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The Democratic Republican Societies at the End of the Eighteenth Century: The Experience Marco M. Sioli University of Milan

On July 3, 1793 in , Alexander James Dallas, wealthy merchant and Secretary to Governor Thomas Mifflin, speaking in his capacity of promoter and member of the Correspondence Committee of the Democratic Republican Society of Pennsylvania, read in the presence of the officers of the Society a circular letter addressed to the several counties of the State. This letter sought to furnish Pennsylvania inhabitants "a copy of the constitution of the Democratic Society" and addressed itself to the citizens of the State "in hopes, that after a candid con- sideration of its principles, and objects, you may be induced to promote its adop- tion in the county of which you are inhabitant." According to this document, the United States of America faced a challenge as "the seeds of luxury appear to have taken root in our domestic soil; and the jealous eye of patriotism already regards the spirit of freedom and equality, as eclipsed by the pride of wealth and the arro- gance of power."' Citizens present at the meeting of the Democratic Republican Society of Pennsylvania made some changes in the circular letter: "It was moved and seconded, that the word Sir be struck out throughout the Letter and the words Humble Servants from the subscription thereof, and that the words Fellow Citizen and Fellow Citizens be substituted in lieu thereof."2 In this way, with the stroke of a pen, they signaled a rejection of the deference that had always characterized political documents and popular petitions, in the pre-revolutionary period and afterwards, Shays rebels included.3 Nor was it simply a formal change of attitude, comparable to a republican transformation of street names in towns: from Queen Street to Liberty Street, from King Street to Broad Street, for example. It was a deeper change, reflecting the modifying of conceptual relationships underlying subaltern classes and elites in power. Deference rituals that had characterized petitions and alternative political pro- posals gave way to the demand for mutual respect. The United States had reached a point of no return: Americans acquired consciousness of taking part in political

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decisions as "fellow citizens" and not as "servants." American lower classes had already brought their voice to local assemblies. Moreover, it was not unusual for "common people" to take the field directly, furnishing their opinion on particular political issues without respect for "good manners" or established authority.4 Fur- thermore, long before this moment, the elites had had to obtain the approval of an electorate composed especially of middle classes which were able to take part in the choice of political representatives.5 Now, social changes were encoded in written form and would influence all future petitions advanced by the lower classes. Petitions not only increased in "forthright language" blended with "traditional phrases with suggestion of republi- can citizenship," but they lost the characteristic tone of subjects imploring redress of oppression or inequity. 6 Petitions assumed the characteristics of political pro- posals put forth by citizens in whom power originates and is legitimated, citizens ready to rescind institutional bonds and propose an alternative form of govern- ment-no longer "humble servants" but "remonstrants."7 Especially in the frontier territories, hierarchic relationships creaked under the weight of social, economic and political conflict between yeomen, local 6lites in formation, and consolidated coastal classes. It is not surprising that this circular letter found an audience beyond the Appalachian Mountains. In July 1793, , poet and lawyer, who had moved from Philadelphia to Pitts- burgh searching for a better life, had already read to an assembly of Western Penn- sylvania delegates a letter from the people of Kentucky aimed at creating a com- mon bond of interest between western communities. All the delegates at this meet- ing endorsed the contents of this letter8 During the first months of the following year three Democratic Republican Societies were established in Western Pennsylvania.9 The Democratic Society of the County of Washington, born as a branch of the Democratic Republican Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,'0 the Society of United Freeman of Mingo Creek" and the Republican Society at the Mouth of the Yougiogheny,' 2 fueled the request for more direct participation in political decision-making. They also advanced several proposals in which it was already possible to see the outlines of a yeomen empire "beyond the temptations of Old World commerce and corrup- tion," well before the "democratic" aspirations of Thomas Jefferson's administra- tion.'3 In an area already disturbed by the "whiskey taxes" protest, these societies were an additional source of problems for the Federalist administration, especially

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Eugene Perry Link, The Democratic-Republican Societies (Octagon Books, New York, 1973).

A map showing the distribution on the 'frontier line" of the Democratic Republican Societies.

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on the Pennsylvania frontier, but not only there. 4 The same kind of protest was spreading in the Virginia and North Carolina backcountry and in Kentucky. And if we consider the map of distribution of the societies, we can note that almost half of these organizations are placed along what Eugene Perry Link, one of the first scholars to study the Democratic Republican Societies, called the "frontier line." The popular petitions/political proposals of these societies clearly delineate the common problems of the frontier and illuminate the frontier view of democracy. 15 Certainly the consequence of life on a western frontier induced the emer- gence of a culture independent of the "Eastern" values and laws. People living on the edge of political and economic power were contemptuous of authority. The wide territory beyond the Appalachian mountains was evolving according to its own inner socio-political logic as a zone where the frontiersmen would still fight over racial superiority, popular sovereignty and economic destiny in a "tale of con- tinuing tragedy."''6 Through their demands and proposals, Democratic Republican Societies broke into the discourse surrounding the early American frontier. It is possible to trace the borders of this territory and to single out these issues following an imagi- nary line linking frontier societies across the map and analyzing the requests included in Democratic Republican Societies' petitions in the backcountry. Indeed, these societies can be used as a framework for the reconstruction of American history in the last decade of the Eighteenth century as well as to link up lower class protest from the moment in which, in Philip Foner's words, "revolu- tionary soldiers returned to their homes to find them mortaged, their families in debt, and their government in the hands of wealthy merchants and landed gentry."'7 On April 5, 1794 the Gazette published a petition of the Demo- cratic Society of the County of Washington, dated March 24. "Our situation com- pels us to speak plainly," its authors declared. They added: If wretchedness and poverty await us, it is of no concerns to us how they are produced. We are gratified in the prosperity of the Atlantic states, but would not speak the language of truth and sincerity, were we not to declare our unwillingness, to make any sacrifices result from our distresses. If the interest of Eastern America requires that we should be kept in poverty, it is unreasonable from such poverty to exact contributions. The first, if we cannot emerge from, we must learn to bear, but the latter, we never can be taught to submit to. From the general government of America, therefore, your remonstrants now ask protection, iv the free enjoyment of the navigation of the river Mississippi, which is withheld from them by Spaniards.18

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If the focal point of this petition was a request for Government aid to obtain free navigation of the lower Mississippi, the general context represents an elo- quent testament to the western view of interregional relations in 1794. It was, as Thomas P.Slaughter puts it, "the summary of the handicaps the settlers believed they labored under as a result of their union with the East."19 The discrepancies clearly visible between their hard frontier life and the comfort they imagined coastal Eastern inhabitants enjoyed, provoked the request for "equal sacrifices." This frontiersman credo acted as part of a "moral economy" undergoing change from below no less fundamental than that proceeding among the middle and upper groups. Increasingly the whole concept of an organic reciprocity in society, at best limited to certain groups, times and places, was giving way. Frontiersmen, from their own experience, set aside the idea of an obligation of the governing classes to protect the poor and industrious part of mankind in favor of a demand for "equality."20 The traditional request for aid, with its appeal to the humanitarian ethic of the gentleman governor, gave place to an ideology based on personal and group rights, political autonomy and a communitarian economy. As a commentator of the time affirmed: "if the officers in the societies were called simply citizens, this symbolic gesture intended to render men almost indifferent to their private inter- ests."'" Yet, at the same time, the citizen is a primary formulation of the individual who signs a petition, declares his vote and takes up arms. The mass support for the societies make an identification of the members and their activities difficult. William Cobbett, the "venomous" pamphletist of the post revolutionary period, described the membership of the Democratic Society of Philadelphia as "butchers, tinkers, broken hucksters and trans-Atlantic traitors."22 Scholars like Eugene P.Link point to the presence, as in French coun- terpartJacobin clubs, of "middle class citizens" in the seaboard societies.23 In the trans-Allegheny organizations, too, although we find the presence of "extensive land property," the body of the clubs included small farmers, settlers and rentees.24 Small farmers assuredly constituted the majority of the population in the Western counties, but industry and commerce were expanding. The yeomen pro- tested that economic growth favored only some social classes: merchants, land speculators and professional men. The rural people fought these classes, as they opposed high government salaries and excise taxes in general. The Scots-Irish communities especially were unwilling to submit to land speculators, excise men, or to the arrogant behavior of

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"overpayed" government officers.25 Republican enthusiasm for France and for its minister, Edmund Charles Genet, directed the interest of the communities of the frontier to the message of revolutionary France. Democracy became a term not only of honor but of contention and a synonym for a popularly elected govern- ment.26 It was the Democratic Society of Washington, Pennsylvania, which noted: Revolutionary France has sufficiently proved that generals may be taken from the ranks, and ministers of state from the obscurity of the most remote village. Is there not fire still remaining in the rock, and billows in the ocean? 27 This was a clarion cry, parallel to the language of revivalistic preachers, as described by Nathan Hatch, Stephen Marini, and other scholars.28 According to the Western Pennsylvania club, was "centralizing the government in the hands of few individuals" trying to establish a de-facto aristocratic govern- ment.29 Frontier counties were certainly entitled to send their representatives to state and federal assemblies, but their delegates sought also to occupy responsible offices in the national political administration. President Washington in 1794 appointedJohnJay, an "aristocrat," as "special envoy to Great Britain" to negotiate a treaty that directly concerned their life. Frontier Democratic Republican Societies did not forget, too, that Jay had once defended "the right of England to hold the Western posts."30 Therefore, the national government was accused by inhabitants of the frontier counties of "acquiescence with the holding [by the English of] the posts of Niagara, Detroit, &c."31 and the English, who were refusing to leave the Northwest, were considered responsible of agitating Indians and stopping westward expan- sion.32 The national government's attempts to dominate hostile tribes continued under the leadership of General Arthur St. Clair, but frontiersmen were not satisfied, especially after the American troops were defeated without fighting in November, 1791.33 It was difficult to persuade backcountry inhabitants that taxes already collected and new tributes on distilled spirits would be used to free the frontier from Indian assault. Taxes, land speculation, Indian problems and the Federalist "paranoid style"34 all pushed Western Pennsylvania farmers toward the . The Whiskey Rebels' remonstrances became a further strand in the political protest against the policy and attitude of the federal government. It was consequently easy for the "friends of order" to link the Democratic Republican Societies' with the Whiskey Rebellion. The Western Pennsylvania Insurrection offered the ideal opportunity-immediately seized upon-to attack the societies' acting throughout

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the nation and to destroy their public prestige without having to come to terms with their proposals and the broader political implications of their democratic republicanism. "I consider this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Dem- ocratic Societies. George Washington wrote in a letter to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia on August 10, 1794.35 For the president, these societies were attacking the "foundation of the Government" that is, in substance, the Constitution, provoking "a general tendency toward rebellion." 36 The western Pennsylvania societies' conduct did not show any direct connec- tions with the insurrection of 1794. Consequently, charges against the societies as such were mere political opportunism-a less than candid defense of "law and order" in the Federalist formulation. It is nevertheless difficult not to recognize common aims and common rhetoric. 37 In "an address" on August 14, 1794 the Democratic Society of the County of Washington affirmed: It is a matter of surprise and indignation to us, that a system of taxation so apprehensive, should, in the very infancy of our government, have received the approbation of a majority of our representatives. They certainly were not suffi- ciently acquainted with the genius, situation and circumstances of their constit- uents.38 It was not the whiskey tax alone which provoked the farmers' revolt; it was the more basic problem of representation that came into play. For instance, John Neville, regional supervisor for the collection of the federal excise tax in Western Pennsylvania, had not been chosen by Western Pennsylvania inhabitants, but nominated directly by President Washington.39 Certainly, Neville was not appreciated by yeomen who viewed him as representing the conspirancy of wealth, law and power that was strangling the Western economy. Whereas the Western Pennsylvania farmers on the average owned one cow and one horse, Neville possessed ten horses, sixteen cows, twenty-three sheep and no less than eighteen slaves. Moreover, his estates amounted to 1,000 acres, whereas the aver- age landowner worked a 100 acre farm.40 To all this property he could now add his political office as Federal Inspector, with an annual salary of 450 dollars and a commission of one per cent on the taxes gathered.41 When Neville embarked on an expedition to control the most obstinate distil- lers throughout Allegheny county, the Mingo Creek militia and most of the mem- bers of the Mingo Creek Society of United Freemen tried to defend their liberties against this odious agent of the central government. And they chose to do so by "showing themselves" as freemen. On July 17, 1794, between 500 and 700 armed men paraded along the road to Neville's home to the sound of drums, displaying

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Wenm Fen miAw hwiezsnen piohesiiw me iadai anmimaw%wed aw xwnmv ;.azaE all the force that a frontier militia could show.42 James McjdId, the first chairman of the Society of United Freemen and leader of the expedition, was killed while demanding, under a white flag, the surrender and the resignation of Neville.43 The death of McFarlane, revolutionary hero and local leader, led to a mass meeting on August 1 at Braddock's Field About 7,000 men attended the assembly and marched on Pittsburgh." They constituted a solemn public procession against "Sodom," the significant name the farmers gave to the town. But this march on Pittsburgh never spun out of control; people filed through the streets of the town, in an orderly manner, demonstrating their capacity for self-orgnization and selfcontroL45 Warning and alternative: these were the conscious objectives of the Democratic Republican Societies.

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But other and more important objectives could be read in the documents created by Western Pennsylvania Democratic Republican Societies. These declara- tions of purpose went beyond the phase of vigilance toward anti-republican irregularities or "regulation," and advanced more far-sighted programmatic demands for the republican future. Article 8 of the Constitution of the Democratic Societies of the County of Washington affirmed that one of the objects in view was "to encourage able teachers for the instruction of youth," but added that: The society shall have the power, with the concurrence of the district and county, to nominate and recommend such persons as in their opinion will be capable to represent us in the government of the state and the United States. To hear and determine all matters at variance and disputes between party and party.46 In the long view, education would permit the formation of a more culturally- prepared republican electorate. But in the short term the Democratic Republican Societies would function as a middleman between the people and their govern- ment. In substance this was an embryo of a specific "party system," different from the one which later did develop and which has been the mainstay of what is meant by democracy within the federal political context.47 Although George Washington's attacks and those of the Federalist press on the societies forced them to dissolve, anti-government political activity in Pennsylvania continued in the 1800's, and it was principally organized by the former members of the Democratic Republican Societies.48 Traditional historiography has always considered the political content and long-term effects of experiences like those of the Western Pennsylvania Societies as of secondary interest, engaged as such historiography was in creating national myths. For example myths were based on George Washington's character,49 on the Secretary of War, Henry Knox, 50 and on "democratic" Thomas Jefferson.5' These key figures contributed to the creation of an ethos appropriate to a state which had assumed a republican form, but meant to consolidate itself along the lines of traditional authority.52 Today it is possible and opportune to reconsider the documents of the past, to debate and perhaps "deconstruct," but certainly not demolish-historic "monu- ments." Myths crumble, first perhaps only for the "insiders," but that process need not destroy the strength of the "great nation" as some scholars have feared. So, the historical analysis of George Washington's interests in frontier land,53 research on the great proprietors of the Maine frontier (among them Henry Knox),54 and the close relationship between the Rebellion in Santo Domingo at the end of the

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eighteenth century, the "yeoman empire" and Jefferson's racial prejudice,55 need not cause perplexity. History should induce "patriots" to reflection, because myths are thus returned to their flawed humanity. In this case there are no specific dates to celebrate, there are no birthdays or anniversaries to remember, and there are no "monuments to the memory," except perhaps for such things as the tombstones of such society members as Capt. James McFarland. In the graveyard at Mingo Creek we can read: "He served during the war with undaunted courage, in defense of American Independence against the lawless and despotic encroachments of Great Britain, he fell at last by the hands of an unprincipled villain, in support of what he supposed to be the rights of his country, much lamented by numerous and respectable circle of acquaintances." 56 It is then important, when analyzing the deep social and political changes occurring in America at the end of eighteenth century, to pay more attention than has been fashionable to the Democratic Republican Societies, their activities, and their members' lives, especially on the early American frontier. Only by so doing can we appreciate the important political presence of popular classes and groups in the frontier regions and assess their contributions to the formation of the American republican system after 1789.

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Notes 1. This circular letter, dated July 4, 1793 was pub- Washington in the month of April, 1794 on the lished in the National Gazette, Philadelphia, on same principles, and in correspondence with July 17. societies of the same denomination in New York 2. Manuscript Minutes, Democratic Society of Philadelphia and elsewhere." Hugh Henry Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, July 3, 1793, Historical Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection in the Society of Pennsylvania. Westem Part of Pennsylvania in the Year 1794 3. For a comparison with the pre-revolutionary (Philadelphia, 1795), III, p. 25. period see the analysis of Pennsylvania inhabi- 11. For Hugh Henry Brackenridge the Ming to tants' petitions in Elisha P. Douglass, Rebels and Creek Society "was instituted on February 28, Democrats (Chapel Hill, 1955). For the Shays Reb- 1794. It consisted of Hamilton's battalion and to els' petitions see, for example, the "Petition from be governed by a president and council." Ibid, III. the Town of Greenwich, Massachusetts, January p. 148. "This association" wrote furthermore 16, 1786," Manuscript, American Antiquarian , Congressman and Anti-federalist Society, Worcester, Mass. of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, "was 4. See the European travelers' reports of that never announced in the newspapers, and its exist- times, for example, Marquis de Chastellux, Travels ence was known to but a few. A great portion of in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, 1782 the Mingo Creek regiment of militia became (New York 1827). members" and during its existence its meetings 5. See Charles S. Sydnor, American were "frequently attended by three hundred per- Revolutionaries in the Making: PoliticalfPactice in sons." William Findley, History of the Insurrection Washington's Virginia (New York, 1965). in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania 6. The analysis of these petitions, that "although (Philadelphia, 1796), p. 56. used by all levels of American society, give us the 12. The Rel5ublican Society at the Mouth of the voice of people who seldom if ever proclaimed Youghiogheny was strictly connected to the their social goals and political opinion in other Society of United Freemen of Mingo Creek. The written forms," is effectively accomplished by Ruth idea was to organize the four western counties of Bogin, "Petitioning and the New Moral Economy," Westemn Pennsylvania-Westmoreland, Washing- William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., 45 (July ton, Allegheny and Fayette-into a republican 1988), p. 392. society, with representatives elected from each 7. In this way, the vision of Democratic Republi- district in the respective counties. Cfr. Pittsburgh can Societies as "Schools of political knowledge" Gazette, April 26, 1794. For Brackenridge, "the has grown much stronger. See Eugene Perry Link, articles of this society are to the same effect with Democratic Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (New that of Mingo Creek and equally calculated to York, 1942), pp. 156-174. abstract the public mind from the established 8. Ibid., p. 16 and PittsburghGazette, July 6, 1793. order of the laws." See Brackenridge, Incidents, 9. For an exhaustive list of Democratic Republi- 111, p. 25. can Societies throughout the U.S. from 1793 to 13. The extensive yeoman's empire was an objec- 1798, see ibid., pp. 13-15 and the further revision tive of the Democratic Republican Societies, per- published in Philip S. Foner, The Democratic haps more than it was ThomasJefferson's. See for Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (Westport, 1976), example Jefferson's response to events in Santo p. 7. Domingo. Michael Zuckerman, "The Color of 10. According to Hugh Henry Brackenridge "A Counterrevolution: Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic Society was instituted in the town of Rebellion in Santo Domingo," in Loretta Valtz

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Mannucci, ed., The Language of Revolution most important propositions in Turner's enduring (Milan, 1989), pp. 83-107. Scholars are likely to frontier thesis. See FrederickJackson Turner, "The debate endlessly the question of what Thomas Significance of the Frontier," in The Frontier in Jefferson was, in the "twin hysterias of exaltatio American History (New York, 1920), pp. 1-38. If and denunciation," as Merrill D. Peterson put it in Turner considered "democracy' as an individual- Thomas Jefferson: A Profile (New York, 1967), istic and competitive way of life and welded Dar- p. vii. For example Richard K Matthews in The win's evolutionary hypothesis into a type of geo- Radical Politics of ThomasJefferson: A Revisionist graphical determinism, in this case "democracy' View (Laurence, 1984), p. 125-126, still affirms that means participation of frontiersmen, as individ- "Jefferson was America's first and foremost advo- uals, in the popular community meetings organ- cate of permanent revolution," and his political ized by the Democratic Republican Societies and system "specifically calls for mass participatory the individual subscription of joint popular peti- democracy." Another point of view was expressed tion. by Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: 16. For a recent and innovative analysis of the Evolution of a Party Ideology (Ithaca, N.Y, 1978), conditions of the Early American Frontier, see who pointed out Jefferson's commitment to the Gregory Nobles, "Breaking into the Backcountry: eoman farmer model. A similar position is deline- New Approaches to the Early American Frontiers, ated by Drew R. McCoy in The Elusive Republica: 1750-1800," Williain anid Maly Qtuaterly 3rd ser., Political Economy inJeffersonian America (Chapel 46 (October 1989): 642-670. About the conse- Hill, 1980). Recent scholarship has become quence of life on the frontier and the concept of cautious in depicting Jefferson as a democrat. For the "liminal status" of the frontiersmen see, example, Gordon Wood observes that the Found- Thomas P Slaughter, "Crowds in Eighteenth Cen- ing Fathers, including Jefferson, "found it difficult tury America: Reflection and New Direction," The to accept the democratic fact that their fate now PeLrnsylvania Magazine of Histoly and Biography rested on the opinions and votes of small-souled 115 (January 1991): 13-14. and largely unreflective ordinary people." Gordon 17. See Philip S. Foner, Democratic Republican S.Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolu- Societies, p. 5. tion (New York, 1992), p. 367. Yet, in our context, 18. The Remonstrance of the Society of Hamil- we must not forget that the principal actor of the ton's district of Washington County in Pennsyl- economic structure during the Jefferson adminis- vania, March 24, 1794, William Rawle Family tration was a former Whiskey Rebel in Western Papers, 1, 18, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, . For a connection published in the Pittsburgh Gazette on April 5, between Gallatin's economic politics as Secretary 1794. of State and the influence of what happened dur- 19. Thomas P Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: ing the last decade of 1790 in Western Pennsyl- Frontier Epilogue to the Amne-ictin Revolution vania see Marco Sioli, "'here Did the Whiskey (New York, 1986), p. 164. Rebels Go?" in L.Valtz Mannucci, When the Shoot- 20. Gary Nash, "Social Change and the Growth of ing Is Over: Te Orderand the Memory, forthcom- Pre-revolutionary Urban Radicalism" in Alfred ing. Young, ed., American Revolution, Explorations in 14. See Harry Tinkcom, The Republicans and the History of American Radic.adismn (De Kalb, Federalists in Pennsylvania, 1790-1801 (Harris- 1976), p. 13. In this case the principle adopted is a burg, 1950). humanitarian one, to rescue lower classes from 15. This view of democracy is in contrast with the widespread poverty.

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21. National Gazette, Philadelphia, December 19, of American Christianity(New Haven, 1989) or, for 1792. a more local view, both Stephen A Marini, Radical 22. William Cobbett, "A Little Plain English Sects of Revolutionary New England (New Haven, Addressed to the People of United States" in Por- 1989) and, again Nathan 0. Hatch, The Sacred cupine's Works: Containing Various Writings and Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and Selections, Exhibiting a Faithful Picture of the Millenium in Revolutionary New England (New United States of America (London, 1801), vol. 2, Haven, 1977). p. 338. 29. American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, July 23. For the composition of the French Club see 29, 1794. Crane Brinton, "The Members of the Jacobin 30. PhiladelphiaGazette, November 29, 1794. Clubs," American Historical Review, 34 (July 31. Response to an Address from the Democratic 1929): 740. Eugene Ferry Link's analysis was Society of Kentucky, April 26, 1794 in Philip S. modified by Roland M. Baumann, who estimates Foner, The Democratic Republican Societies, that the craftsmen were fewer than Link indicated p. 131. and professional men and merchants were more 32. In fact John Graves Simcoe, Governor of numerous. See Roland M.Baumann, "The Demo- Upper Canada, advocated an alliance with Indian cratic Republicans of Philadelphia: The Origins, tribes and with Spain to separate the Western set- 1776-1797" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State tlements from the Union. See Samuel Flag Bemis, University, 1970), pp. 448-551, and appendix, table Jay's Treaty a Study on Commerce and Diplomacy 3, pp. 598-603. (New York, 1923), pp. 170-172. 24. Eugene Perry Link 7The Democratic Republi- 33. In August 1794, General Anthony Wayne, after can Societies, p. 73. having organized the Army, was successful in 25. For the Scots Irish behaviour see Wayland F. defeating Indians at Fallen Timbers. Dunway, The Scots Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania 34. For the Federalists' behavior and the so called (Baltimore, 1979), p. 181. It is an error, however, "paranoid style" see Gordon Wood, "Conspir- to overemphasize the ethnic factor in the forma- acy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in tion of the Democratic Republican Societies. See, the Eighteenth Century," William and Mary Quar- for example, Jacob E. Cooke, "The Whiskey Insur- terly, 3rd ser., 39 (July 1982): 402-411. rection: A Reevaluation," Pennsylvania History, 30 35. George Washington, The W-itings of George (uly 1963): 320-321. Washington, Worthington C. Ford, ed. (New York 26. See Robespierre's speech to the Convention 1889-1903), 12: 454. on February 5, 1794, where he declared that a 36. Ibid. republic to be "a state where the sovereign 37. The publications of the Democratic Republic people, guided by laws that are their own work do Societies contained frequent denunciations of the by themselves everything that they can do well, Whiskey Rebels. See William Miller, "The Demo- and by means of delegates everything that they cratic Societies and the Whiskey Insurrection," cannot do themselves." Maximilien Robespierre, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bioqgraphy, Ouvres de Maximilien Robespierne (Paris, 1910- 62 (July 1938). What did occur, Miller admits, is 67), 1: 352-364. that, quite predictably, "though the Democratic 27. American Daily Adverti.sei; Philadelphia, July Societies themselves took no part in the insurrec- 29, 1794. tion, some of the members of the Democratic 28. R)r the evangelical influence on politics in this Societies, Pennsylvania, did. But apparently not in period see Nathan 0. Hatch, The Democratization their capacity as members of the club." See p. 327.

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38. Manuscripts Minutes of the Democratic Soci- 46. "Constitution of the Democratic Society of ety of Pennsylvania, Historical Society of Pennsyl- Washington," William Rawle Family Papers, 1: 18. vania, 137. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 39. The appointments of the several regional 47. Cf. H. James Henderson, "Quantitative Inspectors were proposed directly by George Approaches to Party Formation in the United Washington. "To Secretary of the Treasury, March States Congress: A Comment," William and Marv 15, 1791," in John C. Fitzpatrick ed., The W-itings Quarterly 3rd ser., 30 (April 1973): 319. of George Washington (Washington, 1931-1944), Henderson, in fact, affirmed that "for the Republi- 31, p. 236. cans the condemnation of the Socities amounted 40. See also Solon J. Buck "Frontier Economy in to censorship of voluntary associations that South Westem Pennsylvania," Western Pennsyl- were inevitable in a free polity." For Richard vania HistoricalMagazine, 19 (June 1936): 117. Buel, Jr., "the societies saw their principle function 41. The procedure involved in the nomination of not as electioneering but as mobilizing pubic such a figure characterized pre-revolutionary opinion.... The Federalists were not willing to Virginia, where Washington's views were formed. accept the societies as instruments for mobilizing The "middling" gentleman planter was the "old" public opinion." Richard Buel Jr., Secur-ing the choice and his rejection by the population a fur- Revolution: Ideology in Anerican Politics, 1789- ther sign of new self-images and a new political 1815 (Ithaca, N.Y, 1972), pp. 103-104. climate, which no longer sees public officials as 48. See, for example, Bernard Fay, "Early Party "tutors" to whom the citizenry "entrusts" itself Machinery in the United States: Pennsylvania in 42. Deposition of Francis Mentges, August 1, 1794 the Election of 1796," Pennslsvania Ma.gazine of and to George Washington, History and Biogroiaphv 60 (October 1936): August 5, 1794, Papers of Alexander Hamnilton, 375-390. H. C. Syrett, ed. (New York 1961-1979), 17: 2-5 49. For the formation of George Washington's and 56. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Incidents, myth, as idol for the Revolution and image of polit- 1:8-9; 3: 134-135. ical and personal virtue, see Bariy Schwartz, 43. Eugene Perry Link, Democnatic Republican Geoige Washington: The Making of in Amneric.i Societies, p. 147. Symbol (Ithaca, NY, 1987). 44. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Incidents, 1,p. 66. 50. About the morality and the virtue of Henry According to Brackenridge only three-fourths of Knox, extraordinarily popular with the gentlemen the people who met at Braddock's Field marched and the ladies of elites in Boston, New York and to Pittsburgh. Philadelphia, see North Callahan, Hemny Knox: 45. About this kind of public procession see General Washiqgtons Generl- (New York, 1958). Marco Sioli, "The Whiskey Rebellion as Republican 51. Linda Kerber, Federalists in Dissent: hlnmagei' Citizenship," in L. Valtz Mannucci, People and and Ideol(gy in Jefflersonian America (Ithaca, N.Y, Power: Rights, Citizenship and Violence (Milan, 1970). 1992). See also, for precedents, L.Valtz Mannucci, 52. For example, as Secretary of War, Henty Knox "People and Power: the Federal Processions of stated in 1787 that the national government had to 1787 and 1788," paper presented at the confer- have "a legal coercive power" over the people "to ence "Ideology and Resistance; the Construction govern and control their own citizens." See of American Culture and Its Reception at Home "Report of the Secretary of War to Congress," July and Abroad" (Haifa, Israel, Jan. 7-10, 1990), to be 10,11787, in Clarence E. Carter, ed., The Territorial published in the United States. P.ipers of the lUnited States (Washington, D.C.,

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1934-1962), 1: 31-32. 54. Alan Taylor, Libelty Men and Great Prophe- 53. Thomas P. Slaughter, "George Washington tors: the Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine and the Western Country," in The Whiskey Rebel- Frontiet; 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill, 1990), pp. 37-47. lion, pp. 75-89 and Andrew R.L. Cayton, "Separate 55. Michael Zuckerman, "The Color of Counter- Interest and the Nation-State: The Washington revolution," in L. Valtz Mannucci, ed., The Administration and the Origins of Regionalism in Language of Revolution, pp. 83-107. the Trans-Appalachian West," Joumal of American 56. Alfred Creigh, History of Washington County History, 79 (June 1992): 39-67. Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1882), p. 68.

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