Context--When Penn left town in 1701, he and the Legislature (personified by David & Thomas Lloyd) were bitterly divided. True, both had been on the same continent, were actually talking to each other, and engaged in a serious, more permanent compromise in Pennsylvania’s constitutional Frames. Penn’s loss of the Proprietary in 1693 was a turning point, and his subsequent restoration did not materially alter the bitter politics between Penn and his foes. Since 1696, politics and policy-making was turbulent, fragmented, polarizing, personal and simply brutal politics made needlessly so because they disagreed on a stable, acknowledged structural framework. That promised to change with the uneven adoption of the various elements of the 1701 Charter of Privilege’s.
Between 1696 and 1699 Penn, and his Deputy Governor Markham had engaged in dialogue resulting in various compromises, which were vetoed by the Privy Council. A good deal of the Charter of Privileges were based on those vetoed earlier agreements–but the rejection of key elements in the 1701 Charter, meant that beyond the Legislative-Proprietary structural framework, fundamental disagreements still remained in the Judiciary and property. With his ship sailing off the horizon, the political war between proprietary and legislature/Penn and the Lloyds resumed. As Penn sailed away both sides restarted their efforts to forge a new policy system favorable to their respective purposes. Not surprisingly then, the politics and policy-making in the decades that followed were as fluid, turbulent, polarizing and fragmented as the two previous decades.
Why Should You Read this concluding module? Hopefully for several reasons, but the first ought to be that it partially answers the question underlying this history: why are contemporary American states the same and yet so very different.
If you want a single module that captures the dynamics behind future modules, and lends considerable light on why Pennsylvania’s present day political structures and policy dynamics are as they are, the core answer lies within this section. Over the two-three decades after 1701 Penn, his family and supporters again duked it out with the Legislature; their constant, if intermittent spasms of contention served as the midwife for a near-failed provincial and sub-provincial policy system that in its fragile sort of way endured to the American Revolution. That dysfunctional colonial policy system was either incorporated directly into the first state constitution, or were rejiggered in reaction to the legacy of bitterness that had become embedded into the state’s politics and policy.
During this period between 1701 and the mid-late 1720’s, a series of battles within what was essentially a bitter political war between the two opposing forces affected three vital institutions relevant to our history: (1) the development of Pennsylvania’s sub-provincial system (city, county, and towns); (2) the capacity of the provincial-level system to create and manage its economic base and economic growth; and (3) the formation of a hybrid third branch of government, the judiciary, by liberating it (to some extent) from the embracive hands of the Proprietor.
Th next two sections deal with the first, the formation of Pennsylvania’s, and a third section discussing the inability of the two sides to agree to an institutionalization of key governmental functions and agencies: debt, lending, and the management of macro economic development. The reader is tasked to study judicial development on their own. Obviously important, the judicial struggle will be discussed only as relevant to the other two struggles.
Provincial-Level Policy System Dynamics During the Early Political Civil War
What is described in the next three sections is the Provincial Legislative leadership pursued its own agenda, which included development local governance institutions and processes to the extent it was useful in its battle against the Proprietary. The Legislature’s core and primary policy agenda goal was to assert itself sufficiently against the Proprietary so that the Legislature would emerge as the principal policy institution representing the province to the Crown. Obviously, the proprietor (after 1712, his family, his Secretariat and Penn’s allies, and Deputy Governors) resisted, sometimes inconsistently, and many times ineffectively.
The Legislature, dominated by an emerging Quaker Party rested firmly on its base of secular Quaker hinterland/urban gentry and Anglican commercial elites, which existed in the first decades after 1701. With a full agenda the Legislature was less interested in sub-provincial affairs, and seriously uninterested in the further settlement of the province by new immigrants–which fell largely to Penn and his Executive Branch. Because the 1701 Charter included the incorporation of the City of Philadelphia, and its governance by a municipal corporation, it is helpful, if not necessary that we devote a section to the Municipal Corporation of Philadelphia.
The proprietary on the other hand, after 1701 reorganized its priorities, leaving Philadelphia largely in the hands of its corporation/government. That corporation, whose closed membership was tasked with responding to its urban needs, and working its own way through the politics of the civil war. Choosing instead to rely on its own dominance of hinterland sub-provincial county and town, the Proprietary pursued its business/settlement plan, and for the most part focused its provincial-relevant agenda primarily to waylaying Legislative intrusions into proprietary power and prerogative.
That London, its various wars, and the Board of Trade intervened throughout this period, make this tale very troubled, exceedingly complex, but in its own strange way, fascinating. That internal demographics and politics changed radically, particularly after 1720 or so, primarily due to immigration and economic and population growth meant that whatever political dysfunctionality occurred, the colony-province’s underlying economic growth and urbanization still continued. While we do not argue political dysfunction and economic development are inversely related, we will suggest that in both matters the colony’s private sector assumed a greater role in ED-relevant policy, and that “privatism” will, somewhat unobtrusively, embed itself into the provincial policy system.
Concentrating its discretionary agenda on those items which facilitated its goals through sustained hinterland immigration settlement, the Proprietary Executive Branch was unable to consistently find majority to support for its position in either the Legislature, and over these turbulent three decades, was compelled to coexist with an increasingly autonomous count-town nexus that navigated its own path through the political civil war.
Moreover after 1712, after Penn’s first stroke, Penn himself loses touch with colonial administration, which is delegated to his wife, his Secretariat, and whatever personal network remained active in Pennsylvania. From 1718, Penn’s death, through about 1728, the appointed, but autonomous, Deputy Governor becomes his own player in this multi-level game of thrones. The first decade after 1701–until 1713–was a period of war, and after the war economic recession affected economic development policy hugely.
Sub-Provincial Policy System Dynamics During the Civil War
Lost in this battle between Legislature and Proprietary was sub-provincial levels of government. The new city corporation of Philadelphia, the three counties and its towns and emerging settlements existed in a limbo between the two fighting hegemons obsessed with provincial level institutions and policy. The Legislature’s Quaker Party majority rested upon county delegates sent by each of the three counties, plus two from Philadelphia. County delegates, guess what, were responsive to county perceived needs, and policy ought to benefit their county where possible.
The Legislature, to assemble/aggregate its majority, demanded an inward-looking broker leadership; forging majorities of county-minded delegates was its principal core concern. In return, that leadership exercised considerable power over the Legislatures internal processes. “Bosses” was also part of the leadership job description. Obsessively serving local needs and demands, however, was not.
Nominally, county courts, and town justices of the peace, appointed by Penn (and the Governor) for life were dominated by Proprietary officials. So long as the Proprietary kept the Legislature’s ambitions in check, pushing them back where possible, the Proprietary was free to pursue its settlement strategy (its business plan for Penn family) was where the action was. That worked for awhile before Penn’s absence set in, and Penn’s proprietary allies also assumed a distinctly personal and very locally-tilted perspective. When necessary, the proprietary turned to the Crown, Board of Trade and even the local contingent of the British army, to frustrate Legislative initiatives with widespread local voter support.
With life-time tenure, over the years, sub-provincial level levels developed their own administrative bodies, career paths, and personal business plans. Active local bodies and institutions augmented the fragmented and decentralized sub-provincial policy system mélange that was created in the wake of Proprietary-Legislative provincial level conflict. Proprietary power at the provincial left fell to the Deputy Governor and Penn’s head of his Secretariat. But this wore away in Penn’s absence.
Confronted with their own domestic problems, and with their own business goals to pursue, the absent and stubborn Penn was increasingly viewed as too distant and unresponsive. As the legislature grew stronger, the sub-provincial proprietary elite become isolated in their own communities by an increasingly powerful local Quaker party elite, and frustrated by a Proprietary Secretariat controlling western settlement, checking their ability to profit in its expansion.
When the opposing provincial hegemons could not resolve their issues, and when the issue reached crisis proportions, a prolonged period of stasis usually resulted. When finally, events and conditions forced an action, the stasis was usually solved by the entrance of an outsider, generally from the private sector into the policy process. “Riding a white horse” that outsider, Benjamin Franklin the most notable, often found a way to break the logjam–not always resulting in success in its final consequences, however.
This infusion of “privatism” in public policy making, as well shall discover, arose from vacuums that developed within the policy system, from the economic base in particular. These “policy system vacuums” were, in Pennsylvania’s system most often filled through private individual action, or by an aggregate of these private individuals.
Accordingly, each policy area demand, need, or priority rose to the agenda, beginning with judicial separation into an independent branch, then taxes and fiscal, and from there to a number of functions such as public safety, care of the poor, and highways-transportation. With provincial competitors not interested in direct involvement in local policy implementation or administration, special specific structures for each specific policy area were created, and turned over to local control and operation. This meant county-led planning, and coordination, but locally administered implementation. A close county-township nexus evolved from that. The weakness in this arrangement was finance and fiscal. The local tilt meant the local institutions would inevitably look to the province for money.
County and town court officials were entering a political cul de sac from which they were hard-pressed to escape. Today we call it “marginalized”. Proprietary sub-provincial officials either settled in to make the best of the situation, or lost interest and tried to work with proprietary in their schemes for western settlement and business opportunities Its governmental agencies and institutions grew flabby and unresponsive to troublesome and time-consuming needs and demands, for which sub-provincial governments provided few resources. In its quest for such resources (authority to act and money), neither the proprietary or legislature were much interested–and neither was disposed to provide resources to entities and individuals over which they had little control. Not surprisingly, the private sector was drawn in to supplement the deficiency.
As sub-provincial needs and demands intensified as the province grew and the population expanded, the Proprietary refocused its Secretariat to concentrate more fully on its business plan on which Pennsylvania government expenses (and their profits) ultimately rested, and the Legislature, under pressure from its county-town electoral base and local elites, developed by-pass institutions (which they called commissions) to funnel resources for problem alleviation into an independent body elected by its local franchise.
In this way, decentralization of policy-making into the hands of a three legged stool (weakened and personalized county/town government/city corporation, independent commissions elected by locals and financed through taxes authorized by the Legislature, and a local franchise whose leaders were elected to head up the commissions, pay the tax, and not infrequently participate themselves in the provision of services to alleviate the problem.
For each problem that came up, a new commission was devised, and over the length of the colonial period, became as primary a policy-maker as the Legislature and Proprietary itself. Although fragmented among its several commissions, the elements of the county policy system could not coalesce to form its own power base or check the others.
So over the years–to the present day–Pennsylvania evolved into one of the most decentralized–and fragmented–state policy systems in the nation. Still fighting their enduring traditional battles, the Legislature has repeatedly turned to machines or party-legislative bosses to aggregate its majorities from each individual county-town policy system, and the Executive Branch left to hammer out its agenda in the unfriendly and resistant Legislature.
Ain’t democracy grand.
Assessment
However, inefficient and fragmented it may be, colonial Pennsylvania’s overall policy system arguably was the most accessible to its average citizen–i.e. perhaps the most democratic, in the nation–as its 1776 state constitution was frequently characterized as being. No surprise either, that access and democracy contrasts poorly with efficiency, productivity, and a single defined rationality. That this style of Pennsylvania governance has, given its all-too-obvious dysfunctionalities, survived so long–and reasonably well- may be explained by some combination of its congruence with its dominant Midlands political culture on which it all rest, and its democratic, inefficient, fragmented policy-making which provides greater citizen access.
This internally-at-odds with itself, and intentionally decentralized to encourage policy-making at lower levels where it would be more accountable to its residents/citizens, often meant a government that could not satisfy demands for increasing services, infrastructure, and even self-defense. Not all political cultures value decentralized, accessible to citizen and limited government/policy-making. If Pennsylvania’s policy system was under constant pressure, failing outright at times, its economic and population growth was, on the other hand, after 1720 reasonably spectacular. Inefficient government but prosperity, opportunity and growth–with the dominance of the Midlands, that was sustainable electorally.
What inefficiency and fragmentation did arguably create even more pressure on Penn’s flailing (literally) policy-making structures. At a certain point the government side of Pennsylvania’s policy-making had to be reformed, restructured, or simply maneuvered into doing the correct policy for sustainable growth and political order. Reform does not necessarily require the trashing of the existing system; updating, new people in office, may be sufficient.
Today, Pennsylvania’s sub-state policy system still composed of county governments with close relationships with its townships, and numerous policy areas “handled” by a wide variety of special districts, and locally elected governance. Local government by “special districts” remains as a defining characteristic of Pennsylvania’s current structural configuration. I argue this works because of the long-standing role and involvement of local private elites in policy-making.
The private sector presumably benefits from a considerable degree of autonomy from a limited and fragmented public section, and over time became a force to be reckoned with; Privatization is what we call it, and it filled in the gaps left within the policy systems with its own private leadership, resources, and policy area structures.
Pennsylvania’s political and economic development path was different than Virginia’s. It will we different from Massachusetts. Pennsylvania’s political development expressed itself in crating a decentralized, local-tilting policy making, itself characterized by duplicate political and economic structures in preference to a more centralized, hierarchical and unified policy-making tilt.
What also developed, incrementally, were opportunities for voters to express themselves over specific policy areas and programs, gather political experience, and in times of stress opportunities to assert themselves. Under extreme stress, as we shall see later, after 1765 we will see this take a turn that we shall call “populist”. I mention this at this point only to alert the reader that decentralized and functionally dispersed sub-state policy systems perhaps paradoxically allowed both private elites and citizen/non voter masses avenues to political involvement and participation. More to come on this topic.
Ron W. Coan 