WHO SHALL RULE AT HOME?
The Evolution of South Carolina Political Culture,
1748–1776
Jonathan Mercantini
A reinterpretation of the origins of the colonial revolutionary movement, Who Shall
Rule at Home? charts the changing nature of South Carolina’s political culture from
the end of King George’s War in 1748 to the decision for independence in 1776. As
he follows the colony’s shifting political landscape, Jonathan Mercantini challenges
the prevailing interpretation of South Carolina as a politically harmonious colonial
entity. Examining a series of constitutional and political conflicts, he highlights the
increasing tensions between local authorities and royal officials in both London and
Charles Town—disputes that demonstrate the growing resistance to imperial control
by the colony’s elite. These disagreements are all the more striking in South Carolina,
according to Mercantini, because the colony benefited considerably from its relationship with Great Britain.
Mercantini explains this rejection of British rule through the transformation of the
“rights of Englishmen” into the “rights of Carolina Englishmen.” He suggests that
South Carolinians, accustomed to authority as slave masters, took the British idea
that certain inalienable rights accompanied an English birthright and reinterpreted
the concept in ways related to self rule. These “rights of Carolina Englishmen” centered on local control of elections, representation, finances, and taxation.
In addition Mercantini details the strategies South Carolinians used to resist royal
control, the most notable of which was a refusal to compromise. After 1748 South
Carolina politics were not geared toward conciliation or compromise but an all-ornothing strategy that Mercantini calls “brinkmanship.” Such tactics culminated with
a bold threat to shut down government operations and suspend all business with the
royal governor rather than concede to the demands of political rivals. Mercantini
concludes that brinkmanship reveals what high political principles South Carolina’s
leaders believed to be at stake in their conflicts with outside authorities and the
lengths to which they were willing to go to resist external interference.
W ho
Shall Rule at Home?
THE EVOLUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA
POLITICAL CULTURE, 1748–1776
Jonathan Mercantini
Jonathan Mercantini received his
B.A. from the University of Richmond and his M.A. and Ph.D. from
Emory University. He is an assistant
professor of history at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.
December 2006, 336 pages
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