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  • Reflections on Political Deference in Early AmericaLet's Meet at the Graveside
  • John K. Alexander

The paper presenters on this panel on "Political Aspects of Deference" add their voices to the chorus of scholars who chant: be wary of employing the concept of deference as a way of understanding the politics of early America. However, to borrow the imagery of the conference organizers, the presenters differ on whether the "historiographical controversy" over the concept of deference in early America still has "any life" or if "deference" should, finally, "receive a decent burial."1

Alison Olson approaches the question by assessing the role humor played in supporting or undermining political deference in early America. She finds that the political humor that appeared in print before 1765 was fashioned principally for the "well born, well educated, well connected people in the capital towns." Although political humor only "appeared episodically" in this period, "cumulatively it was wearing away the deference paid to them [political leaders]." Still, according to Olson, the wearing away had not run deep because America's local politicians were "deferred to personally."2

Things started to change by 1765, and in the early 1770s Loyalists and "Patriots" increasingly utilized political humor "to undermine the deference that their opponent leaders hoped to win."3 Maintaining that it is easier to [End Page 383] poke fun at or ridicule what is "familiar," Olson believes that the patriots faced the more difficult task.4 Moreover, based on the specific examples offered, this commentator heartily concurs with Olson's assessment that much of the political humor that appeared in the years 1765–73 is "strikingly unfunny."5 However, I would carry that analysis forward to say that the examples of political humor from the era of the American Revolution as a whole are strikingly unfunny.6 Part of the problem might well be that these examples come from the print media. Despite the increase in inexpensive broadsides that Olson touts, that humor was still aimed at the well educated and politically sophisticated.7

Olson is aware of the unfortunate limits in the sources that push one to rely principally on the printed word. Considering "street shows," and by implication the spoken word as well as the visual nonverbal world, she asserts that "[s]treet humor . . . could be humor with a bite."8 This reminds us that one of the most effective forms of political humor—the great political joke offered up by a skilled storyteller—may be largely lost to historians who study early America.

Based on the examples she has discovered, Olson closes her discussion of political humor in the era of the American Revolution by reprising the theme that "[i]ncrementally . . . political humor did seem to undermine the standing of particular groups who enjoyed, or at least expected, deferential respect from their fellow colonists." Olson's findings match well with Gary B. Nash's discussion of how, at least in late colonial Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, warring political elites challenged each other's character and in the process unintentionally undermined the idea that the lower orders should defer to elites.9

Having proclaimed that her work supports the point that deference is a "slippery" term, Olson nevertheless says she does not "question the 'slipperyness' of deference as a useful term." This comment suggests that she is not volunteering to help dig deference's grave. But she seems ready to grasp the shovel when she insists, and rightly so, that "[i]n assessing the growth or decline of deference," we must remember that "deference, however closely [End Page 384] linked with social structure, can still be enhanced by some devices (ceremonies, for example) and undercut by others (like political humor)." As Olson warns, it is indeed "wise to keep such variables in mind."10 By emphasizing the variable that she sees as diminishing what political deference did exist in early America, Alison Olson undercuts the claim that the concept of deference is a viable way to assess the politics of that day.

Barbara Clark Smiths seems to find life in the concept of deference when she observes that colonial election results might tempt one to say that "colonial voters often deferred...

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