©Edward C. Papenfuse

I. The Revolutionary Generation and writing a State Constitution

[ from the  introduction to the Decisive Blow is Struck]

II. a profile of the Planter Elite

[English  text from Forster and Papenfuse article which originally appeared in French]

Comparative Population to keep in mind:

1770- U.S., 2,205,00; MD, 202,599; London 651,580; Paris, 480,000; Baltimore, 6,000; Annapolis 1,113;

III.  Review of Documents (see Indignant Protest and Writing it all Down):

 A) from Indignant Protest to Hesitant Revolutionaries

1) Transcription of an article from the Maryland Gazette

dated Annapolis, October 20, 1774 which relates the events surrounding the burning of the Peggy Stewart [from Peter Force, American Archives, 4th Series]

2) Transcription of an article from the Maryland Gazette

dated the 10th of April, 1775, which reprints an article from the London Publick Ledger of January 4, 1775 concerning the burning of the Peggy Stewart [from Peter Force, American Archives, 4th Series]

3) Letter dated August 4, 1774, from Joshua Johnson, London

partner of Wallace, Davidson, and Johnson, an Annapolis-based mercantile firm. John Davidson, a partner in the firm was a customs official in Annapolis. [Wallace, Davidson, and Johnson Letterbook, Maryland State Archives]

4) Transcription of a newspaper article dated Baltimore,

November 28, 1774, detailing destruction of tea in Elizabeth Town, later Hagarstown, in western Maryland. [from Peter Force, American Archives, 4th Series]

5) Petition to the King from Congress, July 8, 1775.

[sold at auction, 1932]

6) Instructions to Maryland's Delegates in Congress,

January 12, 1776, May 21, 1776, and June 28, 1776, concerning Independence [Journals of the Conventions, Maryland State Archives]

7) Thomas Jefferson's analysis of the Declaration of

Independence (July 2-4, 1776) indicating changes made by the drafting committee and by Congress which he prepared for James Madison in May 1783. [Julian Boyd, Declaration of Independence, Library of Congress, 1943]

8) Transcriptions of two letters from Sergeant William Sands

to his family, July 20 and August 14, 1776. Sands was among the first troops sent from Maryland to join George Washington on Long Island. [Maryland State Archives; Peter Force, American Archives, 4th Series]

B) from: Writing it All Down: The Art of Constitution making for the State and the Nation, 1776-1833

1) Articles copied from the Maryland Gazette, June 1776

including instructions to the Anne Arundel County delegation to the Constitutional Convention concerning drafting a Constitution for Maryland and two articles by 'American.' The text is taken from Peter Force's American Archives, 1846.

2) Declaration of Rights and Constitution of Maryland, 1776,

as drafted and adopted by the 9th Convention, August-November, 1776. Text taken from Hanson's Laws of Maryland, 1787. Note the provision concerning Baltimore's representation.

3) Letter of James McHenry, Maryland Delegate to Congress,

to Congressman, later Governor, John Henry, July 1, 1783, from the Goldsborough Papers, MdHR G 2085

C:) narrative re: Maryland and the Constitution :

(based upon an article published in the Maryland Historical Magazine)

Changing Perceptions of Home Rule and Who Should Rule at Home

In the last two decades of the 18th century, the function of representative government shifted from the provision of minimal services and the redress of grievances by petition to the legislature to an everincreasing involvement in public expenditure and regulation. Additionally, the concept of representation changed from one limited to men of property to one embracing all white men who had a stake in government action. Although not as rapidly, the perception of who should govern simultaneously changed. As historian Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, those in power only reluctantly relinquished the notion that on balance parties were evil and that only those with relatively high stakes (defined as property) should rule. [CITATION NEEDED] At the outset of the struggle over the federal constitution, the perception within the elite of what constituted a 'good' ruler probably paralleled the concept found in the obituary of the Virginian Edmund Pendleton.

None of his opinions were drawn from personal views or party prejudices. He never had a connection with any political party...so that his opinions were the result of his own judgement, and that judgement was rendered upon the best unbiased estimate he could make of the public good.

The struggle over the Constitution and specifically, a Bill of Rights transformed a political culture of shifting alliances and small factions centered on forceful personalities into a movement towards "peaceable assemblies" called parties that sought leaders who reflected their interests and their concerns. As with many matters relating to his generation, perhaps it was Benjamin Franklin who understood better than most what role parties would play in American politics. With regard to political parties Franklin wrote, "Such will exist wherever there is liberty; perhaps they help to preserve it. By the collision of different sentiments, sparks of truth are struck out, and political light is obtained."

In the transformation of American politics, the state courts initially played no substantive role. Only after 1789, as the judicial arena widened to include questions of jurisdiction with the federal court system and as the higher state courts were called upon to arbitrate sensitive political issues such as payment of prewar debts to British creditors and the extent of municipal regulatory powers, did the judiciary address the broader constitutional issues of home rule. Until then, substantive changes in political behavior and in the processes of constitutional development occurred in local politics and in the creation of governmental structures at the state and local levels.

Beginning in 1776, each of the revolting [WORD CHOICE] colonies created formal governmental structures at the state level that, for the most part, proved viable despite changing economic demands placed upon the political world. War irrevocably altered the nature of government and the services it was expected to provide. The Treaty of Paris in 1783, ratified while Congress was sitting in Annapolis, thrust the loose association of thirteen former colonies on to the international scene without any clear idea of how each of those new States ought to act. At the same time, war also changed the popular perception of the role of government. Government grew larger, levied heavy taxes, and became more involved in public services such as education and internal improvement. In Maryland, for example, the formation of the University of Maryland and the efforts to improve both the Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers illustrate government involvement of the time. [CITATION NEEDED] At the local level Maryland, like most of the other states, learned to spend money for "public" purposes on a scale hitherto unknown and at the expense of a concurrently created national debt. The American Revolution had taught American local governments how to raise money from taxes, and those who governed quickly grew accustom to the power and patronage that went with spending it. Through the constitutions created and the governments that resulted therefrom, states like Maryland questioned whether or not they needed to meet obligations- financial or otherwise that arose beyond their state boundaries.

Perceptions of what constituted representative government also shifted from support for a government by the social and economic elite, ruling as they saw it in the best interest of the governed, toward popular referendum and recall. In 1787, one Maryland 'Constituent' summarized both the prevailing view of a good legislator and the reality of factional local politics in an article in the Maryland Gazette or Baltimore Advertiser. Legislators, he wrote, should be: [EMPHASIS ?] men who can read the human character, and know what will best suit the circumstances, habits and dispositions of the people--men whose minds are enlightened and improved by experience and observation, which ever communicate the most solid and the most useful information on constitutional and legislative deliberations. Those also, and those alone, are deserving of [the voter's] patronage, who can have no motive to oppose the general good, or throw the State into disorder, from party violence, factious combinations, disappointed resentments, or pinching want. Of all such beware, or you will repent of your folly too late to prevent its injurious effects.

Within two decades party allegiance would begin to prevail over personal rectitude, and representatives would be expected to be more responsive than responsible.

Politics and political theory at the local level has much to do with how and why a national government such as that proposed by the Constitution came into being. The individual States tried first to govern themselves and, for a decade, their experiments in self-government functioned rather well. A few within the local governing elites, [IS THIS TRUE OF ALL OF THE STATES OR JUST MARYLAND'S LOCAL ELITE/ CLARIFY] however, saw the need to solve some problems beyond state boundaries, by addressing a few issues regionally and even nationally. When these efforts proved successful, some pushed further for a national convocation embracing all thirteen new states to: take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States; to consider how far uniform system in their commercial intercourse and regulations might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony, and to report to the several states such an act, relative to this great object, as when unanimously ratified by them, would enable the United States, in Congress assembled, effectually provide for the same.

It is from the local context, however, that the issues of commerce, defense, war debt, and the meanings, of the "vox populi" and representative government arose. This does not mean that the national political forum, as provided by Congress, was not important; but until at least 1789, that forum was decidedly secondary to developments on the local level. This hierarchy is confirmed repeatedly by a close examination of Congressional proceedings. Not even Congressmen took Congress seriously. A good example of this disdain is the Annapolis experience of the winter and spring of 1783-1784, as described by Thomas Jefferson: Congress had now become a very small body, and the members very remiss in their attendance on its duties, insomuch, that a majority of the States, necessary by the Confederation to constitute a House even for minor business, did not assemble until the 13th of December [1783]....Our body was little numerous, but very contentious. Day after day was wasted on the most unimportant questions. A member, one of those afflicted with the morbid rage of debate, of an ardent mind, prompt imagination, and copious flow of words, who heard with impatience any logic which was not his own, sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, asked me how I could sit in silence, hearing so much false reasoning, which a word should refute? I observed to him, that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence was impossible.

With the publication of the proposed federal Constitution (for Maryland that was September 22, 1787) the first nationally focused political campaign began in earnest. The Federalists were unwilling to modify their document, but the Anti-Federalists succeeded in persuading the electorate, albeit a relatively restricted one, that the new Constitution should contain a Bill of Rights to protect the individual and each state against arbitrary exercises of power. As one correspondent in the [NAME THE NEWSPAPER] put it, who was to say how virtuous our Federal representatives would be in several years.

In Maryland the Federalists proved to be a loose coalition of a) those within the governing elite (frequently with ties to the war-time military establishment) who favored a "strong dollar", national constitution and assumption of the war debt, a strong national defense, a united front in foreign affairs, protection of trade, public encouragement of a nationwide industry and

b) former closet loyalists (nonjurors) who were convinced by Tench Coxe that the new national constitution was truly better than the old British one. There were no rotten boroughs, no "corruption", no "tyrants", and yet "English liberties" were safeguarded.

Anti-Federalists were a loose coalition of

a) those within the ruling elite who believed small government was good government,

b) debtors, large and small who, were desperate for debt relief (as opposed to responsible debtors who could withstand pressure to pay their debts because of prudent management of their resources)

c) ideological republicans who favored the independent farmer and distrusted the growing urban corruption of Baltimore, who feared arbitrary power in any form, who like the transplanted Virginian, John Francis Mercer, demanded that those who supported the Revolution risking their lives and fortune be given special privileges for their wartime sacrifices and insisted that personal liberties be safeguarded along with the states' rights in written form. [REWORK FROM (IN MARYLAND THE FEDERALISTS...page 6) In the end, both sides won. The Federalists, building on existing state constitutional experience, provided the structure for the national government. The Anti-Federalists, more appropriately referred to as the "Amending Fathers" provided the framework of individual protection in the first ten Amendments and laid the groundwork both philosophically and practically for the expansion of the electorate. The latter, in time, led to profound changes and tensions within American politics.

In assessing the national impact of local political issues, great care must be taken not to exaggerate their long-term importance. For example, there is no question that the success of Daniel Shay's 1786 rebellion in Massachusetts temporarily raised the anxiety level of the existing political leadership in Maryland as elsewhere; but as Uriah Forrest, a member of the House of Delegates, from Georgetown, Montgomery County, observed to Thomas Jefferson, then in Paris, "the most trifling events have been magnified into monstrous outrages." [CITATION NEEDED] Forrest wondered if the next generation would "credit us, that in the first twelve years of the independence of thirteen free powerful and separate states, only one rebellion happened." [CITATION NEEDED] Jefferson's response that "a little rebellion" was "a good thing" [CITATION NEEDED] has helped to obscure the fact that by the time the debate over the adoption of the Constitution was begun in earnest, Shay's Rebellion had been controlled locally and was largely ignored nationally.

In 1788, as in 1776, political memories were relatively short and poorly focused. Politics at the local level were episodic, factious, deference-oriented, and left little room for any persistent theme of 'party' or party organization focusing on long-term objectives of obtaining or holding political power. Perhaps the most perceptive analysis of contemporary factious politics was written by James Madison in his Federalist Number Ten, first published in November 1787. [EXPAND ON MADISON'S ANALYSIS] Ironically, it was this piece and the other Federalist polemics that were to be instrumental in providing the theoretical nucleus for the development of an essentially two- party structure for the future of American politics; but in 1787 the local political climate was quite different. Madison's defense of how government should work remains problematic, but no one has more skillfully or accurately portrayed the reality of Maryland's local political systems than Madison. They were systems in which a kaleidoscopic array of interests working within the framework of a very limited constituency struggled to control the sources of power. Indeed, it was a struggle for political power that was increasingly viewed with envy, [EMPHASIS UNNECESSARY] by those excluded from it and with fear [EMPHASIS UNNECESSARY] due to "prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other." [CITATION NEEDED] The process of state constitution-writing that began in 1776, and to which Madison refers in the Federalist Number Ten, institutionalized factional politics at the local level. At the same time it provided the framework for a federal Constitution in which one day the party would be institutionalized.

In May 1776, on the eve of what Maryland's Samuel Chase referred to as the "decisive blow" for independence, [CITATION NEEDED] Thomas Stone (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) would write a long and thoughtful letter to the political leadership of Maryland:

The Vox Populi [voice of the people] must in great measure influence your determination of the part to be taken by the Province [of Maryland with regard to the issue of Independence]...You must ..declare explicitly that you will go all Lengths with the majority of Congress or that you will not join in a War to be carried on for the purposes of Independency & new establishments, and will break the Union, ... either of which are dangerous extremes--But whatever is determined it will be wise and prudent to have the concurrence of the People.

What Stone meant by the "concurrence of the people" is critical to an understanding of the course of American political development. In 1776, it meant [WHAT?]; after 1787, it began to mean something quite different.

The Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble

The various state constitutions, both as written and derived from practice, made federal constitution writing in the summer of 1787 a relatively simple task. The convention which met in Philadelphia in the hot summer of 1787, however, committed a very basic error which the first Congress under the new United States Constitution moved quickly to rectify. The convention failed to realize that there was a widespread demand for some written form of "Declaration" or "Bill of Rights".[IS THIS TRUE? I THOUGHT THAT IT WAS WELL AWARE BUT REFUSED TO INCLUDE] In 1787 almost all state constitutions contained a Bill of Rights or Declaration of Rights either embodied in their text or as separate documents.

In asserting the existence of popular support for some form of written "declaration of rights", care must be taken to not confuse those few Anti-Federalists, such as Charles Ridgely of Maryland who opposed big, powerful, and expensive central government with the vast majority of enfranchised Americans, mostly propertied men, who clearly favored a careful, written statement of "rights" to be retained by individuals and the states under the new Constitution. [CITATION NEEDED]

In looking at how the Constitution came to be adopted and amended, one must also keep in mind that there existed thirteen state constitutions (fourteen, if counting Vermont) for 13 (or 14) polities from which emerged a national consensus on the construction of a national government. No one jurisdiction could lay claim to more than suggesting ideas that others might modify.[DO YOU AGREE?] It is possible to assert with some degree of certainty, however, that the collective effort in drafting the first amendment created a concept fundamentally legitimizing political parties and political action. Furthermore, the Maryland contribution to the wording and ultimate adoption of the amendment marked a significant step toward the final language proposed by Virginia. [WHAT IS THE ORIGINAL AND ULTIMATE LANGUAGE?] More importantly, the redrafting of the first amendment reflects the beginning of a significant shift in attitudes towards political behavior. This shift is particularly pronounced in the context of those 'peaceable assemblies' that became political parties.

Arguably the best, single, secondary source on the historical origins of the first amendments to the federal Constitution is Judge Edward Dumbauld's "State Precedents for the Bill of Rights." Dumbauld stresses that James Madison played the major role in articulating the concerns over the Constitution as presented for ratification to the states and that he was instrumental in seeing the first amendments through the first Congress. [CITATION TO DUMBAULD P?] Madison worked from a printed compilation of amendments, proposed by New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, and South Carolina. He sent [DID HE SEND THE COMPILATION OR THE DRAFT?] this compilation/draft (Dumbauld p. 323) to Jefferson in October of 1788. Dumbauld argues convincingly that the sequencing of the New York amendments was adopted by Madison [?] as a way of incorporating them directly into the body of the Constitution. [CITATION TO DUMBAULD (p. 338-40)] In this way Madison hoped to ignore any of the proposed amendments that he felt would destroy the fabric of the Constitution while permitting the others to become part of the document itself. To that extent he failed. The pressure to have a separate statement of individual freedoms and states' rights was simply too great.

Although James Madison applied his indisputable genius to the final form of the Bill of Rights, the language and intent of those amendments originated in the local conventions called between 1776 and 1788. For example, the language of the First Amendment in final form reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This final text contains five separate and distinct elements: (1) freedom of religion; (2) freedom of speech; (3) freedom of the press; (4) freedom to peaceably assemble; and (5) freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances. They, in part, derive from the Virginia Declaration of Rights which addresses the freedoms of religion and of the press but not the freedoms of speech, of peaceable assembly or of petition for redress of grievances. The Maryland Declaration of Rights by contract expands the rights enumerated by Virginia to include the freedoms to petition and of speech. The Maryland Declaration did not expressly grant the other freedoms. Not until the draft United States Constitution was dispatched to the states by Congress in September 1787, was the fifth proposition of the First Amendment delineated. On September 27, 1787, Congressman Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed an amendment "that the right of the people to assemble peaceably for the purpose of petitioning the legislature shall not be prevented," but it too lacked any reference to peaceable assembly for any other purposes than to petition [REMOVE EMPHASIS] the legislature.

Marylander William Paca's amendments to the federal Constitution, presented to the Maryland Ratifying Convention in April 1788 and as printed in the volume used by Madison in formulating his draft of the Bill of Rights, encompassed religion, speech, press and individual petition but did not clearly mention collective action in peaceable assembly, [SAVE] that "every man has both a right to petition the Legislature, for the Redress of Grievances, in a peaceable and orderly manner." It remained to Virginia two months later to add, as a result of a ratifying convention marked by close division and sharp controversy, the language "that the people have a right peaceably to assemble together to consult for the common good, or to instruct their representatives, and that every human has a right to petition or apply to the legislature."

By 1788 the "Vox Populi", to which Thomas Stone referred in 1776, had undergone a significant transformation from a largely passive and ambiguous role in politics to a legally-defined right of "peaceable assembly." [CITATION NEEDED] If the premise is accepted that political parties derive their basic rights to organize, petition, and assemble from the first amendment, then the theory underlying these protections derived as early as 1776 from local Maryland and Virginia politics. From a national standpoint, as well as from purely local interest, it might be beneficial to examine in some detail how such a "declaration of rights", so fundamental to our present political system, was first articulated in the local context. It is just as important, however, to determine the composition of the local political constituency in the 1770s and 1780s, and to establish how the amendments articulated by William Paca and expanded by the Virginia Ratifying Convention coincided with pressures from within and without the ruling political elite to enlarge that constituency.

The "Concurrence of the People"?

Even in the most contested of the 1786 elections for membership to Maryland's constitutional ratifying convention, only about 42% of eligible Maryland voters cast their ballots. [CITATION NEEDED] In Baltimore Town, for example, 1338 voters of the 3208 eligible in the city of 19,557 free citizens elected James McHenry to the Ratifying Convention in January of 1788. [CITATION NEEDED] By Contrast in Washington County, with an eligible population of 14,536, 29% of the eligible voters at most showed up to send their representatives to the Annapolis Ratifying Convention. Voter turnout in Maryland was even lower 200 years ago than it is today.

While some scholars might attribute this lack of concern and voter apathy to a pervasive desire not to be involved in the public world, the thesis advanced here is that by 1776 the political elite of Maryland was well integrated with the state's economic elite, and the former retained control over state politics until the last decade of the eighteenth century. From this perspective, the controversies over paper money and debtor/creditor relationships and speculation and greed were largely squabbles within this elite. Furthermore, they were conflicts occurring within a popularly removed, highly-fragmented and factious political arena. Few in the general population really cared about the disputes beyond tavern gossip.

This hypothesis should not suggest that no issues transcended the in-house bickering of a secure political elite. At times economic or political crises, like war and a shortage of coin, could; but it took the intensive debate over the adoption and amendment of the federal Constitution before any concerted effort to redefine the electorate merged. Nevertheless, in the decade following 1776, much as in the several generations before, the political world was still confined to a relatively small number of families. The presence from the military and the exigencies of war in 1776, to expand participation in the political process to all who bore arms was both a temporary and controllable phenomenon. Rezin Hammond, a well-established member of the planter elite, led this particular movement. However, other members of the elite, such as John Francis Mercer, attempted to define the political constituency under different pressures-the exigencies of a peace in which the old methods of maintaining the planter/merchant hegemony were increasingly subject to question.

The American Revolution had transformed government from into a potentially large and profitable enterprise and had converted state government from a factious debating club, with few actions of long term consequence, into a source of extensive, and tempting, economic power. [CITATION NEEDED] The process of constitution-making, that culminated in the adoption and amendment of the federal Constitution, legitimized "peaceable assemblies," soon to be known as political parties. [CITATION NEEDED] Parties, in turn, proved to be excellent vehicles for further expanding the franchise to all free white adult males in 1802. [CITATION NEEDED] While these development of the next two decades were still largely figments of the fearful imaginations of such social conservatives as Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a movement toward expansion of the franchise was afoot by 1786. Those among Maryland's political elite who found that they were constantly excluded from the control of government after 1776 sought first to enlarge their support within the existing electorate. [CITATION NEEDED]

Samuel Chase, a clear loser in the paper money issues of 1785 and 1786, [INSERT THE INFO ON CHASE IN HERE AS A FOOTNOTE] in 1787 moved to Baltimore where he assumed that he could continue to participate in the political process on the strength of his position in the elite and his many years of service in the state legislature. Chase's assumption proved correct, in his first election which came only a few days after the Baltimore newspapers' publications of the final draft of the proposed United States Constitution. [CITATION NEEDED] There was not yet an opportunity for the debate over the proposed Constitution to raise the question of who would best represent Baltimore City's interests in the legislature. Consequently, Chase won handily over his opponent, James McHenry. [CITATION NEEDED] However, by April 1788, politics at the national and local levels had dramatically changed. The debates concerning the Constitution had irrevocably altered attitudes in the City of Baltimore about the nature of representation. Samuel Chase would prove an ill-fit with this new perception.

In the controversy over paper money, Chase had advocated a return "to the people" for instructions, secure in his belief of proper action coincided with the "people's" desires=cheap paper money and a lenient debt policy. [CITATION NEEDED] In effect, he looked to the popular referendum on paper money as a confirmation of his own position on the issue. In 1787, Chase assumed that his personal judgment on the Constitution, which was to defeat or at least amend, the document, would similarly accord with his constituents' decisions in Baltimore City. His assumption failed under the new concept of representation and twice he was soundly defeated: first at the elections in April for the ratifying convention and then the following fall for legislator. McHenry instead succeeded him.

The election of October 1788 for delegates to the Maryland General Assembly constituted a turning point in Maryland political history because it was the first election in which national issues played a critical role in shaping the permanent organization of local politics. For example, the interest of Baltimore City lay in supporting the proposed Constitution because of what it promised [EXPLAIN-THERE'S NO CLAUSE EXPLICITLY PROTECTING BALTIMORE, PERHAPS INTERSTATE COMMERCE] for the economic development of the city as a port and a manufacturing center. The rest of Maryland also supported the Constitution but for entirely different reasons. [ENUMERATE REASONS AND CITE SOURCE] [AT ODDS WITH FOLLOWING MATERIAL] In contrast to Baltimoreans, who "led" their representatives to support the Constitution, [CITATION NEEDED] other Marylanders deferred to their representatives in the old tradition of Maryland politics. Nothing demonstrates this rule of behavior better than the successes of Chase and John Francis Mercer enjoyed in the countryside where they rallied opposition to ratification of the proposed Constitution. Chase and Mercer found that they could operate within the old system to sway the existing constituency to their point of view. Their triumphs in Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Harford Counties in April 1788 testify to this success. [THIS ARGUMENT ON THE SUCCESS OF ANTIFEDS DIRECTLY CONFLICTS WITH THE FIRST SENTENCE SAYING THE STATE SUPPORTED THE CONSTITUTION. REWRITE AND SUPPORT. DELETE CONTRADICTORY PROPOSITION]

While Chase, who had abandoned his Baltimore constituents to the Federalists, harangued the electorate of Anne Arundel County. Mercer and Jeremiah Chase dispersed in the county a signed handbill that summarized their 'platform':

Bill of Rights

Liberty of Conscience.

Trial By Jury.

No Excise.

No Poll Tax.

No Standing Army In Peace,

With Limitation.

No Whipping Militia, Nor Marching Them Out Of The State, Without Consent Of The General Assembly.

No Direct Taxation, Without Previous Requisition. [CITATION NEEDED]

According to observer Daniel Carroll, the result of these efforts was that "the people were alarmed at their positive assertions, and I am assured when they attended the Polls, a wildness appeared in many which show'd they were really frightened by what they had just heard." [CITATION NEEDED] Undoubtedly similar campaigns were waged by William Paca in Harford County and Captain Charles Ridgely in Baltimore County, where pro-amendment candidates were elected. [CITATION NEEDED] Nevertheless, "slates favoring unqualified ratification prevailed elsewhere in Maryland. Probably the major reason why the pro-amendment forces had such limited success in the countryside was their tardiness. Four days was not enough time to canvass effectively and distribute handbills beyond an area within a day or two's riding of Baltimore Town. It may also be that Samuel Chase took too long to make up his mind to join with William Paca in a concerted attack on those who supported unqualified ratification, thus preventing any organized effort until it was too late."

Those who controlled the reigns of power had not been idle either, although neither they nor their opponents in the legislature probably realized the political implications of their actions. By January of 1787 the legislature had passed a bill that welcomed back into the fold that silent third of the population that had never been enamored with the Revolution. [CITATION TO STATUTE NEEDED] The silent were the non-jurors, the "silent Tories," who had refused to participate in the political process after 1776 because of the "Oath of Allegiance" written into the Constitution but had not joined the Loyalist migration. [CITATION NEEDED] They were men like William Tilghman, brother of General George Washington's aide, Tench Tilghman, and Harry Dorsey Gough, relative and political foe of Charles Ridgely. William Tilghman explained his position to Tench Coxe in February 1787:

I should tell you that before our Assembly rose, they gave the most ample and liberal relief to the whole body of Nonjurors--Upon taking an unexceptionable Oath of Allegiance, they are entitled to all privileges of citizenship--The legal barriers now removed, I imagine, I ought without much difficulty take a part in public affairs.

In 1788 Tilghman returned to the House of Delegates along with Henry Dorsey Gough. With the changes in requirements for taking the oath of allegiance at the local level and with the adoption of the United States Constitution, the silent Tories were likely candidates for admission to the ranks of a nationalist, or "Federalist," party. At the same time, members of the Maryland elite, such as Mercer, who had struggled to prevent declared Loyalists from voting and had supported the claims of those who had paid their pre-war debts in depreciated currency (those of "Black list" fame, [CITATION NEEDED] sought control of Maryland government. They, therefore, supported the extension of men who had never before participated in the political process to broaden their political base.

Chase, unsurprisingly did not find the 'new' politics to his liking. He clearly preferred the old electoral system and quickly retreated into the arms of the Federalist Party. By contrast, Mercer in the countryside, and Samuel Smith, in the city, persisted in their efforts to liberalize the right to vote until they achieved universal white male suffrage and the paper ballot. [CITATION NEEDED] In so doing, they unintentionally but fundamentally altered the course of American politics. [HOW DID THEY ALTER POLITICS?] Toward the end of his life, Mercer would write a pamphlet decrying the efforts to make Baltimore the state capital. [CITATION NEEDED] In it he repeated, with grateful acknowledgement, the arguments of the arch-Federalist Alexander Contee Hanson that too much democracy could prove fatal to good government. [EXPLAIN WHY-FLESH OUT THE ARGUMENT]

The years from the fall of 1787 to 1802 were years of transformation of the political system in Maryland at the local level. Until 1787, politics in Maryland had functioned as it had for two or more previous generations. That is not to say that the governing elite was without worry Professor Ronald Hoffman has amply documented the levels of concern during the worst of the war years, but those concerns were ameliorated by peace and played little part in the controversies of the late 1780s. [CITATION NEEDED] It was not until national issues, such as the regulation of trade and the posture of the thirteen colonies in the world, could no longer be ignored, that changes in the definitions of "Vox Populi" and in the nature of representative government began to occur. With both the Annapolis Convention of 1786 and the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, questions concerning the character of the national government and its impact upon local government and individual rights became issues that forced local government officials to reevaluate their positions and to advocate, in varying degrees and ways, the expansion of the electorate. [CITATION NEEDED]

For Maryland, at least, the adoption of the Constitution seems to have presented an unprecedented challenge to the long- standing peaceful hegemony of the governing elite as well as to its basic philosophy of the relationship between citizens and their government. For the first time in a significant and comprehensive way, a written definition of the "vox populi," in a manner that profoundly affected the future course of American political development, was attempted. The courts would play an important role in shaping that definition through their opinions. This strong role seems not to have troubled the Founding Fathers, although the proponents of amendments saw the federal judiciary as a threat to the jurisdiction of the state courts. Like the pressures for broader-based suffrage and for a redefinition of representation, it did not take long for the third branch of government to manifest its interests in constitutional questions. Less than two decades after 1787, the United States Supreme Court began to lay claim to being the principal interpreter of meaning of the federal Constitution, while almost simultaneously, the state courts began to follow suit, assuming a Constitutional responsibility in local affairs that they have maintained to the present. [UNCLEAR] [THIS PIECE FOCUSED HEAVILY ON POLITICAL PARTIES AND SHOULD CONCLUDE WITH A PARAGRAPH ON PARTIES.]

V. remainder of document packets

4) Minority Report of the Annapolis Convention called to Ratify The U.S. Constitution, published ca. May 1, 1788 as a broadside

5) Maryland's official notice and text of the first Amendments to the Constitution, as of December, 1791

6) Delegate John Francis Mercer's reaction to the Constitution as Ratified and without amendments, published in the MARYLAND GAZETTE in September, 1789, courtesy of the Maryland State Law Library

6) Articles by Othello and A Republican in the MARYLAND JOURNAL AND BALTIMORE ADVERTISER, Friday, May 16, 1788, courtesy of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.