Building a Revolutionary State: The Legal Transformation of New York, 1776–1783 by Howard Pashman (review)

While significant attention has been devoted to the development of a national system that united the thirteen colonies in rebellion against Great Britain, scholarship has infrequently addressed the experience of individual states shifting from colonial government to semi-stable self-government. No longer colonies, but not yet part of an integrated and independent nation, they were still charged with the task of building a legal system that could administer justice, authority, and order amid ongoing chaos and conflict. Howard Pashman explores the development of such a system in New York during its wartime status as a "revolutionary state." By focusing exclusively on the rebuilding of one state's legal system, Pashman argues that the most effective means of garnering support for the new "revolutionary regime" in New York was the redistribution of property (35). Not only did this practice unite revolting colonists in their need to fund war efforts, but it also accounted for the long-term personal security of its citizens and satisfied their desire to punish and expel loyalists.

Pashman begins his work by situating the revolutionary state in its colonial context, briefly explaining the English legal principles on which the colonists had based their society as well as the role wealth played in colonial society and law. By establishing from the beginning of the work that New York's socioeconomic sphere consisted of "highly visible wealth" and "large estates and wealthy landlords," his analysis of legal change incorporates a social lens that is critical to understanding the importance of redistribution in New York (23). This socioeconomic aspect of redistribution was further complicated by the British occupation of New York in 1776 and 1777. Because loyalists then had the backing of the British military in organizing their counterrevolutionary attacks, revolutionary New Yorkers in turn were more inclined to cooperate with their provisional government, namely the Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies. The Committee evaluated and enforced punishments for loyalists, and in doing so, formed the basis of authority for a new legal system in the revolutionary state. Though initial enforcement of the Revolution's aim took the form of imprisoning and deporting loyalists, such a large-scale practice was soon recognized as infeasible, and the Committee eventually turned to court proceedings to evaluate the degree to which loyalists had worked against the Revolution and could be punished.

In 1777, the New York Provincial Convention determined redistribution to be official policy, solving the joint problems of abandoned property left by loyalists who fled and the need to provide for the revolutionary allies who stayed. From that point on, it became a legal method of stabilization for the new regime, and the Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies worked in tandem with the Commissioners of Sequestration to confiscate loyalist property and auction it off to citizens or repurpose it for government use. Pashman acknowledges the contradictory nature of forced property redistribution, which could be construed as the violation of property rights, but explains that the practice strengthened the legal system by creating a system of mutuality between "people who brought property and the revolutionary state that delivered it into their hands" (63).

In explaining how the permanent expropriation of loyalists and sale of their land was the culmination of New York's efforts as a revolutionary state to secure the united support of citizens for the provisional government, Pashman does an excellent job building the narrative throughout and between each chapter. In addition, he repeatedly underscores that New Yorkers worked closely with the Committee for socio-emotional reasons beyond the desire for stability or the expression of revolutionary ideology. The longstanding social inequality of New York's land distribution inspired many citizens to criminalize former landlords or loan agents who were loyalists to exact personal revenge against the past system and the present threat. As Pashman...