This module is a mixture of personalities, political structures and institutions, politics and the “making of a policy system”.
The policy system itself won’t emerge until 1701, and we start our tale in 1682. This is a period of city and state-building for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. It is dominated by its sole proprietor–royal governor–William Penn. As we discovered in the last module, he has planned this whole apparatus out before he ever stepped foot in America. Anyway, our history of economic development affords us little meaning or understanding unless we can follow the outlines and maneuverings of its policy-making process. When the Quakers arrived their boundaries and jurisdictions were full of trees, riverbanks, fields, hills, rocks and insects, rodents and birds. To being order, civilization, progress, and prosperity to these woeful critters, colonists as part of their city/state-building established a policy system. Here is Philadelphia and Pennsylvania’s tale. Oh Boy!
If the reader will remember, the first task this history assumed was to answer the simple question of why states (and cities) are different. The first chapter on Virginia was very long and laid the foundation for its colonial policy system and its evolution to the American Revolution. That is our “benchmark”, our point of comparison, so the reader can more easily appreciate how in this case Pennsylvania was different. There is no mistaking Philadelphia for Richmond or Norfolk/Virginia Beach.So to see how Penn and his fine Quaker folk blazed their own policy system, let us keep in mind a few observations that we gleaned from the Virginia experience.
Virginia and Pennsylvania Compared: a Road Map
Virginia started its construction of its policy system in 1607 with the Jamestown Company Colony. The policy system more or less came together in a recognizable whole by the turn of the 18th century. The single most important “player” in that period was its Governor William Berkeley, who presided over it for more than thirty-five of those ninety-three years. The reaction to the system he set up, after he was fired in 1677, caused a reaction he very much did not want, and by the time it was over, the royal governor and the English Crown had to compete with and struggle against the aspirations and goals of what had become its native elite, and the economic base it had put in place and controlled. The problem was, that the Crown and is royal Governor lost control over the essential features of the early-forming policy system before Berkeley ever arrived on the scene. The Jamestown Company, driven by profit only, was never really committed to setting up a well-run settled colony. Virginia’s early population were “tobacco-rush” (instead of gold rush) opportunists that thrived on wilderness autonomy and frontier anarchy. They established their own fiefdom like manors, seized control over the local county government, and then the counties dominated the state legislature. Berkeley inherited that, brought in a royalist elite that developed its political culture, and kicked Berkeley out. No royal governor sent out after him every broke the power of the local aristocracy; they each developed their own way to life with it. That 18th century first-decade lasted to the American Revolution. What happened after that, of course, we will worry about later.
Looked at more closely, we can see Virginia’s colony got off to a very different start than Pennsylvania’s. We can see that Virginia’s policy system developed in three phases: 1607 to about 1642, Berkeley’s 1642 to 1677, and the “Reaction” or Thermidor that ensued after he left the scene. It took the better part of a hundred years. Pennsylvania as we will see had one discernible, I guess, period, from 1682 to 1701, and from 1701 onto the American Revolution the same policy system danced to its different tunes. It took Pennsylvania one one eighteen year period of form its first, and onl policy system. Penn set up that policy system and then left Pennsylvania to return to England in 1701. He sent “administrators” to watch over his proprietorship, but from that time on, he increasingly lost interest in it, got sick of its politics, got sick himself, and suffered chronic financial distress, largely caused by Pennsylvania, until his death. He was buried in England, not in the United States, and upon death he left the whole ball of wax to his wife who lived until 1726. His son, Thomas took over at that point–but by that time Thomas had renounced Quakerism for Roman Catholicism, and when he returned to Pennsylvania he found an upstart ready and willing to confront his every move and action. Benjamin Franklin by name, this upstart and Thomas Penn duked it out through 1775 when Thomas died. Franklin didn’t. Since Pennsylvania remained a sole proprietorship until 1775, Pennsylvania’s local elite contested the proprietor until he died. As we shall see, a case can be made that Penn never really controlled all that much while he was resident in Pennsylvania–at least not without a good fight from the locals.
Perhaps another common denominator between the two systems was a shared, incompetent, remote, fragmented and inconsistent British colonial administration.
the Pre-1700 Political Context
While I have called attention to Penn’s inconsistent management style (unsupervised delegation, and erratic micro-managing, combined with an obvious inability to multitask, and a strong tendency to withdraw to private pursuits), Penn held multiple conflicting loyalties, obligations and priorities: his commitment to religious freedom and toleration was highly valued element of his Holy Experiment, including social diversity and balancing the interests of different occupations/classes along with maintaining his investor base. He did need to pay his bills, balance economic long-term with short-term, while confronting on a daily basis individuals with less tolerance for authority and a temperament for opposition. Unrealistic expectations underlying key features of his plan and framework for governance called for tactical compromises and adjustments. He had assumed the responsibilities associated with sole proprietorship, and likely did not fully appreciate until he confronted them with his decisions how that would separate him from his fellow Quakers. He was now authority and that on occasion he acted from self-interest, and often was perceived as arbitrary of unduly preferential in his decision-making generated both private and public criticism in the Pennsylvania resident community.
Political development during the first two decades of Pennsylvania’s existence demonstrated a steady drive to autonomy [from English administration] but [also] a rather confused search for local authority, until in 1701 (establishment of the formal policy system] the Assembly became the dominant institution. This was also a period of increasing imperial control, as the policies of James II, William and Mary, and Parliament not only rationalized administrative procedures and commercial regulations, but also attacked the charters of [North America’s] private colonies. William Penn … lamented … ‘You cannot easily imagine the difficulties I lie under, what with the King’s affairs, those of Government, and my Proprietary ones‘ [99] Joseph E. Illick, Colonial Pennsylvania: a History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), p. 44.
Several of these conflicting priorities and loyalties combined to cause a crisis in 1684, when Charles II ill health, the increasing regulation of the Board of Trade/Privy Council, and the fight with Lord Calvert for the three lower counties combined to require Penn to return to London. His departure obviously require his delegation of day-today and intermediate governance of the Proprietorship, and City/State building to key subordinates. What was first regarded as temporary absence, however, changed drastically by 1685 when Charles died, and William’s closer friend, the Duke of York, became King James II. The court proceedings and administrative process involved with the Lower Counties decision proved more complex and time-consuming, and while they were resolved in Penn’s favor, it required the active involvement of the new King to happen. Calvert probably had the better claim, but Penn had more powerful friends. Equally important is that Penn, willingly it seems, got distracted from Proprietorship obligations, and returned to what was probably his true love, and best skill set, preaching for religious toleration and promoting Quakerism congruent with religious reform which his friend, the King, was now aggressively pursuing. The affluence of developed England, the court, and his personal financial interests–Penn was already in deep financial trouble) continued to pile up and further distracted Penn. Bottom line was that Penn was not to return to Philadelphia for fifteen years in 1699.
In the remainder of this troubled period of city and state-building, settlement, Penn was an absentee Proprietor.
Penn had his allies in Pennsylvania and he had placed them well in the positions of governance, city-building, and it the Provincial Council–and courts. His Society of Free Traders also consisted of those whose economic interests were tied to his conception of Pennsylvania’s future economic base in opposition to those of others with other visions and with interests directly impinged by competition with Penn’s supporters. On leaving, Penn delegated his powers to an Executive Council (headed by its President , Thomas Lloyd). With Penn’s allies on the “inside” in control of the governmental institutions, naturally opposition gravitated to the Provincial Assembly, which was inevitably Penn’s weak link in the evolving policy system. Given the natural tendency of the religious community to question Penn and authority, the Assembly very quickly became the bastion of the “Never Penn” movement, and Penn’s allies were under constant attack, attempted impeachment initiatives, and serious opposition to any legislation proposed by Penn and his government.
Antiproprietary feeling came easily to the non-Quaker inhabitants of the Three Lower Counties, whose settlement predated Pennsylvania [and whose defense Calvert was defending in London], while the Quakers in the upper counties who were not beneficiaries of proprietary largesse became increasingly resentful, expressing more and more of their point of view through the Assembly. This body, chaffing at its restricted functions, asserted at its first meeting after Penn’s departure, the right to debate and vote on bills ‘without the least restriction by the Council’ [Upper Chamber controlled by Penn loyalists]…. [Still] it was Penn’s well-do-do allies who held the upper hand during the first decade of the colony’s existence.’ [Yet, over time] the proprietor’s friends became uneasy allies, jealous of their newly gained prerogatives … wary of instructions from England … from their position of economic advantage, they were dissatisfied with Penn’s land policy [which] barred [their] speculation, which was financially stifling and … inconsistently applied [99] Joseph E. Illick, Colonial Pennsylvania: a History, p. 46 .
It didn’t help Penn that his personal interests and land-holdings irritated all. Penn owned ten percent of the land, and paid no quit rents. For the most part, most of that land was idle, or consisted of well-to-do manors of his family and key friends. Further, as antiproprietary opposition gained strength and increased opposition, Penn further centralized his and his allies control by creating he “Commission of State, strengthening its powers–and the privileges of its members, shifting it from the Provincial Council which itself resented its loss of power. When that didn’t quiet the opposition, Penn centralized the power of the Commision in the hand of its President (John Lloyd-a Welsh Quaker) who, for his reasons, declined the appointment, and subsequently instead Penn appointed a non-resident Boston Puritan and former Cromwell-supporter, John Blackwell, in his place. Lloyd and Blackwell became bitter enemies and the Provincial Council resisted the actions of the Commission–and Lloyd, formerly a close Penn friend, drifted into the anti-proprietary camp.
If this were not sufficient, the Pennsylvania Quaker Church became polarized over a series of incidents that drove a wedge between Quaker governance and Quaker religious principles–including law and order and pacifism, and whether Quakers could be faithful Quakers if they participated in government. Charges of heresy abounded, and contentious Quaker meetings disrupted what little consensus existed in the community. Lloyd in particular was caught up in the resistance to the religious fervor and his efforts to use government, the courts in particular, to suppress the resistance heresy, drove a wedge that continued until 1693. In any event by 1688, the Lloyd antiproprietary group had displaced the more ardent Penn loyalist grouping, and the antiproprietary group effectively controlled the governmental affairs and policy. Penn loyalists in turn made common cause with a pacifists and religious opposition. The division assumed a class dimension as the Lloyd group included the more wealthy merchants and landowners, while Penn loyalists include smaller merchants and urban artisans. The reader ought to keep this division in mind, it is not a detail, but rather the first, and early emergence of what will be a distinguishing characteristic of Pennsylvania state-level politics. It offers a valuable insight that in the fragmentation and policy anarchy of the early years, elements of what will be the Pennsylvania middle class, largely urban, was able to inject itself into politics and policy, albeit in an opposition role.
The assertion of Quaker pacifism into Pennsylvania policy-making came at a most inopportune time. Native Americans warred against New England and neighboring New York who requested military assistance from Pennsylvania–and were turned down. The new Glorious Revolution occupants of the English throne, William and Mary were outraged by this action, and sent their own royal governor to Pennsylvania (who simultaneous was Governor of New York) to take over the assorted mess that constituted Pennsylvania government. Penn loyalists proved willing to deal with the royal governor, and joined his administration. A two year struggle ensued with religious pacifism versus a government’s ability to participate in war or even defend itself. That pleased no one in Pennsylvania and several efforts to find some kind of resolution and governmental order failed. But in the course of this struggle, key Penn loyalists were able to regain positions of power in the royal government. This proved fortunate for them because their founder and proprietor, had finally landed on is political feet and had returned to proprietorship
Penn, in 1689, was not only distracted, but under attack as a friend of the former King. James II was ousted by the Glorious Revolution. For the better part of two years, Penn lost legal control over the proprietorship, but the legal and governance institutions continued but submerged under a new set of royal institutions that held and exercised royal power, making for a short period, Pennsylvania as a Crown colony, not a proprietary colony. Many of the officers and officials appointed by the royal government were former Penn allies and government supporters. The net effect of all this was to unify the anti-proprietary camp, enlarge its membership, and intensify its opposition. Penn, on the other hand, by 1695 had regrouped and was in 1696 able to secure Crown consent to restoration of his Proprietorship. In 1695, Penn appointed William Markham as Deputy to the Royal Governor, who left to resume his functions as Governor of New York. A governmental reorganization followed and it cut the Assembly in half, and changed the electoral franchise so that longer residency (which increased Quaker eligibility at the expense of new non-Quaker residents). In return, the powers of the Assembly were augmented, raising its capacity as a legislature.
Penn’s success in reclaiming his Pennsylvania proprietorship masked what had to have been the nadir of his life and certainly his financial position. First, Penn’s (first) wife died in 1694. He took it hard; they had been through a lot together, and Penn even more than usual appears to have lost what little ability he had to focus on other matters. In the next few years, Penn’s attention to his finances (principally in Ireland) was left to his personal advisor, Philip Ford. Ford took advantage of Penn’s distractions, and his tendency to unsupervised delegation. During the 1695-6 period he signed papers without even reading them–he incredibly signed the transfer of much of his wealth, and the colony of Pennsylvania to Ford personally. Ford commenced a multi-year, court-laden legal effort to uphold the transfers, while simultaneously negotiating for a settlement from Penn.
Penn had seemingly reacquired the proprietorship, but his legal situation compounded his ability and willingness to engage himself in Pennsylvania affairs until the matter was resolved somewhat successfully in 1699. Financially Penn was ruined, and had cash-flow problems, but he retained his legal hold on the proprietorship. In the interim period, however, between 1695-9, his influence over politics and policy in Pennsylvania was limited and in its place was a local Quaker-dominated elite, fractured through it may be, had acquired power and dominance over much of the economic base. In-migration, of course, accelerated the number of non-Quakers, and newcomers found entry into the First Settler Quaker elite next to impossible. So in 1699 what his legal status was, Penn’s hold on Pennsylvania was but a shadow of what it was when he left in 1684. The Quaker monocracy of the first years of settlement completely dissipated. A culture which was indifferent to government, oppositional to authority, based on individual Inner Light and dissent had produced a hyper-political polarization that some historians called “pluralism”; if so, it was a very bitter, fiercely personalistic, and uncompromising pluralism, compound by a cacophony of fragile political structures.
If the reader is still keeping track from what is a rather bad “Game of Thrones-like” struggle for Pennsylvania supremacy, we have had by 1696 a full ten year struggle between personalities, individuals sharing common interests and policy and economic perspectives, hardening in the Bunsen burner-like experience of hardball politics and in and out of office, into something between a political faction, and a more formal and organized two party system. The reader ought to keep in mind that mass-based political parties as we understand them are more than one hundred years off in the future. Yet, I am asking the reader to watch future Pennsylvania developments with an openness to the proposition, that while Penn was still around, a rudimentary by our standards colonial era mostly elite-based party competition is taking shape in Pennsylvania, and by extension, Philadelphia. This is not common in English North American colonies, but is very much an exception to other colonies, which while tracings can be observed toward partisanship and party competition, remain at their core personalistic and geographic. In Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, even before 1700, something more formidable is stirring. As summarized by Illick by 1696, Pennsylvania had politically evolved in ways distinctive to the overall American colonial experience.
During the initial decade of Pennsylvania’s, the Council (the Proprietary upper legislative chamber), represented first the interest of the Proprietary [himself, personally], and later that of its Quaker elite, while the Assembly [the lower house] was the seat of opposition. When [the Glorious Restoration royal governor] came to Pennsylvania, with the power to appoint [a royal Crown] Council, and veto the legislation of the Assembly, the Quaker leaders moved into the lower house, whose [expanded role and powers were] … institutionalized into a [new] Frame of Government of 1696 [which restore Penn to control over his Proprietorship]. An added motive for transferring power to the Assembly [in this 1696 Frame of Government} was the fear that the Council [the upper chamber] might become appointive [by the Proprietor, or] again become a royal [Crown] colony. The Assembly thus became the agency of provincial political aspirations, a development NOT peculiar to the Quaker colony, but common to the Atlantic seaboard settlements at this time. Pennsylvania had, however, arrived at this mature state more rapidly than her neighbors, and the accelerated ascent of the Assembly continued despite the fact that the colony remained at the center of imperial concern even after Penn resumed control of it in 1694 [99] Joseph E. Illick, Colonial Pennsylvania: a History, p. 58.
The reader, no doubt, sees that Penn was digging, year by year, a deeper hole, from which he would someday have to figure out a way to climb out from. Governmentally, within a year or so after his departure, Penn had set up a governance and policy process at war with itself. Nothing like this can be found in Virginia, and it is clear that Penn, a sole proprietorship as opposed to a Crown colony, and a political culture which not only resisted governmental authority, but was tiled to its limitation and fragmentation, multiple centers of opposition reflecting a diverse society, polity and economic base interests. The role of the Glorious Restoration English Crown desiring none of this, was however, unable as early as 1696, to bring neither Penn, nor the colony’s internal political development to heel.
Ron W. Coan 