How Jefferson’s Newspaper Politics Challenged New England’s Federalists

Posted on September 15, 2013 by “Caius”

By 1800, the state of Massachusetts was split politically between Jefferson’s party and the Federalists.  Roughly 20,000 voters were Democratic-Republican.  About 25,000 voters were Federalists.[1]

Following the election of 1800, Democratic-Republicans set their sights on augmenting their gains in New England.  Levi Lincoln from Massachusetts and Gideon Granger from Connecticut, both members of Jefferson’s cabinet, worked for the cause.  They advised Jefferson to get rid of Federalists holding offices in New England.  More important, Lincoln and Granger persuaded editors to begin publishing Democratic-Republican newspapers throughout the region.  They theorized that yeoman farmers were not staunch Federalists.  Given a new point of view, farmers who were not part of the “Standing Order” could be persuaded to vote Democratic-Republican.  They were correct.   Madison continued Jefferson’s policies.  He set an important precedent by transferring printing contracts to his party’s editors.[2]

By 1803, an observer noted so many Democratic-Republican newspapers were emerging that he could no longer keep track of them all.[3]

The Democratic-Republican newspapers affected party allegiance.  Earlier generations of New Englanders relied on sea captains and clergy for news and information.  Newspapers supplanted them.  The newspaper a New Englander read correlated with the party he joined.[4]

 

Next:  How the French Influenced Federalist Defections to the Democratic-Republicans

Look for it Monday, September 23

 


[1] Henry Adams, History of the United States during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (New York:  Literary Classics, 1986) 54.

[2] Jeffrey L. Pasley, Tyranny of Printers:  Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic, (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2001) 203-5.

[3] Pasley, Tyranny of Printers, 211.

[4] James M. Banner, To the Hartford Convention:  The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts 1789-1815 (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1986) 175.

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Why Two New England Federalists were Suspicious of Irish and French Immigrants

Posted on September 8, 2013 by “Caius”

By 1797, two prominent New England Federalists were suspicious of immigrants and fearful the newcomers would create a second revolution in America.  John Adams was president, and Timothy Pickering was secretary of state.  Jefferson and Madison’s party organizers recruited Irish and French immigrants into the ranks of their new party.  Adams and Pickering were concerned the Irish and French immigrants would foment a second revolution in America creating anarchy.  In 1798, Congress passed the Naturalization Act increasing the number of years of residence from five to fourteen before an immigrant could become a citizen and vote.  The Alien Act gave Adams the ability to expel immigrants at will.[1]  Jefferson dubbed it the “Reign of Terror.”

Jefferson’s allies successfully convinced the electorate that policies like the Naturalization Act and Alien Act were tyranny.   Jefferson and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.  Those resolutions asserted a state’s right to ignore a federal law.    Jefferson was elected the next president of the United States.   He immediately repealed the acts he detested.

 

Next:  How Jefferson’s newspaper politics challenged New England’s Federalists

Look for it Monday, September 16


[1]Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, Volume 1 (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1962)  364-5.

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How the Jay Treaty Affected New England

Posted on August 25, 2013 by “Caius”

A Recap of the Jay Treaty Issues:

The British impressed American sailors—an issue especially important to New Englanders

More than two hundred merchant ships were confiscated by the British—another issue important to New Englanders

Merchants wanted trade reopened in the British West Indies—also important to New Englanders

The British occupied forts in the Great Lakes region—an important issue to Westerners

The Canadian boundary was not well defined—another issue important to Westerners

The British took possession of slaves after the American Revolution without compensating their owners—an issue important to the South

Some terms of the treaty were not favorable to Massachusetts.  Trade with the West Indies was not truly opened.  The British held the right to seize contraband goods from neutral ships.  Impressment continued.  The treaty did not adequately define contraband cargo.  Nevertheless, American vessels became the carrier of choice in the Atlantic.  Merchants took great risks and reaped rewards.   New Englanders determined that an imperfect treaty was better than a lack of one.[1]

Debates on the Jay Treaty raged in the Senate.  Representatives in the House  struggled to decide if the popular body could withhold appropriations for the treaty.  New England’s Federalist Fisher Ames ensured the House would approve funding for it, enticing Westerners to vote for it by linking the treaty to the ratification of Pinckney’s Treaty.

Dispute between New England’s merchants and Southern plantation owners emerged on the floors of both houses.  Federalists, especially in New England, thought that trade with Britain was the course that would ensure the nation’s independence.  Southerners were enraged the treaty did not provide repayment for lost slaves.  New England’s Federalists considered trade with Britain essential to prosperity.  Jefferson and Madison considered Britain a threat to American republican values.  With the Jay Treaty, Jefferson and Madison’s new party emerged.   The new party forced New England’s Federalists into heated opposition of Democratic-Republican  policies and values.[2]

 

Next:  Why New England’s Federalists were suspicious of Irish and French immigrants.

Look for it Monday, September 9


[1] 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) 20.

[2] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 20.

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How the Federalist Party in New England Evolved (continued)

Posted on August 25, 2013 by “Caius”

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.

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How the Federalist Party Evolved in Massachusetts

Posted on August 18, 2013 by “Caius”

As the last decade of the eighteenth century began, Massachusetts Federalists continued to be guided by the state’s revolutionary patriots.

John Hancock (1737/8-1793) the wealthy merchant, and first signer the Declaration of Independence was enormously popular, with nearly infallible political instincts.  He presented the new federal constitution to the state’s ratifying convention without comment.  Debates raged pro and con.  Finally Hancock spoke in favor of ratification, promoting three amendments later incorporated into the Bill of Rights.  Following his speech, delegates voted to ratify the Constitution.   Hancock became the first governor of the state of Massachusetts in 1780.  He coined the term “Essex Junto” during the convention to adopt a new state constitution.[1]

James Bowdoin (1726-1790) was also a wealthy Bostonian, who, in 1780, presided over the state’s convention to adopt a new constitution.  He chaired the subcommittee that with the guidance of John Adams, wrote the Massachusetts constitution.  Bowdoin was a conservative who opposed Hancock’s fiscal policies.  They became political enemies. Like Hancock, he was elected governor of Massachusetts.  Bowdoin represented the conservative wing of the Federalists in Massachusetts.[2]

Samuel Adams (1722-1803) Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) and James Warren (1726-1808) represented most liberal Federalists.

Like John Hancock, Samuel Adams signed the Declaration of Independence.  He was a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses.  John Adams was his cousin.  Like most of the Federalist leaders, he graduated from Harvard College in 1740.  He studied law, and flirted with a career in business, but found his niche in politics.  After playing a significant role during the American Revolution,   Adams helped John Hancock draft amendments to the Constitution.  Those amendments paved the way for the state convention’s delegates to ratify it.  Later, Adams became a governor of Massachusetts.  He was a skilled orator and worked behind the scenes to achieve his objectives.[3]

Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) was a prosperous merchant from Essex County.  He graduated from Harvard College in 1762.  Gerry played a key role in the Constitutional Convention.  He feared a popular democracy, and opposed the general election of senators.  He was concerned the federal government should not have too much power, and promoted specifically enumerating its powers.  Like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, he wanted a bill of rights and helped to frame amendments to it.  Gerry refused to sign the Constitution.  It had no bill of rights, and personal liberties were not secure.  He sought to ensure the division of sovereignty between states and the federal government.  He thought the Constitution gave the government too much power over the military.  Gerry was part of the XYZ Affair when John Adams was president.  He is best remembered for the term “Gerrymandering.”  By the time the term was coined, he was a Democratic-Republican.  He subdivided Massachusetts into new senatorial districts, consolidating the Federalists’ votes, giving the Democratic-Republicans the advantage.  One district on the map resembled a salamander.  One wag called it a “Gerrymander” and the name stuck.  Today the practice is still followed, and redistricting is used to give a party greater strength against its opponent.[4]

James Warren (1726-1808) graduated from Harvard in 1742.  After the Stamp Act crisis in 1765 he became acquainted with James Otis Jr, John and Samuel Adams.  Like John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Elbridge Gerry, Warren advocated a bill of rights.  He opposed ratifying the Constitution, and wrote essays attacking it.  He thought the Constitution would consolidate states, and the government of Massachusetts would be dissolved.  The Constitution would cause despotism.  By the 1790s, Warren had become a Democratic Republican.[5]

Next:  How the French Revolution and the Jay Treaty Affected Massachusetts Federalists

Look for it Monday, August 26.

 

 

 


[1] William M. Fowler, “John Hancock” American National Biography

[2] Gordon E. Kershaw “James Bowdoin” American National Biography

[3] Pauline Maier, “Samuel Adams” American National Biography

[4] George Athan Billias, “Elbridge Gerry” American National Biography

[5] Winfred E.A. Bernhard, “James Warren” American National Biography

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Who was Theophilus Parsons?

Posted on August 11, 2013 by “Caius”

Theophilus Parsons (1750-1813) like Timothy Pickering and George Cabot, was born in Essex County, Massachusetts.  Parsons, the son of a Congregational minister,  graduated from Harvard College in 1769.  While he studied law he taught school in what is now Maine.  Like other members of the Essex Junto, he opposed popular democracy and favored protection of private property.  He attended the convention to adopt a new state constitution for Massachusetts in 1778.  Later, he favored the ratification of the federal constitution, as a delegate to the Massachusetts convention.[1]

Parsons and John Hancock promoted three amendments to the Constitution that were incorporated into the Bill of Rights.  The Fifth Amendment required a grand jury to indict a defendant for a capital crime, the Seventh Amendment guaranteed the right to a trial by jury for common law cases;  the Tenth Amendment gave states the powers not expressly given to the federal government by the Constitution.[2]

Parsons had a keen legal mind, and became chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1806.    His decisions in his state’s Supreme Judicial Court laid the groundwork for Massachusetts to experience economic expansion, with commercial laws that were stable, uniform and predictable.[3]

With the exception of Fisher Ames the four leaders of the Essex Junto were not well known outside of New England.  Timothy Pickering was active in politics outside the state, George Cabot was known for his sagacity, Fisher Ames was the spokesman for the Junto, and Theophilus Parson had the most agile intellect.  He was most comfortable wielding influence behind the scenes.[4]

Next:   How the Federalist Party Evolved in Massachusetts

Look for it Monday, August 19

 


[1] William G. Ross, “Theophilus Parsons,” American National Biography

[2] Ross, “Theophilus Parsons”

[3] Ross, “Theophilus Parsons”

[4] Henry Adamas, History of the United States of American During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson, (New York:  The Library of America, 1986) 62-3.

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Who was Fisher Ames?

Posted on August 3, 2013 by “Caius”

Fisher Ames (1758-1808) was born outside of Essex County, near the southwest corner of Boston, in Dedham.  Intellectually precocious, Ames entered Harvard when he was twelve.  At an early age, he excelled at oratory and elocution.  He participated in a debating club.[1]

After graduating from Harvard in 1774 he joined the Dedham militia, but did not engage in any battles.  After a brief stint teaching school he studied law.  He began practicing in 1784.   In 1788 he was part of the Massachusetts convention ratifying the Constitution.  Running against Samuel Adams, he won a seat in the nation’s first Congress.  In the House he debated with James Madison, and supported Alexander Hamilton, and his “First Report on the Public Credit.”  Famous for his compelling oratory, Ames exasperated Thomas Jefferson, who called him “the colossus of monocrats and paper men,” for Ames’s position on assumption of the revolutionary debt.[2]

In 1792, Ames married Frances Worthington, a daughter of one of Connecticut’s “River Gods” a group of high Federalists similar to the Essex Junto.  Three years later, Ames suffered from the beginning stages of tuberculosis.  As controversy raged over the Jay Treaty, Ames was too weak to be anything but a bystander.[3]

After some debate, the Federalists prevailed.  Although frail, Ames emerged from the sidelines.   He enticed western Democratic-Republicans in the House to vote for Jay’s Treaty.  He linked it to Pinckney’s Treaty that promised access to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi and allowed merchants to warehouse their goods in New Orleans. These issues were important to westerners.  With some effort, Ames rose to give a stirring oration to the House, urging them to vote for ratification of Jay’s Treaty, bringing many of those present to tears.

Playing on westerners’ fears about the security of the frontier, Ames said:

“In the daytime your path through the woods is ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings…the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field!…the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle!…I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture…even as slender and almost broken as my hold on life is, I may outlive the Government and Constitution of my country.” [4]

The Senate had failed to act on Pinckney’s Treaty.   Ames suggested that if the House passed the Jay Treaty, the Senate would ratify Pinckney’s Treaty.  His ploy worked.  The House appropriated the funds for Jay’s Treaty in a vote of 51-48 on April 30, 1796.[5]

Ames retired from public service in 1797.  He was only thirty-nine, but suffered from the ravages of tuberculosis.  He found he could not stay out of the political fray.  He opposed the growing influence of Jeffersonian Republicans in New England.  He found allies within the ranks of the Essex Junto.  Two newspapers, the New England Palladium and Boston’s Repertory,  published  his essays, persuading his readers on the virtues of the Federalists’ point of view.  He was one of the Federalists’ most articulate spokesmen opposing Democratic-Republicans.[6]

Next:  Who was Theophilus Parsons?

Look for it Monday, August 12

 

 


[1] Winfred E.A. Bernhard, “Fisher Ames,” American National Biography

[2] Bernhard, “Fisher Ames”

[3] Bernhard, “Fisher Ames”

[4] Fisher Ames quoted in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism:  The Early American Republic, 1788-1800,  (New York:  Oxford University Press) 448.

[5] Edward C. Carter II, “The Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” PhD Dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1962,  233.

[6] Bernhard, “Fisher Ames”

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Who was George Cabot?

Posted on July 28, 2013 by “Caius”

George Cabot (1752-1823), like Timothy Pickering, was born in Salem, in Essex County Massachusetts.  He too, attended Harvard.  He was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1775.  He was a delegate to his state’s constitutional convention in 1777 when John Hancock coined the term “Essex Junto.”  He also served as a member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution.[1]

During the Revolutionary War, while Pickering was participating in military operations, George Cabot took advantage of the situation to profit from privateering, commercial ventures and war contracts.[2]   He was of proper but not prosperous origins, and elevated his position politically and socially with his mercantile abilities. [3]  He believed commerce and America’s merchant marine were essential for national unity.  He argued that America’s commercial success reaped benefits for the entire nation.[4]

He was a reluctant public servant, serving in the Senate from 1791 to 1796.  John Adams asked him to become the first Secretary of the Navy, but Cabot declined the offer.[5]  Despondent in retirement, he found he needed to participate in public life.  He remained active in the Federalist Party and the Essex Junto.[6]

While Pickering was serving as a member of the House of Representatives in Washington, Cabot became a delegate to the Hartford Convention in 1814.  He was elected the presiding officer.[7]

Although at one point he advanced the notion of stricter parameters for suffrage, allowing only those men who owned $2,000 in land free and clear, Cabot was a moderate  Federalist .  He did not want a civil war.[8]

Cabot said to Pickering “Why can’t you and I let the world ruin itself its own way?” [9]

Next:  Who was Fisher Ames?

Look for it Monday, August 5.


[2] James M. Banner, Jr.  To the Hartford Convention:  The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815, (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1970) 9.

[3] Banner, Hartford Convention, 124.

[4] Banner, Hartford Convention, 49.

[5] Bioguide, “George Cabot.”

[6] Banner, Hartford Convention, 136-7, 137n.

[7] Bioguide, “George Cabot.”

[8] Banner, Hartford Convention, 120, 132, 272.

[9] Henry Adams, History of the United States of American During the Administrations of James Madison (New York:  The Library of America, 1986) 1111.

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Who was Timothy Pickering?

Posted on July 20, 2013 by “Caius”

Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) was born in Salem, in Essex County Massachusetts.  After graduating from Harvard he studied law.  Originally  he was a loyalist.  On the eve of the American Revolution, he joined the patriots as a member of Salem’s Committee of Correspondence.  In 1774 he became colonel of the Essex County militia.  He was a reluctant commander in battle, failing to lead his troops as the British retreated toward Boston.  While others from the Essex County militia fought with the Continental Army in 1776, Pickering remained in Salem.  By 1777, Pickering had changed his mind.  He organized volunteers to serve with the Continental Army in Morristown, New Jersey.  George Washington recruited him to be adjutant-general of the army.  He served with the army for the remainder of the war.  Frustrated by the difficulties of the Continental Army, Pickering, irritable and intolerant, argued with Washington.[1]

After Pickering experienced financial failures, Washington appointed him as a representative to the Seneca Indians.  Later, Washington appointed Pickering as Secretary of State.[2]

Pickering was an unabashed Anglophile.  He had difficulty adhering to Washington’s policy of neutrality with Britain and France.  John Adams retained Pickering as Secretary of State, continuing Washington’s policy of neutrality.  Abrupt and difficult, Pickering refused to follow Adams.  Instead he promoted an alliance with Britain.  Adams disagreed.  Miffed, Pickering worked in secret with Adams’s sworn enemy Alexander Hamilton, to lead an enlarged army.  Next he obstructed Adams’s attempts to make peace with the French.  Adams dismissed him.  He responded by working with Hamilton and high Federalists to thwart Adams’s reelection.[3]

In 1803 Pickering became a senator.  Twice during the first decade of the nineteenth century, Pickering plotted to have New England and New York secede from the Union.  An avowed secessionist and high Federalist, Pickering wanted to take control of the party away from the moderates.[4]

 

Next:  Who was George Cabot?

Look for it Monday, July 29

 

 


[1] Gerard H. Clarfield, “Timothy Pickering,” American National Biography.

[2] Clarfield, American National Biography.

[3] Clarfield, American National Biography.

[4] Clarfield, American National Biography,  James M. Banner, Jr. To the Hartford Convention:  The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815, (New York:  Alfred  A. Knopf, 1970) 120.

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Who were these New England Federalists?

Posted on July 13, 2013 by “Caius”

Unlike Virginia, New York or Pennsylvania, in 1790, most of the residents of Massachusetts were of English descent.  They were also Protestant.  Most were Congregationalists.  Others were Quakers, Baptists or Methodists.  A few Catholics lived in Boston or other ports.[1]  Massachusetts Federalists led the party in New England.

Despite homogeneity of descent and religion, farmers in western Massachusetts disliked the overwhelming influence Federalists from the east had in national affairs. Mathew Carey appealed to this group in the Olive Branch.  Nevertheless, farmers supported the Federalists opposition to Jefferson’s Embargo and the War of 1812.[2]

By 1790, Massachusetts was losing population and national influence.  The land was barely arable and difficult to farm.  Mathew Carey called the state the “nursery of men” noting  emigration of well-educated citizens to New York and the west.[3]  The state did not welcome immigrants.  Its population failed to increase at the rate of states in the mid-Atlantic and South.  Massachusetts lost representation in the House of Representatives, and with that, political power.

By the first decade of the nineteenth century, Massachusetts Federalists favored limits on immigration and restrictions on expansion in the West.  Most important, they promoted repealing the three-fifths clause of the Constitution.[4]

Constitutional Convention delegates James Wilson and Roger Sherman proposed the three-fifths clause.  It was a compromise between Northern and Southern states.  Three-fifths of the slaves from the South were counted as part of the population.  This census data affected representation in the House, the Electoral College and taxation.

A group of prominent Massachusetts Federalists became known the “Essex Junto.”  John Hancock first used the term when a group of Federalists, most from Essex County near Boston, opposed the adoption of a proposed Massachusetts state constitution in 1778.  John Adams also used the term.  The name was eventually applied to New England’s prominent Federalists.

The leaders of the Essex Junto were born between 1743 and 1758.  They were natives of eastern Massachusetts: Essex County, Boston, and its environs.  Their families, prominent and prosperous, came from the ruling class of Massachusetts, which was comprised of merchants, judges, Congregational clergymen and lawyers.[5]

Timothy Pickering, George Cabot, Fisher Ames and Theophilus Parsons were the Junto’s leaders.

Next:

Who were these New England Federalists ? (continued)

Look for it Monday, July 22.

 

 

 


[1] James M. Banner, Jr.  To the Hartford Convention:  The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts 1789-1815, (New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1970) 6-7.

[2] Banner, Hartford Convention,  8.

[3] Mathew Carey, Carey’s American Pocket Atlas (Philadelphia:  Mathew Carey, 1796) 14-15.

[4] Banner, Hartford Convention,  13.

[5] David H. Fischer, “The Myth of the Essex Junto” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series V. 21, N. 2 (April, 1964) 196.

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