288
The Democratic Republican Societies
at the End of the Eighteenth Century:
The Western Pennsylvania Experience
Marco M.Sioli
University of Milan
On July 3, 1793 in Philadelphia, 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 consideration of its principles, and objects, you may be induced to promote its adoption 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 arrogance 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 proposals 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
It
289
-
-A.%
I
I
I
I
J.
.
k. --
1
B,
L.- ,--
..A mnp of Wstem Parnnib in 1791.
nbkui 60, Number 3 * Ml1993
,
-
290
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 Furthermore, 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 republican citizenship," but they lost the characteristic tone of subjects imploring redress
of oppression or inequity. 6 Petitions assumed the characteristics of political proposals put forth by citizens in whom power originates and is legitimated, citizens
ready to rescind institutional bonds and propose an alternative form of government-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, Hugh
Henry Brackenridge, poet and lawyer, who had moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh searching for a better life, had already read to an assembly of Western Pennsylvania delegates a letter from the people of Kentucky aimed at creating a common bond of interest between western communities. All the delegates at this meeting 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 corruption," well before the "democratic" aspirations of Thomas Jefferson's administration.' 3
In an area already disturbed by the "whiskey taxes" protest, these societies
were an additional source of problems for the Federalist administration, especially
Pennsylvania History
291
--
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.
Volume 60, Number 3 * July 1993
292
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 emergence 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 continuing 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 imaginary 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, "revolutionary 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 Pittsburgh Gazette published a petition of the Democratic Society of the County of Washington, dated March 24. "Our situation compels us to speak plainly," its authors declared. They added:
Ifwretchedness and poverty await us, it isof 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. Ifthe interest
of Eastern America requires that we should be kept in poverty, it is
unreasonable from such poverty to exact contributions. The first, ifwe 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 iswithheld from them by Spaniards.18
Pennsylvania History
293
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 eloquent 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." 2 0
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 interests."'" 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 counterpartJacobin clubs, of "middle class citizens" in the seaboard societies.2 3 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. 2 4 Small farmers assuredly constituted the majority of the population in the
Western counties, but industry and commerce were expanding. The yeomen protested 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
Volume 60, Number 3 * July 1993
294
-
mm PLY.
Denxx1adrW ainst the uaty with 1*1mm, New Ycrk dd
net~i~r *Wt
Wolent ewmram.
dg
vr
MB
hum an ey d.Akn Jay Reaaki
e Yb* ddzmm b~u an efy ofJohnp
ue
Px=m
Ry
-OAAA -o
-
s
-295
-
"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 government. 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, George Washington was "centralizing the government
in the hands of few individuals" trying to establish a de-facto aristocratic government. 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,
31 and the English, who were refusing to leave the Northwest, were
Detroit, &c."
considered responsible of agitating Indians and stopping westward expansion.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 Whiskey Rebellion.
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
Volume 60, Number 3 * july 1993
-296
-
-
-
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 Democratic 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
"ageneral tendency toward rebellion." 36
The western Pennsylvania societies' conduct did not show any direct connections 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 sufficiently acquainted with the genius, situation and circumstances of their constituents.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 average 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 distillers throughout Allegheny county, the Mingo Creek militia and most of the members 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
Pennsylvrtira History
297
W
enm
Fen
miAw hwiezsnen
piohesiiw me iadai anmimaw%wed aw xwnmv ;.azaE
all the force that a frontier militia could show.4 2 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.
Vdk= 60, Noiter 3 * My 1993
298
But other and more important objectives could be read in the documents
created by Western Pennsylvania Democratic Republican Societies. These declarations 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 culturallyprepared republican electorate. But in the short term the Democratic Republican
Societies would function as a middleman between the people and their government. 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.4 8
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,4 9 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 "monuments." 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
Pennsylvania History
-
299
r
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.
Volume 60, Number 3 # July 1993
300
-
Notes
1. This circular letter, dated July 4, 1793 was published in the National Gazette, Philadelphia, on
July 17.
2. Manuscript Minutes, Democratic Society of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, July 3, 1793, Historical
Society of Pennsylvania.
3. For a comparison with the pre-revolutionary
period see the analysis of Pennsylvania inhabitants' petitions in Elisha P. Douglass, Rebels and
Democrats (Chapel Hill, 1955). For the Shays Rebels' petitions see, for example, the "Petition from
the Town of Greenwich, Massachusetts, January
16, 1786," Manuscript, American Antiquarian
Society, Worcester, Mass.
4. See the European travelers' reports of that
times, for example, Marquis de Chastellux, Travels
in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, 1782
(New York 1827).
5. See
Charles
S. Sydnor,
American
Revolutionaries in the Making: PoliticalfPactice in
Washington's Virginia (New York, 1965).
6. The analysis of these petitions, that "although
used by all levels of American society, give us the
voice of people who seldom if ever proclaimed
their social goals and political opinion in other
written forms," is effectively accomplished by Ruth
Bogin, "Petitioning and the New Moral Economy,"
William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., 45 (July
1988), p. 392.
7. In this way, the vision of Democratic Republican Societies as "Schools of political knowledge"
has grown much stronger. See Eugene Perry Link,
Democratic Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (New
York, 1942), pp. 156-174.
8. Ibid., p. 16 and PittsburghGazette, July 6, 1793.
9. For an exhaustive list of Democratic Republican Societies throughout the U.S. from 1793 to
1798, see ibid., pp. 13-15 and the further revision
published in Philip S. Foner, The Democratic
Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (Westport, 1976),
p. 7.
10. According to Hugh Henry Brackenridge "A
Democratic Society was instituted in the town of
Washington in the month of April, 1794 on the
same principles, and in correspondence with
societies of the same denomination in New York
Philadelphia and elsewhere." Hugh Henry
Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection in the
Westem Part of Pennsylvania in the Year 1794
(Philadelphia, 1795), III, p. 25.
11. For Hugh Henry Brackenridge the Ming to
Creek Society "was instituted on February 28,
1794. It consisted of Hamilton's battalion and to
be governed by a president and council." Ibid, III.
p. 148. "This association" wrote furthermore
William Findley, Congressman and Anti-federalist
of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, "was
never announced in the newspapers, and its existence was known to but a few. A great portion of
the Mingo Creek regiment of militia became
members" and during its existence its meetings
were "frequently attended by three hundred persons." William Findley, History of the Insurrection
in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania
(Philadelphia, 1796), p. 56.
12. The Rel5ublican Society at the Mouth of the
Youghiogheny was strictly connected to the
Society of United Freemen of Mingo Creek. The
idea was to organize the four western counties of
Westemn Pennsylvania-Westmoreland, Washington, Allegheny and Fayette-into a republican
society, with representatives elected from each
district in the respective counties. Cfr. Pittsburgh
Gazette, April 26, 1794. For Brackenridge, "the
articles of this society are to the same effect with
that of Mingo Creek and equally calculated to
abstract the public mind from the established
order of the laws." See Brackenridge, Incidents,
111, p. 25.
13. The extensive yeoman's empire was an objective of the Democratic Republican Societies, perhaps more than it was ThomasJefferson's. See for
example Jefferson's response to events in Santo
Domingo. Michael Zuckerman, "The Color of
Counterrevolution: Thomas Jefferson and the
Rebellion in Santo Domingo," in Loretta Valtz
Pennsyivania History
301
Mannucci, ed., The Language of Revolution
(Milan, 1989), pp. 83-107. Scholars are likely to
debate endlessly the question of what Thomas
Jefferson was, in the "twin hysterias of exaltatio
and denunciation," as Merrill D.Peterson put it in
Thomas Jefferson: A Profile (New York, 1967),
p. vii. For example Richard K Matthews in The
Radical Politics of ThomasJefferson: A Revisionist
View (Laurence, 1984), p. 125-126, still affirms that
"Jefferson was America's first and foremost advocate of permanent revolution," and his political
system "specifically calls for mass participatory
democracy." Another point of view was expressed
by Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian Persuasion:
Evolution of a Party Ideology (Ithaca, N.Y, 1978),
who pointed out Jefferson's commitment to the
eoman farmer model. A similar position is delineated by Drew R. McCoy in The Elusive Republica:
Political Economy inJeffersonian America (Chapel
Hill, 1980). Recent scholarship has become
cautious in depicting Jefferson as a democrat. For
example, Gordon Wood observes that the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson, "found it difficult
to accept the democratic fact that their fate now
rested on the opinions and votes of small-souled
and largely unreflective ordinary people." Gordon
S.Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), p. 367. Yet, in our context,
we must not forget that the principal actor of the
economic structure during the Jefferson administration was a former Whiskey Rebel in Western
Pennsylvania, Albert Gallatin. For a connection
between Gallatin's economic politics as Secretary
of State and the influence of what happened during the last decade of 1790 in Western Pennsylvania see Marco Sioli, "'here Did the Whiskey
Rebels Go?" in L.Valtz Mannucci, When the Shooting Is Over: Te Orderand the Memory, forthcoming.
14. See Harry Tinkcom, The Republicans and
Federalists in Pennsylvania, 1790-1801 (Harris-
burg, 1950).
15. This view of democracy is in contrast with the
Volume 60, Number 3 * July 1993
most important propositions in Turner's enduring
frontier thesis. See FrederickJackson Turner, "The
Significance of the Frontier," in The Frontier in
American History (New York, 1920), pp. 1-38. If
Turner considered "democracy' as an individualistic and competitive way of life and welded Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis into a type of geographical determinism, in this case "democracy'
means participation of frontiersmen, as individuals, in the popular community meetings organized by the Democratic Republican Societies and
the individual subscription of joint popular petition.
16. For a recent and innovative analysis of the
conditions of the Early American Frontier, see
Gregory Nobles, "Breaking into the Backcountry:
New Approaches to the Early American Frontiers,
1750-1800," Williain anid Maly Qtuaterly 3rd ser.,
46 (October 1989): 642-670. About the consequence of life on the frontier and the concept of
the "liminal status" of the frontiersmen see,
Thomas P Slaughter, "Crowds in Eighteenth Century America: Reflection and New Direction," The
PeLrnsylvania Magazine of Histoly and Biography
115 (January 1991): 13-14.
17. See Philip S. Foner, Democratic Republican
Societies, p. 5.
18. The Remonstrance of the Society of Hamilton's district of Washington County in Pennsylvania, March 24, 1794, William Rawle Family
Papers, 1, 18, Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
published in the Pittsburgh Gazette on April 5,
1794.
19. Thomas P Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion:
Frontier Epilogue to the Amne-ictin Revolution
(New York, 1986), p. 164.
20. Gary Nash, "Social Change and the Growth of
Pre-revolutionary Urban Radicalism" in Alfred
Young, ed., American Revolution, Explorations in
the History of American Radic.adismn (De Kalb,
1976), p. 13. In this case the principle adopted is a
humanitarian one, to rescue lower classes from
widespread poverty.
302
21. National Gazette, Philadelphia, December 19,
1792.
22. William Cobbett, "A Little Plain English
Addressed to the People of United States" in Porcupine's Works: Containing Various Writings and
Selections, Exhibiting a Faithful Picture of the
United States of America (London, 1801), vol. 2,
p. 338.
23. For the composition of the French Club see
Crane Brinton, "The Members of the Jacobin
Clubs," American Historical Review, 34 (July
1929): 740. Eugene Ferry Link's analysis was
modified by Roland M. Baumann, who estimates
that the craftsmen were fewer than Link indicated
and professional men and merchants were more
numerous. See Roland M.Baumann, "The Democratic Republicans of Philadelphia: The Origins,
1776-1797" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State
University, 1970), pp. 448-551, and appendix, table
3, pp. 598-603.
24. Eugene Perry Link 7The Democratic Republican Societies, p. 73.
25. For the Scots Irish behaviour see Wayland F.
Dunway, The Scots Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania
(Baltimore, 1979), p. 181. It is an error, however,
to overemphasize the ethnic factor in the formation of the Democratic Republican Societies. See,
for example, Jacob E. Cooke, "The Whiskey Insurrection: A Reevaluation," Pennsylvania History, 30
(uly 1963): 320-321.
26. See Robespierre's speech to the Convention
on February 5, 1794, where he declared that a
republic to be "a state where the sovereign
people, guided by laws that are their own work do
by themselves everything that they can do well,
and by means of delegates everything that they
cannot do themselves." Maximilien Robespierre,
Ouvres de Maximilien Robespierne (Paris, 1910-
67), 1: 352-364.
27. American Daily Adverti.sei; Philadelphia, July
29, 1794.
28. R)r the evangelical influence on politics in this
period see Nathan 0. Hatch, The Democratization
-
ofAmerican Christianity(New Haven, 1989) or, for
a more local view, both Stephen A Marini, Radical
Sects of Revolutionary New England (New Haven,
1989) and, again Nathan 0. Hatch, The Sacred
Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and
Millenium in Revolutionary New England (New
Haven, 1977).
29. American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, July
29, 1794.
30. PhiladelphiaGazette, November 29, 1794.
31. Response to an Address from the Democratic
Society of Kentucky, April 26, 1794 in Philip S.
Foner, The Democratic Republican Societies,
p. 131.
32. In fact John Graves Simcoe, Governor of
Upper Canada, advocated an alliance with Indian
tribes and with Spain to separate the Western settlements from the Union. See Samuel Flag Bemis,
Jay's Treaty a Study on Commerce and Diplomacy
(New York, 1923), pp. 170-172.
33. In August 1794, General Anthony Wayne, after
having organized the Army, was successful in
defeating Indians at Fallen Timbers.
34. For the Federalists' behavior and the so called
"paranoid style" see Gordon Wood, "Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in
the Eighteenth Century," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 39 (July 1982): 402-411.
35. George Washington, The W-itings of George
Washington, Worthington C. Ford, ed. (New York
1889-1903), 12: 454.
36. Ibid.
37. The publications of the Democratic Republic
Societies contained frequent denunciations of the
Whiskey Rebels. See William Miller, "The Democratic Societies and the Whiskey Insurrection,"
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bioqgraphy,
62 (July 1938). What did occur, Miller admits, is
that, quite predictably, "though the Democratic
Societies themselves took no part in the insurrection, some of the members of the Democratic
Societies, Pennsylvania, did. But apparently not in
their capacity as members of the club." See p. 327.
Pennsylvania History
303
38. Manuscripts Minutes of the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 137.
39. The appointments of the several regional
Inspectors were proposed directly by George
Washington. "To Secretary of the Treasury, March
15, 1791," in John C. Fitzpatrick ed., The W-itings
of George Washington (Washington, 1931-1944),
31, p. 236.
40. See also Solon J. Buck "Frontier Economy in
South Westem Pennsylvania," Western Pennsylvania HistoricalMagazine, 19 (June 1936): 117.
41. The procedure involved in the nomination of
such a figure characterized pre-revolutionary
Virginia, where Washington's views were formed.
The "middling" gentleman planter was the "old"
choice and his rejection by the population a further sign of new self-images and a new political
climate, which no longer sees public officials as
"tutors" to whom the citizenry "entrusts" itself
42. Deposition of Francis Mentges, August 1, 1794
and Alexander Hamilton to George Washington,
August 5, 1794, Papers of Alexander Hamnilton,
H. C. Syrett, ed. (New York 1961-1979), 17: 2-5
and 56. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Incidents,
1:8-9; 3: 134-135.
43. Eugene Perry Link, Democnatic Republican
Societies, p. 147.
44. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Incidents, 1,p. 66.
According to Brackenridge only three-fourths of
the people who met at Braddock's Field marched
to Pittsburgh.
45. About this kind of public procession see
Marco Sioli, "The Whiskey Rebellion as Republican
Citizenship," in L. Valtz Mannucci, People and
Power: Rights, Citizenship and Violence (Milan,
1992). See also, for precedents, L.Valtz Mannucci,
"People and Power: the Federal Processions of
1787 and 1788," paper presented at the conference "Ideology and Resistance; the Construction
of American Culture and Its Reception at Home
and Abroad" (Haifa, Israel, Jan. 7-10, 1990), to be
published in the United States.
Volume 60, Number 3 * July 1993
46. "Constitution of the Democratic Society of
Washington," William Rawle Family Papers, 1: 18.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
47. Cf. H. James Henderson, "Quantitative
Approaches to Party Formation in the United
States Congress: A Comment," William and Marv
Quarterly 3rd ser., 30 (April 1973): 319.
Henderson, in fact, affirmed that "for the Republicans the condemnation of the Socities amounted
to censorship of voluntary associations that
were inevitable in a free polity." For Richard
Buel, Jr., "the societies saw their principle function
not as electioneering but as mobilizing pubic
opinion.... The Federalists were not willing to
accept the societies as instruments for mobilizing
public opinion." Richard Buel Jr., Secur-ing the
Revolution: Ideology in Anerican Politics, 17891815 (Ithaca, N.Y, 1972), pp. 103-104.
48. See, for example, Bernard Fay, "Early Party
Machinery in the United States: Pennsylvania in
the Election of 1796," Pennslsvania Ma.gazine of
History and Biogroiaphv 60 (October 1936):
375-390.
49. For the formation of George Washington's
myth, as idol for the Revolution and image of political and personal virtue, see Bariy Schwartz,
Geoige Washington: The Making of in Amneric.i
Symbol (Ithaca, NY, 1987).
50. About the morality and the virtue of Henry
Knox, extraordinarily popular with the gentlemen
and the ladies of elites in Boston, New York and
Philadelphia, see North Callahan, Hemny Knox:
General Washiqgtons Generl- (New York, 1958).
51. Linda Kerber, Federalists in Dissent: hlnmagei'
and Ideol(gy in Jefflersonian America (Ithaca, N.Y,
1970).
52. For example, as Secretary of War, Henty Knox
stated in 1787 that the national government had to
have "a legal coercive power" over the people "to
govern and control their own citizens." See
"Report of the Secretary of War to Congress," July
10,11787, in Clarence E. Carter, ed., The Territorial
P.ipers of the lUnited States (Washington, D.C.,
304
54. Alan Taylor, Libelty Men and Great Prophetors: the Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine
Frontiet; 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill, 1990), pp. 37-47.
55. Michael Zuckerman, "The Color of Counterrevolution," in L. Valtz Mannucci, ed., The
Language of Revolution, pp. 83-107.
56. Alfred Creigh, History of Washington County
Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1882), p. 68.
1934-1962), 1: 31-32.
53. Thomas P. Slaughter, "George Washington
and the Western Country," in The Whiskey Rebellion, pp. 75-89 and Andrew R.L.Cayton, "Separate
Interest and the Nation-State: The Washington
Administration and the Origins of Regionalism in
the Trans-Appalachian West," Joumal of American
History, 79 (June 1992): 39-67.
--
U