Guest Lecture:
Staking Out the Rights of Citizenship in the Revolutionary Era
Federal laws of Revolutionary-era America were vague as to what citizenship
meant.
o Articles of Confederation: “Citizen” mentioned once in Article IV.
o Constitution: Mentioned in 5 places, but never defined.
o Not defined until 14th amendment – after the Civil War
The word “citizen” implies some sort of rights, but what does true citizenship entail?
Moreover, how does one secure their place as a citizen?
How someone might answer these questions in the New Republic would vary
considerably depending upon who you asked.
From Subjects to Citizens
…as a system of governance, monarchies had their shortcomings, but they definitely gave
order to society.
When America split from Britain, its people were no longer subjects. In theory, they
became citizens.
 Yet how meaningful was this difference for Americans?
 Did the rejection of King George III make average Americans important in the
eyes of their government?
 Did women enjoy greater privilege under the Articles or Constitution than they
had under British rule? Slaves? Indians?
 While it might not seem so by modern standards, those who lived through the
Revolution believed something radical was afoot.
More than just the hierarchy of nobility gave structure to English society: So too in
America.
 In America, inequality of social station was central to society’s function.
 Everything from commerce to religion to diet to architecture to the clothes that
people wore spoke to social difference.
 Wealth, education, and family mattered almost as much in America as it did in
England.
 Social status governed everything from one’s treatment in court, expectations of
public behavior, who could expect the franchise, and who might serve in an
important civic capacity.
 It was certainly a life that the Founders embraced.
Images: (John Hancock’s clothes) (Mount Vernon) (Revere Portrait)
While the “Founding Fathers” had a keen interest in the creation of a republic, most
feared the breakdown of social deference.
 One of the Revolution’s essential conundrums was that the same reasoning used
for forging a new political order (the rhetoric of liberty and the rights of man)
could also be used to forge a new social order.
 Revolutions are dangerous: They have a way of producing unpredictable results.
 Interpretations of the Revolution’s legacy would ultimately be far more elastic
than the Founders had ever imagined.
In fact, a reappraisal between the lower classes and aspiring American aristocrats
had already begun in the Colonial era.
 America didn’t have enough aristocrats to go around. In average settings, this
created a vacuum, and hence, opportunity.
 What made a man important in his community in the backcountry was very
different than what mattered in the town.
 There is a great deal of backcountry in Colonial America.
 The rules and trappings of social deference made less practical sense the further
one got from the region’s urban centers. (Daniel Boone)
 The Revolution would accelerate these changes
A person’s rights as a citizen had to do with more than political voice. They first
needed to acquire some sort of standing in society. The Revolutionary experience
would provide this opportunity.
Fighting a War for Independence with a Truly Revolutionary Army
…Armies, by nature, are not egalitarian, democratic institutions. Yet often they mirror
the societies they represent. The differences between the American army and those it
faced reveal that American society was headed in a fundamentally new direction.
The average enlisted man in the British and Hessian forces enjoyed little say over
their fate in life. Their situation reflected the aspirations of Europe’s lower classes.
 Foot soldiers came from the peasantry. “Soldier” could almost be synonymous
with “peasant.”
 Many redcoats enlisted out of poverty and/or rural boredom.
 Hessians were largely conscripts
 They were expected to obey, not command. Command was for gentlemen.
 Particularly industrious and bright peasants could become NCO’s.
 While many were quality soldiers: Loyal, patriotic, and proud to serve the king,
they also understood that they were an expendable piece of military equipment
and would not ever have a voice in the conduct of the nation.
Officers in the British and Hessian armies were aristocrats, major and minor.
 To belong to this class and serve in the ranks would be a grave dishonor.
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To allow a peasant to command would also be an even graver dishonor.
Either situation would be considered unnatural and undesirable in the European
class structure.
Conventional wisdom was that the enlisted men would not follow or respect one
of their own. (A belief inculcated over centuries of aristocratic rule)
Interest and wealth mattered as much as valor in promotion, perhaps more.
High command was reserved for the truly aristocratic.
Those charged with forming an American army may have possessed these same
assumptions about society at the beginning, but they did not come from a society
capable of supplying the necessary ingredients for such an army.
 With a few notable exceptions (like Lafayette) most Americans in the
Revolutionary army were playing above their “station.”
 Washington may have been an American aristocrat, and had been a militia
colonel, but he was small potatoes in the grander British scheme.
 The further one went down the chain of command, the faster one ran out of
aristocratic Americans.
 Field grade officers often came from a class of men that would have never dreamt
of holding such office in a European army. This was revolutionary.
Enlisted men in the American army were volunteers fighting for a cause.
 They might have yielded their rights once joining the army, but joining was
largely their choice.
 While local militias could compel individuals to participate, (the duty of a
citizen!) the Colonials had no mechanism for conscription like the Hessians, nor
the vast pool of urban poor like the English.
 American soldiers had expectations of future reward. They were men with rights
fighting for liberty, whatever that meant.
 American soldiers fought for more than patriotism or financial gain, it was about a
fundamental change in their status.
The Mixed Fruits of Victory
“The sprit of independency was converted into equality, and everyone who bore arms
esteemed themselves upon a footing with his neighbor… …each of these men conceives
himself, in every respect, my equal.” – Thomas Mann Randolph
With peace came new opportunities and challenges.
 Among the Revolutionary generation, perhaps those who gained the most were
the junior officer class.
 Returning home, they converted their leadership qualities into political influence.
Many soldiers became voters.
 The exodus of perhaps 100,000 Tories created a tremendous vacuum in local
power.
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Not all were thrilled with this turn of events
The promise of the Revolution did not always match the reality
 The new nation, quite literally, had a hard time paying its debt to the soldiery who
had made independence possible
 Restless, unpaid soldiers could and eventually did take matters into their own
hands.
 To them, this was not an act of treason, it was their patriotic duty in defense of the
freedom won in the Revolution. (Daniel Shays)
 To those charged with creating a new government, it was an indication of the
dangers associated with too much democracy.
 Fear of anarchy led by the poor and indebted veterans led to a national
Constitution that focused as much on containing unchecked liberty as it did
protecting freedom.
The new Federal Constitution left the contested issue of full citizenship up to the
individual states. Either this was an egregious omission or incredibly wise.
 State Constitutions, laboratories of new republican political theory, varied
depending upon the relative political strength of the common man.
 Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: Dominated by Bostonian elites
o Voters: Men 21 years of age, 3 ₤ / year income, 60 ₤ estate.
 Virginia, 1776: Dominated by influential slaveholders (Like Jefferson)
o Voters: Men 21 years of age, ¼ acre in town or 25 in the country, freeheld plus 21 year old sons of freeholders.
 Pennsylvania, 1776: Influenced by large numbers of Pennsylvania farmers (and
vast backcountry)
o Voters: Men 21 years of age, residence for 1 year, and taxes all paid.
Conclusions:
o The Revolution unleashed truly revolutionary changes in society. This led to
eventual changes in who would enjoy the rights of citizenship.
o However limited these changes might seem to us today, for the time they were
quite dramatic, and for some, troubling.
o In this regard, the Founders probably got more than they had ever bargained for
o Fears of where revolutionary rhetoric might lead caused American elites to fight
for significant limitations upon the rights of less affluent citizens.
o The Revolution granted the rights of full citizenship to a relative few, but in doing
so it set in motion an important trend toward democracy
o Who should enjoy the rights of full citizenship was, as it remains, contested
ground.