Differences of opinion among the Massachusetts Federalists became apparent in their responses to ratification of the Constitution. James Madison drew up the “Virginia Plan” for the Constitution on which debate by the delegates began. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were absent from the debates. Both were serving as American ministers: John Adams to Great Britain, and Thomas Jefferson to France. John Hancock and Samuel Adams were also absent from the Constitutional Convention.
Other plans were offered, and Connecticut provided a compromise. James Madison was not able to include all that he wanted in the document, but he was recognized as its primary author.[1]
Federalists were concerned that delegates reluctant to ratify the Constitution, wanted to weaken the power of the federal government. Many Federalists opposed a bill of rights. In Massachusetts, however, most of the American patriots who led the Federalist Party favored a bill of rights. John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and James Warren, all of whom did not attend the Convention, favored a bill of rights. Elbridge Gerry, who did attend the Convention, refused to sign the Constitution because it lacked one. That left James Bowdoin, leader of the Essex County faction, the remaining Federalist who favored a strong federal government and approved of the Constitution. A year after entertaining George Washington during his visit to Boston, James Bowdoin died.[2] Two of the younger leaders, James Warren and Elbridge Gerry would migrate to Jefferson and Madison’s new party, the Democratic-Republicans.
After the Constitution was ratified, hope of New England providing national leadership once John Adams left office diminished. First, New England was a region that could not expand. It was hemmed in by New York State. Its soil, compared with other areas of the country, was not as fertile. New Englanders were unreceptive to immigrants. Massachusetts was losing population as its well-educated citizens migrated to New York and points west. With the loss of population, came the gradual erosion of political power. By 1820, the population of Massachusetts had declined from its once dominant position as second largest in the Union, to the fifth largest, trailing New York, Pennsylvania Virginia and even Ohio. Pennsylvania had twice the congressmen in the House of Representatives, and more than twice as many congressmen represented New York. For the first twenty-four years of the nineteenth century, Massachusetts failed to produce a suitable candidate for the presidency.[3]
As the political power of the Federalists declined, so did the power of the clergy. A region once settled by dissident Calvinist Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England, was under assault from Unitarianism, a more liberal brand of Calvinism. Itinerant preachers from the Baptist and Methodist movements gained adherents. These religious alternatives undermined the moral and political authority of the Congregational clergy, who preached politics from the pulpit.[4]
After the British declared war on the French, economic opportunities, fraught with risk, abounded. Men of humble origin, ready to gamble against odds made fortunes, challenging the economic status quo.[5] The path of Harvard graduates was changing as well. From 1720-1730 Harvard produced one hundred forty members of the Congregational clergy. In 1790-1800 that number had declined to eighty, while enrollment numbers remained about the same.[6]
Two political events affected New England and its Federalist hierarchy: the French Revolution and the Jay Treaty.
At first, New Englanders acclaimed the French Revolution as “the cause of freedom.” They characterized it as “a continuation of the late American war.” Then the atrocities and the beheadings, the anarchy followed by tyranny caused New Englanders, who prized order and authority, to reconsider. Another challenge the region’s Federalists was Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, published in 1794. Paine’s writings on deism and promotion of revealed religion challenged the tyranny of established religion. Paine characterized the French revolutionaries as opponents of religion. The political and religious leaders of a region settled on the basis of a singular, Calvinist Congregational religion were appalled.[7] Thomas Jefferson and James Madison espoused Enlightenment ideals and supported the French revolution. New Englanders suspected they were deists.
The French Revolution also prompted the British to declare war on France. The United States tried to maintain neutrality as the two super powers waged economic warfare. New England’s merchants took enormous risks and reaped tremendous rewards. George Washington sent John Jay to London to negotiate a treaty. The results were controversial.
Next: How the Jay Treaty Affected New England’s Federalists
Look for it Monday, September 2
[1] Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 62.
[2] Gordon E. Kershaw “James Bowdoin” American National Biography.
[3] James M. Banner, To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts 1789-1815 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970) 13-4.
[4] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 14-5.
[5] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 16.
[6] Henry Adams, History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Library of America, 1986) 55.
[7] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 17-9.
