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War and Constitution-Making in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1754-1788 James Fred Hrdlicka Garfield Heights, Ohio B.A. University

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War and Constitution-Making in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1754-1788 James Fred Hrdlicka Garfield Heights, Ohio B.A. University War and Constitution-Making in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1754-1788 James Fred Hrdlicka Garfield Heights, Ohio B.A. University of Notre Dame, 2010 M.A. University of Virginia, 2012 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Corcoran Department of History University of Virginia August 2016 Abstract Throughout the Revolutionary era, Americans embraced the capacity of constitutional government at all levels to mobilize power to achieve desired ends. This study explores how and why the inhabitants of one province-turned-state looked to the institutions, practices, and authority of constitutional government to address the myriad challenges they faced between the French and Indian War and the ratification of the United States Constitution. In these years, people in Massachusetts viewed constitutions as more than sets of theoretical propositions designed to limit the power of those who ruled, and they appreciated them not only because they provided opportunities to declare inviolable rights. Constitutions also comprised practical plans of government through which the populace could effectively mobilize power during times of greatest strain. War and its burdens thus formed the essential backdrop as inhabitants considered what made for legitimate and effective government. In no other context did government demand so much of them; at no other times were they presented with as many opportunities to consider the nature of their attachments to the state and to each other. This study properly situates the narrative of constitutional development by first examining the process by which authorities worked with the populace to mobilize men and resources for war and the specific contexts of governance in which that process occurred. This approach foregrounds the concrete problems historical subjects were trying to address and then attempts to understand their actions and ideas. For Massachusetts inhabitants, the experience of wartime mobilization and governance varied dramatically. The most important factor lay in the transformations to the larger polity under whose umbrella Massachusetts’ government operated. Between the start of the French and Indian War and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Massachusetts existed as part of a powerful global empire, a confederation of states, and finally a federal union. Massachusetts i inhabitants felt the effects of these shifting geopolitical circumstances in the course of their daily lives. While a province of the British Empire, the greatest fiscal-military state in the world, Massachusetts could wage war, as it did from 1754-63, without severely impinging on the prosperity or stability of local communities. During the Revolution, by contrast, the burdens of mobilization fell far more heavily on towns and individuals. As the state’s Revolutionary government required ever-greater sacrifices from the populace, inhabitants created and adopted a new state constitution whose enhanced popular sanction for the exercise of authority, they hoped, would help Massachusetts overcome the challenges of war and its aftermath. Yet the disintegration of the British Empire had left Massachusetts in a geopolitical “state of nature” relative to the other former colonies. Of these states, Massachusetts appeared perhaps best- equipped to thrive in the Confederation it had helped establish. Even Massachusetts’ “excellent” constitution proved ineffective in the context of the Confederation’s dysfunction, however. In 1775, Massachusetts had accepted war to preserve its corporate rights within the empire; by the 1780s, a majority in Massachusetts concluded that collective “self-preservation” now demanded a stronger continental union, an American empire of sorts, that performed many of the same functions as its British predecessor—albeit in ways amenable to a mobilized people’s raised expectations. Constitutional governments endowed with popular legitimacy offered an alternative means to mobilize power in a world of imposing monarchical states. ii Table of Contents Abstract i Table of Contents iii Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1 “The Attachment of the People”: The Massachusetts Charter, the French and Indian War, and the Coming of the American Revolution 15 Chapter 2 In a State of Nature: Self-Preservation in Massachusetts, 1774-1775 86 Chapter 3 The Rule of Equity: Governance and Mobilization, 1775-1780 169 Chapter 4 A Useful Piece of Machinery: Constitution-Making, 1775-1780 232 Chapter 5 The “Excellent Constitution” and the Confederation, 1780-1787 298 Conclusion The Federal Union 348 Appendix List of Massachusetts Towns Voting for Independence or the Articles of Confederation, with Citations 359 Bibliography 374 iii Acknowledgments Several institutions granted funding that enabled me to complete this dissertation. I would like to thank the University of Virginia for providing me with a fellowship and the Corcoran Department of History for granting me other aid for research. A Quinn Fellowship from the Doris G. Quinn Foundation freed me from teaching responsibilities for a semester. Similarly, I benefitted from an Early American Dissertation Fellowship from the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. I am also grateful to the Beinecke Scholarship Program and its director, Dr. Thomas Parkinson, as well as to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. My teachers and fellow students at the University of Virginia have offered constant support. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Peter Onuf, for his help and encouragement at every stage. It is a great intellectual and personal privilege to be his student. Max Edelson and Alan Taylor have provided guidance and thoughtful advice on my work while also nurturing a community of graduate students who have made Charlottesville a wonderful place to study history. I am grateful for the opportunity to present my work at our Early American Seminar and to learn from all its devoted members. At UVA, I would also like to thank Gary Gallagher, Paul Halliday, and Elizabeth Varon. Patrick Griffin of the University of Notre Dame has been a mentor since I was an undergraduate. All are inspiring models of scholarship, professionalism, and generosity. The International Center for Jefferson Studies provided an ideal place to research and write, and I am immensely grateful to Christa Dierksheide, Kate MacDonald, Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Mary Scott-Fleming, Tasha Stanton, and Gaye Wilson for their support and friendship. The staffs at Alderman Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the iv Massachusetts State Archives made my research possible. Jonathan Chu of the New England Quarterly provided helpful editorial advice on portions of Chapter 1. I have also benefitted from presenting parts of my work at conferences hosted by the New England Historical Association and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. I am most grateful to my family: my grandparents, Janet and James Lewane; my parents, Barbara and Donald Hrdlicka; and my wife, Courtney Hrdlicka. v Introduction Throughout the Revolutionary era, Americans embraced the capacity of constitutional government at all levels to mobilize power to achieve desired ends. This study explores how and why the inhabitants of one province-turned-state looked to the institutions, practices, and authority of constitutional government to address the myriad challenges they faced between the French and Indian War and the ratification of the United States Constitution. In these years, people in Massachusetts viewed constitutions as more than sets of theoretical propositions designed to limit the power of those who ruled, and they appreciated them not only because they provided opportunities to declare inviolable rights. Constitutions also comprised practical plans of government through which the populace could effectively mobilize power during times of greatest strain. For inhabitants, there existed no clear distinction between abstract political theory and the tangible workings of government, for a fundamentally dysfunctional government—one that did not respond to the people’s needs, distribute burdens equitably, or protect the community from violence and threats—could never maintain the degree of legitimacy necessary to ensure its own survival. In Massachusetts, war and its burdens thus formed the essential backdrop as inhabitants considered what made for legitimate and effective government. In no other context did government demand so much of them; at no other times were they presented with as many opportunities to consider the nature of their attachments to the state and to each other. Accordingly, my approach to understanding constitutional development in Massachusetts is to begin by examining both the process by which political authorities worked with the populace to mobilize men and resources for war and the specific contexts of governance in which that process occurred. This approach foregrounds the concrete problems historical subjects were 1 trying to address and then attempts to understand their actions and ideas. To do the opposite—to assign our subjects ideologies or worldviews and then, on that basis, to identify what they considered problems—comes at the risk of exaggerating how large certain issues loomed in their minds while also underestimating their capacity to assess their situations rationally and creatively. Through both their written statements and their actions related to wartime mobilization, inhabitants
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