stevens], VI, New York Daily Advertiser, December 12, 1787; remarks on Sparta are in paper I, November 2, 1787. Cf. Hamilton’s comment in The Continentalist (1782) that it is folly to urge pure disinterestedness in republican politics: “We might as soon reconcile ourselves to the Spartan community of goods and wives, to their iron coin, their long beards, or their black broth … it is as ridiculous to seek for models in the simple ages of Greece and Rome, as it would be to go in quest of them among the Hottentots and Laplanders.” Quoted in Stourzh, Hamilton, p. 70.

  53. All of the federalists’ discussions of the Constitution are, in one way or another, commentaries on power, its uses and abuses; but for a particularly clear and cogent discussion of power, in the abstract and in practice, see “A Landholder” [Ellsworth], III, Doc. Hist., XIV, CC 272.

  54. Typically, Wilson’s speech in the Pennsylvania convention, Doc., Hist., III, 352–353, and that convention’s general sentiment, p. 367; Federalist XIV [Madison], ibid., XIV, CC 310.

  55. “An American Citizen” [Coxe], IV, ibid., XIII, CC 183A (435).

  56. Federalist XX [Madison], ibid., CC 340; Madison to Jefferson, October 24, 1787 (cited above, n. 46), pp. 209–210.

  57. See above, quotation on pp. 336–337.

  58. Edward Rutledge, speech in the South Carolina convention, Elliot, Debates, IV, 276.

  INDEX

  Aberdeen University, 35

  Adams, Abigail, 133

  Adams, Amos: Concise Historical View, 83; Religious Liberty, 262

  Adams, John, 8, 20, 26, 99, 109, 118, 176; on nature of the Revolution, 1, 160; literary style of, 16; Thoughts on Government, 16, 45, 172, 272–273, 289, 290, 291; on Paine, 18, 288–290; on classical authors, 24–25, 26; “Novanglus,” 35, 57, 76, 100, 110, 133, 137, 172, 233, 277, 280; Works, 35, 67, 68, 69, 74, 98, 292; and radical Whigs, 42, 45; Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 55, 57, 81, 83, 97–98, 102, 140; on power, 55–56; Diary, 56, 59, 61, 100, 107, 248, 268, 290; on weakness of liberty, 59; constitutional views of, 67–69, 74, 82, 175; on Saxon constitution, 82; on presumed conspiracy to subvert colonial liberty, 98, 121–122; on Stamp Act, 101–102; on plural officeholding, 109–110; on Boston Massacre, 117; on corruption in England, 135–136, 137; on destiny of American colonies, 140; on enslavement of colonies, 233; on religious establishment, 166–167, 248, 268–270; on Mayhew-Apthorp controversy, 256–257; on colonial nobility, 279; on democracy and republicanism, 282–283; and Murray (W. V.), 372; Defence of the Constitutions…, 372

  Adams, Samuel: on power, 60; “A Puritan,” 98; on fixed constitution, 181, 337

  Adams, Zabdiel, Grounds of Confidence, 61

  Addison, Joseph, 8, 77; Cato, 44

  Administration of Justice Act, 118–119

  Admiralty, Court of (Vice-), 108–109

  Africa, 79, 138, 243

  Agents, co
lonial, 166

  “Agrippa” (pseud. of James Winthrop), 322, 343, 349, 366

  Allen, John: literary style of, 18; sketch of, 18; American Alarm, 18, 38, 107, 122, 123, 125, 233, 255, 267, 268, 274–275, 306; Oration upon the Beauties of Liberty, 18, 107, 116, 123, 124–125, 310; Watchman’s Alarm, 77, 240–241; on slavery, 240–241; on religious establishment, 267–268

  Almon, John, 88, 148

  Ambition and desire for power: antifederalists and, 344–347, 368; federalists and, 368–369, 375, 379. See also Power

  “Americanus” (pseud. of J. Stevens, Jr.), 329, 330, 363–365, 374, 375

  Ames, Fisher, 370

  Andrewes, Lancelot, 315

  Anglicans, see Church of England

  Antifederalists, 331–351; writings of, 326–328; fear concentrated power, 330–331, 331–332, 333, 338, 345–347; and Tories, compared, 332; oppose uniformity, 343; view of human nature, 345–347; on size of republic, 347–349

  Aplin, John, Verses, 11–12, 96–97

  Apthorp, East: and Mayhew controversy, 5, 96–97, 254–257; Considerations, 255

  Arbuthnot, John: Art of Political Lying, 13; History of John Bull, 13

  Argument Shewing That a Standing Army, see Trenchard