Exporting Radicalism Within the Empire: Scots Presbyterian Political Values in Scotland and British North America, C.1815-C.1850
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Wallace, Valerie (2010) Exporting radicalism within the empire: Scots Presbyterian political values in Scotland and British North America, c.1815-c.1850. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1749/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Exporting Radicalism within the Empire: Scots Presbyterian Political Values in Scotland and British North America, c.1815 – c.1850 Valerie Wallace M.A., M.Phil. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History Faculty of Arts University of Glasgow September 2009 Abstract This thesis offers a reinterpretation of radicalism and reform movements in Scotland and British North America in the first half of the nineteenth century by examining the relationship between Presbyterian ecclesiology and political action. It considers the ways in which Presbyterian political theory and the memory of the seventeenth-century Covenanting movement were used to justify political reform. In particular it examines attitudes in Scotland to Catholic emancipation, the Reform Act of 1832, the disestablishment of the national Churches, and the Chartist movement; and it considers agitation in Upper Canada and Nova Scotia for the disestablishment of the established Church and the institution of responsible government. It emphasises the continued relevance of religion in political culture, tracing the survival of the Scottish Covenanting tradition and charting its significance within the wider British empire. It argues that there existed a transatlantic Presbyterian community and that to some degree Presbyterian- inflected radicalism in this period was a North Atlantic phenomenon. 2 Contents Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………4 Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………………...6 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………..8 I – Presbyterianism, Radicalism and Reform in Scotland, c.1815 – c.1850 1. Presbyterianism in Scottish Society in the Early Nineteenth Century………………..29 2. Radicalism and Reform in Scotland, c.1815 – c.1850………………………………..44 (i) Catholic Emancipation…………………………………………………..46 (ii) Parliamentary and Burgh Reform……………………………………….59 (iii) Redefining Radicalism: the Voluntary Controversy of the 1830s……....83 (iv) Chartism………………………………………………………………...106 (v) Conclusion………………………………………………………………120 II – Presbyterianism, Radicalism and Reform in British North America, c.1815 – c.1850 1. North Atlantic Presbyterianism……………………………………………………….123 2. Upper Canada………………………………………………………………………....135 3. Nova Scotia……………………………………………………………………………178 III – Conclusion and Epilogue: Presbyterianism, Radicalism and Reform in a Global Context ……………………...224 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………….230 3 Acknowledgments I wish to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the generous financial support of both my M.Phil. and my Ph.D. research. Additional funds from the AHRC and the University of Glasgow allowed me to conduct research abroad in Canada and the United States. The Department of History at Glasgow has provided a warm and encouraging environment over the last decade. I am especially grateful to Thomas Munck and Graeme Small, who helped with the initial funding process; and to Lionel Glassey, who first encouraged me to undertake postgraduate work, and who has always been particularly supportive. My fellow Ph.D. students have been equally supportive and I should like to thank Melodee Beals, Ralph McLean and Alex Scroggie for their practical help in locating and suggesting potential sources. Furth of Glasgow I owe a debt to Miles Taylor, Ian McBride and Gordon Pentland for their helpful advice. Eldon Hay provided useful information on Canadian Covenanters and Mike Vance supplied some reading suggestions at an early stage. I am grateful to Dauvit Broun, who chaired my viva, and to my examiners, Stewart J. Brown and Simon Ball, for their insights. I appreciate the efficient services provided in the libraries and archives I visited both in Scotland and in North America; the staff at the following repositories were particularly helpful: Glasgow University Library Department of Special Collections; the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia; the Public Archives of Nova Scotia; Library and Archives Canada; the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives; University of Western Ontario Archives; and, above all, Media Commons in the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto. I warmly thank my family and friends who have helped in their different ways. I am particularly grateful to my parents and my brother Andrew Wallace, who went first and set a good example; to Lauren Mirzai and Mary Choi, who both accompanied me on nightmarish, but hilarious, trips to archives in rural Canada using public transport; to Neil Paterson for enduring visits to universities and churches on our gap-year backpacking trip in New Zealand (and for attempting to read the thesis); to Moses Jenkins for lunches at the big fish place in Edinburgh; to Tania Scott and Hazel Mackenzie for their empathy and love of soup; and, above all, to Colin Morrison, for his blind faith in my ability and his wacky humour, which is always a welcome distraction. 4 Lastly I must thank my supervisor, Colin Kidd, without whose encouragement and friendship I would have achieved nothing. It is impossible to enumerate the many different ways in which he has helped, but quite possibly the most important has been his constant supply of books, biscuits, and bad jokes. 5 Abbreviations Journals CHR Canadian Historical Review CNSHS Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society HJ Historical Journal IR Innes Review JCCHS Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History OH Ontario History P&P Past and Present RSCHS Records of the Scottish Church History Society SHR Scottish Historical Review Newspapers/Periodicals AR Acadian Recorder CA Colonial Advocate C&A Correspondent and Advocate CC Chartist Circular CCEPR Canadian Christian Examiner and Presbyterian Review CP Colonial Patriot CSM Church of Scotland Magazine CW Canadian Watchman ECI Edinburgh Christian Instructor ETM Edinburgh Theological Magazine GA Glasgow Argus HTA Herald to the Trades Advocate PM Presbyterian Magazine (Scotland) PrM Presbyterian Magazine (Upper Canada) PO Pictou Observer and Eastern Advertiser PR Presbyterian Review RG Loyal Reformers’ Gazette/ Reformers’ Gazette SA Scottish Advocate SG Scottish Guardian SP Scottish Presbyterian SPr Scottish Protestant SPt Scottish Patriot ST Scots Times TB The Banner TC The Constitution TEM Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine TG The Globe TN The Novascotian TS True Scotsman TWM Toronto Weekly Message USM United Secession Magazine 6 ‘The earth and heavens are shaken. The spirit of revolution is abroad among the nations. Brooding upon the chaotic mass of kingdoms of the old world, its influence is quickening into action the causes that are to operate in establishing a new order of things...The principles of civil and religious liberty are gradually undermining the systems of despotism, by which the unalienable rights of man, bestowed on him by his Creator, have been withheld from millions through successive ages.’ The Reformed Presbyterian , March 1837 7 Introduction This thesis challenges traditional interpretations of the age of reform by rehabilitating ecclesiology as a central component of radical discourse. By tracing the legacy of Scotland’s Covenanting tradition, it specifically examines the Presbyterian underpinnings to political radicalism and reform movements in Scotland from 1815 to around 1850. Second, looking at British North America as a case study, it suggests that Scottish Presbyterian ideas were exported within the British empire where they were similarly instrumental in inciting political agitation. Christopher Bayly has demonstrated the ‘interconnectedness and interdependence of political and social changes across the world’. Highlighting the global resonance of national events and revolutions and tracing worldwide ideological cross-currents, Bayly insists on the importance of transcending ‘the boundaries of states and ecological zones’ especially when examining the workings and implications of empires. 1 Following Bayly’s work, this thesis is an attempt to situate Scottish political reform within an Atlantic world context. The first section of the thesis traces the survival into the mid-nineteenth century of a tradition of Scottish radicalism which was based on Presbyterian political theory. This tradition was sustained by a narrative of Scottish history which represented the Scottish Reformation and the Covenanting rebellions of the seventeenth century as episodes of popular resistance against a tyrannous Catholic or Anglican hierarchy. Scottish Presbyterians, particularly the more orthodox extremist dissenting groups, championed ideas of divinely-bestowed popular sovereignty and democratic government, while they defended Christ’s spiritual headship of the Church against