Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution

I. Reproducing the Old World Order in the Provinces

3 The Transmission of Restricted Liberty to Colonial America I. Reproducing the Old World Order in the Provinces Nobility in Men is worth as much as it is in Horses Asses or Rams: but the meanest blooded Puppy, in the World, if he gets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them. —John Adams, 1813 It has long been a commonplace that late colonial American society was less structured than the mother country. This undisputed fact is often flanked by a belief that an order of ranks had never meant much to the provincials, and that ‘‘Americans, conscious that they lacked the extremes of wealth characteristic of older European countries, generally accepted equality as a characteristic of their society and of the governments they were founding .’’∞ There is much evidence, however, that points in the opposite direction, revealing a persistent quest to reproduce at least some of the major distinctions present in the mother country. In fact, the more undi√erentiated colonial society appeared to be, the more the provincial elite, and those aspiring to enter its ranks, struggled to re-create at least a semblance of hierarchy. Their principal means of achieving this goal was to emulate the characteristics of the English gentry, an unsurprising fact since throughout the colonial period the political, economic, and cultural identity of British America—an imperial outpost—was deeply dependent on the metropolis. The sheer intensity of the transmission of restricted liberty 57 these mimetic e√orts, and the strength of the provincials’ ambition—ever futile—to be considered equals with their English counterparts were quite remarkable. They tell us much about how the concept of restricted, rankspeci fic liberty was transmitted to the colonies, and of how it held sway throughout the Revolutionary era—even if the various declarations of independence from London, with their sweeping use of egalitarian rhetoric, suggested otherwise. Without going into the details of an otherwise well-covered subject, it is today a little disputed fact that by the third decade of the eighteenth century, British America—despite its relative social homogeneity—had witnessed the emergence of a genuine, creole upper class confidently claiming to be free and independent. Any fresh discussion of the nature and species of contemporary liberty must take a new, sober look at this elite, not as bearers of a ‘‘reactionary ’’ or ‘‘progressive’’ liberty, but as a socioeconomic class that dominated the public scene in late colonial America, monopolized the educational and political capital of the colony, and by 1764 had a grand stake in preserving their social station. In New England, the elite was made up of a combination of the clergy, powerful lawyers, and men of wealth, and comprised a ruling class that Abraham Bishop of Connecticut saw in 1800 as a form of continuing ‘‘aristocracy.’’ In the South, the elite comprised a slaveholding, landed class, which in some colonies developed into a virtual oligarchy. In1774, John Day, who had lived in British America for decades, identified a colonial upper class consisting of ‘‘the landed or moneyed interest,’’ ‘‘the ‘‘commercial men,’’ ‘‘practitioners of the law,’’ and the ‘‘clergy,’’ a classificatory scheme that does not much depart from the social composition of the few dozen men who devised the Constitution. The elite / non-elite distinction remained a basic cultural norm. As late as 1791, William Brewster, an ambitious Connecticut shoemaker (and so a member of the class of ‘‘mechanics’’) who published political articles on taxation in the Norwich Packet, complained that the public ignored or ridiculed him for having taken up an activity beyond his station.≤ The term ‘‘elite’’ used here is not merely an economic one; it refers to a class that, in relation to the rest of society, was the most free, one whose autonomy depended on their control of property and cultural resources, and who had the power to influence collective beliefs and behavior—especially by imposing a conceptual vocabulary which legitimized such an order and made it appear natural. 58 culture and liberty in the age of the american revolution While the existence of elites is not in dispute, historians have di√ered over the degree of their authority. Progressives divided the elites into conservatives and radicals. Charles Beard defined their elitism by their ‘‘economic interests ,’’ mostly ignoring their identity as a class. Consensus historians shoved them under the carpet by emphasizing shared, egalitarian values. More recently...