Download the full version of the ebook at ebookfinal.

com

The Democratic Republicans of Massachusetts

Politics in a Young Republic 1st Edition Paul
Goodman

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-democratic-republicans-
of-massachusetts-politics-in-a-young-republic-1st-edition-
paul-goodman/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookfinal.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Benjamin Silliman A Life in the Young Republic Chandos

Michael Brown

https://ebookfinal.com/download/benjamin-silliman-a-life-in-the-young-
republic-chandos-michael-brown/

ebookfinal.com

Tocqueville Jansenism and the Necessity of the Political

in a Democratic Age Building a Republic for the Moderns
1st Edition David Selby
https://ebookfinal.com/download/tocqueville-jansenism-and-the-
necessity-of-the-political-in-a-democratic-age-building-a-republic-
for-the-moderns-1st-edition-david-selby/
ebookfinal.com

The Politics of Crime in Mexico Democratic Governance in a

Security Trap 1st Edition John Bailey

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-politics-of-crime-in-mexico-
democratic-governance-in-a-security-trap-1st-edition-john-bailey/

ebookfinal.com

The National Democratic Party Right Radicalism in the

Federal Republic of Germany John David Nagle

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-national-democratic-party-right-
radicalism-in-the-federal-republic-of-germany-john-david-nagle/

ebookfinal.com
Politics in the Republic of Ireland 5. ed Edition Coakley

https://ebookfinal.com/download/politics-in-the-republic-of-
ireland-5-ed-edition-coakley/

ebookfinal.com

Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the

Congo 4th Edition Emizet Francois Kisangani

https://ebookfinal.com/download/historical-dictionary-of-the-
democratic-republic-of-the-congo-4th-edition-emizet-francois-
kisangani/
ebookfinal.com

Muslim Democratic Parties in the Middle East Economy and

Politics of Islamist Moderation A. Kadir Yildirim

https://ebookfinal.com/download/muslim-democratic-parties-in-the-
middle-east-economy-and-politics-of-islamist-moderation-a-kadir-
yildirim/
ebookfinal.com

Historical dictionary of the Democratic People s Republic

of Korea 2nd Edition Edition James E. Hoare

https://ebookfinal.com/download/historical-dictionary-of-the-
democratic-people-s-republic-of-korea-2nd-edition-edition-james-e-
hoare/
ebookfinal.com

Democratic Chile The Politics and Policies of a Historic

Coalition 1990 2010 1st Edition Kirsten Sehnbruch

https://ebookfinal.com/download/democratic-chile-the-politics-and-
policies-of-a-historic-coalition-1990-2010-1st-edition-kirsten-
sehnbruch/
ebookfinal.com
 THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS
OF MASSACHUSETTS

A Publication of the Center for the Study of the

History of Liberty in America • HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

OF MASSACHUSETTS

POLITICS IN A YOUNG REPUBLIC

BY PAUL GOODMAN

1964
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
© Copyright 1964 by the
President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved

Distributed in Great Britain

by Oxford University Press, London

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 6 4 - 2 2 7 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

The Center fot the Study of the History of Liberty in America

is aided by a grant from the
Carnegie Corporation of New York.
TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER
 FOREWORD

Political parties play an important role in American democ-

racy. They are part of the mechanism of selection and
consent, which links the people to their government. By
presenting the voter with the possibihty of choice they
give meaning and depth to the whole electoral process.
Furthermore they are significant factors in the estabhsh-
ment of decisions and the formulation of policy.
It is therefore almost unthinkable that they should not
ahvays have existed in their present two-party form, and not
always have embodied the same configuration of social
forces. Indeed, some historians have attempted to trace
direct lines of continuity back from the Democratic party of
Lyndon B. Johnson to that of Andrew Jackson and Tliomas
Jcfferson and thence to the anticonstitutionalists of 1788
and the radical Whigs of 1776. By the same token they have
found a connection between the Republican party of
Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln, the Whigs of
Webster and Clay, the Hamiltonian Federalists, and the
Revolutionary moderates.
Yet, whatever their validity for later periods, these in-
terpretations run counter to the evidence at the point of
origin. Political parties, in their nineteenth and twentieth
ccntury forms, did not älways exist; they came into being.
T h e framers of the federal and State constitutions did not
anticipate that such agencies would appear and made no
Provision for them. T h e successive parties sprang up, devel-
oped, and changed not as elaborations of tendencies always
present, but in response to specific historical circmiistanccs.

vii
FOREWORD

Hence the importance of the forty critical years after

independence, when the first political Organization of the
Repubhc took form. The developments of the period have
not yet been explained; yet they contain important clues
to an understanding of the history of American pohtics.
The interpretation of that period must begin with an
examination of local sources. The United States was an
aggregation of states as well as a nation; and parties were
as much, or more, State or local in character as federal.
Therein lies the value of such intensive studies as Dr. Good-
man has here given us. Massachusetts was an important
State, not only in size, wealth, and population, but in its
Position in the Union. Within it were waged significant
contests for political supremacy, some of which took a
meaningful party form and established a pattern for later
action. Its experience, while not identical with that of
other states, illuminates the whole process of party develop-
ment.
Oscar Handlin

viu
 PREFACE

A l t h o u g h political parties have c o m e to play a vital role

in the conduct of American democracy, providing an or-
derly means of managing public affairs and offering the
citizenry alternative programs and leadership sensitive to
t h e varied interests of a diverse electorate, they are not as
c i d as the Republic. T h e revolutionary generation did not
inherit these formalized institutions for decision-making,
nor did they create t h e m overnight upon gaining inde-
pendence. R a t h e r they evolved slowly and hesitatingly from
experiences in t h e y o u n g R e p u b l i c w h i c h led Americans
to seek new modes of governance better suited to the needs
of postrevolutionary society than those with w h i c h they
were familiar.
Historians have n o t always thought so. O v e r half a Cen-
tury ago, Charles A . Beard propounded an influential in-
terpretation of American history which located the origins
of political parties in continuing conflicts between the poor
and the rieh, farmers and merchants, debtors and creditors,
owners of real wealth and paper wealth. T h e sources of these
rivalries, he argued, w e n t back into the colonial past, ac-
counted for divisions in the revolutionary era, persisted into
t h e national period, and formed the binding thread that
ran all through the fabric of A m e r i c a n experience.
T h e Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties that
emerged in the 1790's were thus n o t new formations b u t
essentially the "conservative" and "radical" elements in
American society that had split over independence and
then continued to struggle for control of the new State and

ix
PREFACE

national authorities. The conservatives, comprising the

wealthy, aristocratic Clements, united to resist the humbler
citizenry, who saw the Revolution as an opportunity to
realize ambitions long thwarted during generations of
British rule. Not always able to resist democratic pressures
during the Revolution that weakened their grip on local
government, conservatives favored creation of a pow^erful
central government to protect the interests of birth and
wealth. Whilc the Confcderation disappointed their expec-
tations, it did not dampen their nationalism. For over a
decade they labored tirelessly to strengthen national au-
thority and curb State power. Success finally came in 1789.
The adoption of the Constitution, Bcard argued, was a
triumph for conservative personalty interests over the radi-
cal, agrarian groups that had opposed ratification as a threat
to democratic rule. The victory of the proconstitutionalists
made control of the new national government a central po-
litical issue during the next decade as those who had fought
ratification became Republicans and their opponents Fed-
eralists. For a decade Federalists prevailed, governing in
the interests of merchants and security holders, bankers and
manufacturers, and those hostile to the claims of the demo-
cratic yeomanry. After a decade of Federalist rule, an ag-
grieved husbandry, organized within the Republican party
and skillfully marshaled by Jefferson and Madison, recap-
tured the Republic from the "paper aristocracy." The "Rev-
olution of 1800" transferred power from one social group
to another, for the triumph of Jeffersonian Democracy,
Beard explained in Economic Origins of Jeffersonian De-
mocracy, "meant the possession of the federal government
by the agrarian masses led by an aristocracy of slaveowning
planters, and the theoretical repudiation of the right to
use the Government for the benefit of any capitalistic
groups, fiscal, banking, or manufacturing."
 PREFACE

T h e present study challenges the validity of Beard's

thesis for Massachusetts and questions the assumptions
upon which it rests. T h e social sources of party were far
more complex and less homogeneous than Beard suggested.
Bay State Repubhcans did not seek to oust capitalist classes
in favor of agrarian masses but rather united a diverse
coalition of urban and rural folk, merchants and farmers,
artisans and professional, speculators and squatters, deists
and Calvinists. These groups made common cause against
entrenched interests, usually Federahsts, who thwarted the
desires of newcomers and Outsiders, rising merchants and
ambitious office seekers, rehgious dissenters and landless
yeomen eager to share access to authority and to broaden
social opportunities.
Moreover, the evolution of Massachusetts Republican-
ism was neither the outgrowth of earlier conflicts in colony
and Commonwealth, nor part of a fixed partisan alignment
that Beard thought punctuated the entire course of Ameri-
can history. Y e t while the parties were genuine innovations
of the 1790's, responsive to the pressures and tensions of
that decade, they were not full-scale models of the modern
party system. Although they did look forward to the po-
litical institutions of a later age, they still retained links
with experiences in the colonial past.
By focusing primarily on national politics and on the
great events and personalities at the center of the Union,
and by assuming fixed continuities in political history, his-
torians have often read the present into the past. T h e first
parties were loose and unstable collections of local forces.
Innovative and unique, they lacked deep roots in tradition
and experienced great difEculty overcoming the parochial-
ism and fluidity of American Society, which retarded the
permanent polarization of the electorate into stable, com-
petitive groupings. Differing from earlier and later political

xi
PREFACE

formations, the precise nature of the first parties was shaped

by the postrevolutionary society in which they evoked.
I am deeply grateful to Oscar Handlin, whose tireless
patience, continuing encouragement, and extraordinary ex-
ample are a constant source of Inspiration; and to Bernard
Bailyn, whose penetrating and original studies of early
American history freshly illuminate the colonial anteced-
ents of the national period. I also wish to thank Mr. Leo
Flaherty of the Massachusetts Archives for services beyond
the call of duty. Finally, I am grateful for the assistance of
Houghton Library of Harvard University, the Library of
Congress, the Essex Institute, the Peabody Museum of
Salem, the American Antiquarian Society, the Maine His-
torical Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Manuscript collections in the Boston Public Library have
been used by courtesy of the trustees of the Boston Public
Library.
P. G.

XU
 CONTENTS

I THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE 1

II THE POLITICS OF ADJUSTMENT 31

III THE BEGINNINGS OF PARTY 47
IV THE REPUBLICAN INTEREST 70

V THE URBAN INTEREST 97

VI THE PROCESSES OF POLITICS 128

VII REPUBLICAN ASCENDANCY 154

VIII MASSACHUSETTS REPUBLICANS
AND THE UNION 182

NOTES 209

BIBLIOGRAPHY 255
INDEX 275

xni
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

The revolutionary generation confronted new and difficult

challenges as it left an empire and founded a republic. For
a decade and a half Americans grappled with a series of
threats to the success of the experiment. The end of roval
rule together with the necessity for unitmg a dozen provin-
cial sovereignties forced patriots to devise new modes of
governance at the same time that the dislocations of war
and the return of peace disturbed the social order. Al-
though they faced fresh and unprecedented difficulties,
Americans responded to them in familiar ways. The style
and mode of politics inherited from colonial times lingered
on after independence, even though they often proved
inadequate in the face of altered circumstances and novel
experiences.
Like Citizens elsewhere, the people of Massachusetts
underwent demanding tests of their capacity for self-gov-
ernment. It was necessary to devise new frameworks of
government as well as to select leaders and adopt policies
that reconciled competing claims and assimilated particu-
lar interests to the common welfare. After several years of
modest success, the Bay State experiment faltered, threat-
ened by civil war and national weakness. Yet despite serious
differences among themselves, Americans found paths of
accommodation that left the young Commonwealth un-
scarred by permanent marks of conflict or by fixed, compe-
titive, organized political rivalries.

A Commonwealth in Transition. The Massachusetts social

order evolved in an area which embraced a variety of
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

regions and economies. The rolling uplands of the interior

and the coastal lowlands fronting the ocean shaped the
Bay State's productive systems. Exploiting the great natu-
ral resources of the oceans, the inhabitants of the port
towns of Essex, Plymouth, Suffolk and Bristol counties,
Cape Cod, and the Islands of Dukes and Nantucket coun-
ties imported and exported, fished and went whaling, built
vessels and serviced them. Nearby numerous farmers fed
the sailors, artisans, laborers, merchants, and shopkeepers
who lived at the sea's edge.
Westward lay Middlesex and Worcester counties, settled
largely by yeomen raising wheat, rye, and hogs. The upland
continues westward into Hampshire county until it reaches
the fertile Connecticut River Valley, which gives way all
too soon to the hüls of Berkshire County at the western
end of the State. Though this region developed late, it
rapidly outpaced the rest of the State in the latter half of
the eighteenth Century. By 1790 the period of basic settle-
ment was over and in the next two decades the fastest
growth rate occurred neither in the inland nor in the old
coastal towns but in New England's eastern frontier, the
District of Maine. Linked to Massachusetts until 1820,
Maine had a larger area and was blessed with an enormous
coastline, many harbors, rieh timber resources, and hun-
dreds of mill sites.
Despite differences of environment, length of settlement,
and productive systems, men shared a belief in a harmony
of interests. Farmers, merchants, and artisans needed each
other, for what benefited one group ultimately benefited
all; and the Commonwealth was expected actively to
promote and protect the aspirations of all. These ideals
received their greatest test in the years of revolution and
postwar adjustment.
Unity amid diversity, change despite stability, colored
life in revolutionary Massachusetts, The State included a
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

variety of groups that were experiencing differing degrees

of dislocation which undermined older sources of authority
and created new problems born of independence. Though
change required adaptation and the reintegration of so
ciety, many traditional forms survived, providing both
stability and links with the past. This counterpoint of the
new and the old necessitated modifications of traditional
arrangements without sharply breaking with the past. Both
political and economic developments illustrated the duality
of revolutionary experience.
While the war seriously strained the commitment to a
concord of interests, its dynamics rapidly altered people's
fortunes and shifted and blurred men's positions, easing
and softening tensions.^ Independence disordered eastern
Society, not only disrupting older trade patterns and forcing
many well-placed Tory merchants to migrate, but also
creating new profits for those able to adjust to altered cir-
cumstance. Shrewd, lucky, far-seeing, and flexible men with
political connections gained riches while older houses often
abandoned commerce. Those who before the war had been
the "meaner people" became "by a stränge revolution . . .
almost the only men of power, riches, and influence."^
Changes were complex even among the successful. Rising
prices and rapid fluctuations created substantial creditor
interests among traders and security holders, who came to
favor the stabilization of values. But inflation also benefited
ordinary yeomen, whose debts were reduced, and even
more the prosperous market farmers, who reaped the re-
wards of high prices. But town artisans, fisherfolk, profes-
sional, and creditors were hurt, as suggested by their
demands for price fixing.®
Though strains developed among rival interests, Ameri-
cans, united by common ideals and a shared predicament,
managed to adjust or suspend conflict without permanently
disrupting the Community. So great was its inner stability
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

that Massachusetts delayed a constitutional settlement

until the war was almost over.
T h e State Constitution of 1780 was neither a conservative,
hberal, nor class document but rather represented a Com-
munity consensus, estabhshing a reasonable framework
within which groups might advance their welfare. T h e
product of trial, error, and compromise, it embodied past
experience and future fears, expressing deep-seated notions
about the needs of society and the rights of man.
Framed by a specially chosen Convention, the Constitu-
tion built on colonial custom and revolutionary theory.
Though "the consent of the people" was "the only moral
foundation of government," a property quahfication was
designed primarily to exclude dependent poor, through
whom a wealthy few might dominate and corrupt the
state.^ T h e requirement that voters have an annual income
of three pounds or an estate worth sixty pounds did not
radically alter the colonial franchise. Because "the inequal-
ity between estates . . . is so inconsiderable, and the tax
necessary to qualify . . . is so moderate," public policy was
expected to enjoy the sanction of a majority.® In practice
the franchise was cheaply valued; dozens of towns repeat-
edly failed to send repräsentatives and many qualified vot-
ers rarely exercised their rights, so attentive were they "to
their private interest."®
T h e system of representation also owed much to earlier
custom. T h e towns remained the basic unit, but a formula
apportioned legislators in the General Court according to
population, hoping thereby to prevent domination of the
small towns by the large ones and still ensure that repre-
sentation followed population.^
While the franchise and composition of the General
Court gave public authority a broad base, human nature
made it essential to erect safeguards against the abuse of
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

power. A strong executive with a veto served all the people

and checked the legislature; otherwise, the factious schem-
ing of "men of wealth, of ambitious spirits, of intrigue, of
luxury and corruption" would deprive govemment of "any
stability, dignity, decision, or liberty."® T o prevent either
legislators or the executive from transforming the appointive
power into a patronage machine, plural ofEceholding was
carefully limited and the source of jobs was divided between
the two branches.® Finally, an elaborate declaration of
rights denied the govemment power to deprive men of
cherished personal liberties.
From March to June 1780 the towns debated ratification.
Though the results were often confused and conflicting,
the new fundamental law seemed the best men could con-
trive and there was little serious objection to the juggling of
the returns.'" John Adams, the constitution's principal
architect, had tried to frame a system comprehending "all
Orders of men," hoping they would "put confidence in it,
and struggle for its support."" The next few years tested
the durability of his handiwork.

The PoUtics of Faction. Neither the winning of independ-

ence nor the adoption of the new Constitution radically
altered the procedures by which Massachusetts managed
public affairs. Yet the transition from colony to State did
pose fresh problems. While the towns continued to send
representatives to the General Court, as they had done for
generations, it was necessary to fill the many offices left
vacant by fleeing or retiring Tories and the new ones
created by the exigencies of the war. And in 1780 for the
first time the State had to choose a chief executive. In addi-
tion to the task of selecting officials, the Commonwealth
had to formulate policies to govem the conduct of the war
and to facilitate a difficult transition to a peacetime society.
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

Colonial experience strongly influenced politics during

the first decade of independence. The rivalry of factions
provided a familiar model. Factions were groups of individ-
uals who temporarily joined forces to pursue immediate,
personal advantage. Lacking permanent Organization, their
membership constantly shifting, and without an ideology
er broad base of support within the electorate, factions did
not seek power to shape the major contours of public policy
or to represent the community's varied interests. Narrow,
self-serving formations, they flourished where the partici-
pating electorate was small and apathetic, where social
groups were not cohesive, organized, and active political
forces, and where the sources of authority were confused
and insecure. Such circumstances offered rieh opportunities
for political manipulation by loose alliances of ambitious
persons, their families, friends, and "connections."
Royal governors had found that alliances with important
local men were indispensable for successful tenure of office.
Yet they also discovered that factions were inherently un-
stable. Their members regularly quarreled with one an-
other Over division of the spoils, and the success of one
usually generated the emergence of r i v a l groups able to
stir up trouble if their claims went unrecognized."
The politics of faction was further complicated when
economic, social, occupational, and religious groups became
politically active. Like factions, these groups lacked per-
manent Organization, but they formed a more stable in-
terest, enjoying extensive support among persons confront-
ing similar problems and sharing common aspirations. For
them politics was a means of influencing govemment to
promote group welfare. Usually content to remain passive
observers of factious rivalries, interest groups became po-
litically alive only when stirred by special circumstances
which threatened their well-being or when they perceived
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

new modes of furthering their ambitions. Tlius dissenters

from the religious establishment, newly settled communi-
ties exposed to frontier dangers, and persons anxious to
increase the supply of currency and credit attempted from
time to time to make authority sensitive to their specific
needs. These efforts tended to be temporary and specific
rather than a continuing involvement in pohtical affairs
because interest groups were also unstable. Their mem-
bership constantly shifted and their goals often changed or
were reahzed without recourse to politics.
W h e n interest pohtics flared up, entrenched factions
found it difficult to contain demands for pohcy changes.
Some capitahzed on populär discontent, providing it with
needed professional leadership and at the same time using
it to advance their own fortunes. But usually pressures on
authority subsided, the voters' customary apathy returned,
and politics once more became primarily a contest between
small groups of competing individuals and their "connec-
tions."
Though the struggle with England during the decade
preceding the Revolution led to the most extensive and
important Organization of interest groups in American ex-
perience, the patriot forces, once in control of the new
State govemments, became highly factious. After the col-
lapse of royal authority in Massachusetts and the departure
of the royal govemor, power devolved upon the legislature
and ultimately upon the local worthies in the towns. Slow-
ness in replacing the old charter left the formal structure
of politics unsettled for six years, while the shakeup in
ofEcialdom opened opportunities for newcomers and was
another source of instability. Once in sole control of ap-
pointments, the General Court quickly descended to the
"mean business of auctioneering" by dividing "among
themselves almost every post either in the civil or military
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

way that has any profit or honour annex'd to i t . " " Persons
obtained office, according to Elbridge Gerry, "who might
have lived tili the millenium in silent obscurity, had they
depended on their mental qualifications to bring them into
public view."" When the war was over James Bowdoin
noted that one could "scarcely see any other than new
faces," a change almost "as remarkable as the revolution
itself.'"®
Dynamic economic conditions added further uncertainty
to the political scene as belief in the harmony of inter-
ests, rapid fluctuations in fortunes, and the newness of
many problems forestalled an early and rigid conflict of
interests.
When the Commonwealth chose its first governor in
1780, John Adams was satisfied that the competition for
ofEce posed no threat, although he was aware that rival
factions would contest the prize. " W e cannot have a bad
Governor at present," Adams wrote. " W e may not pos-
sibly have the best that might be found, but we shall have
a good one."'®
In 1776 John Hancock was one of a düster of prominent
revolutionary leaders. In 1780 he became the first governor
of the Bay State, garnering overwhelming majorities at the
polls, and winning repeated re-election later on. A master
of factional politics, he achieved pre-eminence by isolating
rivals, cultivating allies, carefully nurturing personal popu-
larity, and avoiding difficult decisions.
Early in the war Hancock had quarreled with his fellow
delegates in the Continental Congress, notably with Sam-
uel Adams, who thwarted his national ambitions. Shifting
his attention back home, Hancock sought to discredit
Adams and replaced Adams' friend in the General Court,
James Warren, as Speaker of the house.^'^ Hancock also
busily cultivated loyal associates, among them Thomas
8
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

Cushing, an influential Boston merchant and former mem-

ber of Congress, who became justice of the common pleas,
probate judge of Suffolk County, and lieutenant governor.
Cushing's son-in-law, John Avery, replaced Sam Adams as
secretary of State.'® William Cooper, Boston town clerk
and Suffolk probate register, and bis brother Samuel
Cooper, the patriot minister, ended their ties with Adams
and joined Robert T . Paine, attorney general, and James
Sullivan, an inveterate newspaper polemicist, who were
among the governor's dose allies.'®
In a Community where the franchise was liberally be-
stowed Hancock was a master of the art of popularity. A
punctilious provincial aristocrat glorying in pomp, pag-
eantry, and high-born manners, he shrewdly added the
common touch, providing firewood for the poor in winter
and music on the Common in summer. As a legislator he
made sure that Congress had two warships built at Boston,
using as many men as possible, and as an employer he gave
jobs to the North End artisans who built Hancock's Row.^°
Once in ofEce, the governor had considerable patronage. In
his first year, he tripled the number of justices of the peace
in Suffolk County, almost quadrupled those in Essex, and
doubled those in Worcester.'" Yet Hancock's influence
had limits. Sam Adams remained in the State Senate and
most of the leading county ofEcials were carry-overs from
the previous decade. Because political rivalry was weak and
Organization rudimentary, patronage was used less to erect
a great machine than to keep entrenched groups contented.
Hancock's strengest competition came from James
Bowdoin, who annually challenged him at the polls. But
Bowdoin failed to attract much support, even in the east-
crn coastal communities. Attacked for alleged Tory con-
nections, Bowdoin, like Warren and Sam Adams, feit
the Sharp lash of the Hancock faction. T o many of the
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

older Patriot leaders,the governor's rise signified the emer-

gence of "a new crew" that had won power by "forming
a Coalition of Parties and confounding the Distinction
between Whigs and Tories, Virtue & Vice."''^
The Hancock circle prospered so long as the electorate
was apathetic, group interest was fluid, and the Common-
wealth failed to grapple with difEcult and mounting issues.
Toward the middle of the 1780's, however, serious dis-
turbances in the economy plus an oppressive bürden of
debt sharply defined and polarized interest groups. Unable
to postpone any longer and unwilling to make necessary
and unpopulär choices, Hancock resigned early in 1785.
The politics of faction gave way to the politics of interest.

The Politics of Interest. The peace of 1783 confirmed inde-

pendence, but it also confronted Americans with serious
Problems of readjustment. As wartime markets shrank and
new ones opened slowly, prices feil, debts increased, and
merchants, farmers, and artisans experienced increasing
difficulties.
The war had left Massachusetts with a large public debt.
Unwilling to levy sufücient taxes, the State had borrowed
and issued paper money, which it made legal tender.
Though the currency depreciated and the debt rose, the
State contributed its share to the war effort. But in the
early 1780's the Commonwealth sought to reform its
finances by abolishing legal tender, scaling down the public
debt, and adopting a schedule to pay interest and principal
in specie taxes. Fearful of pressing Citizens too hard, the
legislature postponed the new fiscal policies, suspending
taxes pledged to the debt in 1782 and 1784 and delaying
payment of the principal until after 1785.^
Private debts also mounted steeply. WTiile farmers lost
wartime markets, merchants were deprived of the profits
10
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

of privateering and government contracting, and artisans

languished for want of employment. People rushed to im-
port large quantities of British "baubles" and "gewgaws."
B u t Americans found that old markets did not return and
that pre-revolutionary Channels did not always reopen.
Britain had dominated the colonial trade and was a major
market for tobacco, timber, provisions, rum, fish, whale
oil, and vessels as well as a source of sugar, tea, and manu-
factures. C u t loose from the Empire, traders found them-
selves subject to a mercantile system which barred their
ships from the W e s t Indies and placed heavy duties on
exports to Britain. Mechanics and artisans had even less
margin with which to endure hard times. Restrictions on
American shipping meant unemployment for those who
built new vessels and serviced old ones, while the flood of
British imports robbed many craftsmen of customers who
preferred well-styled and cheap British products.^^
T h e crisis deepened late in 1785, causing many failures
and penetrating deeply into the economy, and affecting
"a great party of those who are engaged in Trade."^® Urban
groups began to seek political solutions and demanded
restrictive legislation that would shelter them from com-
petition and force the reopening of English markets.^®
Critical of navigation legislation were yeomen, who liked
cheap British goods and cared little whose vessels carried
native exports.^^ Merchants themselves were divided, for
some whose main profits came from exports were unwilling
to take risks in defense of the carrying trade by excluding
British vessels. Some of those best able to weather the
storm believed that hard times would eliminate the weaker
houses, curb excessive expansion, and eventually restore
trade to a more solid footing. " M a n y who retail tape &
pins," Christopher Gore wrote, "must, as they ought to have
done years ago, retire to labor."^® Moreover, the artisans'

11
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

desire to limit consumption of British goods antagonized

importers, who argued that the seaports "never were de-
signed as the nurseries of arts and mechanics."^® But the
demand for heavy imposts also appealed to pubhc creditors,
who regarded the duties as an obvious source of funds to
Support the State debt. Again merchants were in a dilemma,
for while "their commercial interest would suffer by the
proposed taxes . . . their creditor interests demanded" new
revenues.®" Though the attitudes of urban groups were
complex, a consensus favored positive State action. Their
aspirations found expression in the election of 1785, which
sent James Bowdoin to the State House.
The campaign was the first closely contested race for the
governorship under the Constitution. Hancock failed to
transfer his popularity to his personal choice, Lieutenant
Governor Cushing, and Bowdoin won a plurality. The
populär vote was small and indecisive and apathy was
great, for interest groups were not generally aligned into
state-wide parties. Bowdoin ran as well or better than
Cushing in the rural towns but won decisively in the
eastern maritime communities, notably Boston, where
voters responded to appeals to abandon "that spirit of
party, which has too long convulsed this metropolis."®^
Once in office, the new chief executive enjoyed wide
Support. A few months after the campaign, young John
Quincy Adams reported that "everything has subsided,
and the present Governor is very populär."®^ Hancock
joined the Boston delegation in the legislature and with
the other solid merchants supported the measures of
the new administration.®® Bowdoin did not significantly
alter ofEcialdom, and in 1786 won re-election without
Opposition.
From the outset the new governor exerted vigorous
leadership and steered the State along a new course. Heavy
12
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

duties were placed on foreign imports, some of which were

banned outright.®'' And a navigation act barred the export
of American goods in British vessels and required foreign
shipping to pay impost duties double those placed on
Americans.^® A mission to France explored the possibili-
ties of expanding economic ties, perhaps eventually to
effect "a great revolution in trade" that would cxclude
Britain entirely.®® W h i l e none of these measures was a
magic Solution, they gave urban groups hope of relief. But
the governor's most difHcult problem was still how to
finance the Consolidated State debt. Increased revenues
from new taxes covered interest payments but were insuf-
ficient to fund the fast-maturing principal, which feil due
in 1785.^' Land taxes were already heavy, for the legislature
had voted £ 1 4 0 , 0 0 0 in 1784 to redeem the army notes,
while even larger amounts of back taxes were uncollected.^®
Anxious not to place additional burdens on the land, the
State omitted direct levies in 1785. Meanwhile Bowdoin
prepared new recommendations. Intent on paying the debt,
he believed that the Commonwealth could either follow
the original plan of the early 1780's, to tax heavily and
extinguish the debt in four years, or it could amortize its
obligations over fifteen years with an annual assessment of
£ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 , an alternative he thought less onerous.®®
Few politicians, however, appreciated the practical limits
of taxation. Imposts and excises were continued for three
years, delinquent towns were pressed to pay back taxes, and
in March 1786 a new direct levy of £ 1 0 0 , 4 3 9 was voted,
almost half going for the congressional requisition, a third
for redeeming the balance of the army notes, and the rest
for running the government.^" Though the new funds were
insufEcient to finance the debt's principal, they overbur-
dened the state's resources, forcing the General Court to
suspend levies pledged to the debt until April 1787 and to

15
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

postpone plans for amortization. But it was too late, for

less than a month after the legislature adjourned in the
Summer of 1786 bands of farmers closed the courts at
Northampton.

Rebellion in a Commonwealth. Agrarian discontent had

been building over the years.^^ Like urban groups, husband-
men experienced difficulty in adjusting to a peacetime So-
ciety where they no longer enjoyed wartime markets,
inflation, legal tender, and closed courts. At the same time
that farmers' ability to weather troubled times declined,
the pressure of public and private debt steadily mounted.
Husbandmen joined in the consumption of foreign Im-
ports, while their lands and polls, as always, were expected
to bear the major share of taxation. As long as towns
evaded taxes, yeomen lived off British credit, the State
postponed funding the debt, and the crisis was delayed.
But as public and private creditors pressed their claims in
the middle 1780's, the weaker yeomen faced ruin, im-
prisonment, and the loss of their property. With no relief
in sight, unwilling to remain passive, some took arms,
closed the courts, and defied government.
Shays' Rebellion meant the dissolution of the social
compact, the breakdown of constitutional processes, and
the appearance of extralegal bodies only six years after
adoption of a new fundamental law raised doubts about
the practicality of republicanism. Men wondered why a
State in which most folk were farmers and most farmers
could vote was torn by civil war."*^ The alienation of sub-
stantial elements, convinced that the polity was unrespon-
sive to their welfare, occurred partly because farmers had
failed to participate directly in government. For genera-
tions they were content to delegate authority to others
whose wealth, family connections, and professional posi-

14
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

tions made them the dominant leaders in their communi-

ties. Relatively few Citizens bothered to vote, and towns
often neglected to send representatives as husbandmen left
the business of governing to others. When agriculturalists
had demanded relief in the middle 1780's, only 19 of 1 1 8
legislators had voted for paper money and only 35 of 124
had favored making real and personal property tender for
debts.^® By closing the courts, setting up county Conven-
tions, and attacking the bar, the Shaysites ended passive
acquiescence in indirect governance.
The challenge to republican Order fused ruling elements,
causing factions to dose ranks. Rival leaders in Berkshire
County, who had been bitterly divided in the late 1770's,
now united against the rebels.^ Hancock opposed paper
money, Sullivan defended the legal system, and Sam
Adams demanded harsh repression of the insurgents.'*®
Despite real hardships and the silent sympathy of many
who stayed at home, the yeomen melted before armed
authority. Suppression did not exorcise the sources of con-
flict, but it did give men a second chance to restore a
harmony of interest and faith in the ideals of Common-
wealth.
The test came in the spring elections of 1787. Despite
disenfranchisement of the rebels, the number of voters
more than doubled, a hundred additional representatives
went to the General Court from towns usually negligent,
and other towns turned out incumbents.^® The main con-
test was between Bowdoin and Hancock. Teaming up again
with Thomas Cushing, Hancock emerged as one unidenti-
fied with unpopulär measures and the man best able to
obliterate the distinctions "too long inculcated between
the yeomanry and the inhabitants of the sea-ports."^^ The
former governor won in a landslide, polling three quarters
of the vote and carrying every county. While he swept the

15
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

inland towns, the vote was closer in the ports, but here, too,
Urban elements opted for "the flexible safe and accom-
modating temper of an Atticus" rather than "the firm
steady undeviating mind of a Cato."^®
Governor Hancock promptly set about to restore "the
government to its needed tranquihty."^® Carrying further
the rehef measure begun under Bowdoin, the State restored
habeas corpus, pardoned rebels, continued legal tender
laws, and granted relief to imprisoned debtors.®" Payment
of the public debt was postponed, direct taxes were de-
ferred one year, and excises were lowered.®^ But the legis-
lature also decisively refused to issue paper money or scale
down the public debt.

Commonwealth and Confederation. However special its

Problems, Massachusetts was one of thirteen states which
had formed the Confederation to pursue common ob-
jectives.®^ From the very beginning the nature of this new
Union had troubled Americans and for over a decade they
sought to mold a system responsive to rival interests, yet
capable of acting effectively and justly. As the problems of
peacetime mounted, men found the Confederation com-
promise unsatisfactory and they sought to redefine both the
form and meaning of "union." In its response to the issues
of centralization, the Bay State was flexible and open-
minded, interest groups were complex and their views
shifted. Ultimately conflict was adjusted within a new
framework of national authority.
T h e defects of the Confederation appeared early and
evoked various remedies. Massachusetts sympathized with
Congress' desire for reliable revenues and understood the
advantages of Continental commercial regulations, but con-
crete efforts to amend and improve the Articles lacked a
consensus. Apathy and divisions among groups together
16
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

with widespread fear of redistributing power doomed tlie

possibility of solutions within the existing structure.
Several times in the early 1780's the Commonwealth
considered congressional requests for a Continental impost.
At first the State thought that the levies would fall un-
equally, bearing heavily on the large importing communi-
ties, but it later approved a 5 per cent duty to run for
twenty-five years.^^ T h e vote was dose and groups were
sharply split; some rural elements, hoping to shift tax
burdens, realized that a Continental impost would pre-empt
revenues from trade. Easterners also were disunited. Pubhc
creditors favored the imposts because receipts were allo-
cated to the Continental debt, but Elbridge Gerry and the
congressional delegation opposed voting funds until Con-
gress redressed the claims of particular Bay State creditors
who had suffered from inflation.®^ Despite these differences,
the impost won the Support of a legislative majority.®®
Even before the economic crisis in the middle of the
decade, Massachusetts granted Congress power to regulate
trade for fifteen years.®® But other states demurred and the
Commonwealth enacted its own navigation act, suspend-
ing it after a year as ineffective " f o r want of Cooperation
of our sister states."" Y e t many realized that as long as the
Confederation was weak and divided. European powers
would not grant favorable commercial concessions and
American trade would languish.®®
In the Summer of 1785, the General Court called for a
Convention to revise the Articles, but again the State was
split.®® Its delegation in Congress argued that general
amendments would be premature until "the States . . ,
have a more clear & comprehensive view of their commer-
cial interests."®" W h e n a commercial parley did convene
at Annapolis in September 1786, Massachusetts was un-
represented. T h e legislature had appointed delegates but

17
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

merchants were reluctant to serve, some doubtful of suc-

cess, others convinced that relief measures must come from
Congress.®^
Though there was widespread recognition of the need to
strengthen the Confederation, concrete efforts repeatedly
foundered because men feared increasing power at the cen-
ter of the Union. Gerry warned in 1785 that a wholesale,
hasty revision of the Articles might invest Congress with
"too füll & unguarded a delegation of powers," thereby
aiding "the friends of an Aristocracy."®^ Stephen Higginson
was suspicious of the Annapolis gathering, characterizing
Hamilton, Madison, and Morris as "great Aristocrats" who
neither knew nor cared much about trade.®® T h e example
of Robert Morris, Superintendent of finance, who was en-
gaged in a complex web of economic and political activi-
ties, aroused suspicion that a powerful individual could
amass influence, fleece the government, advance the inter-
ests of his own faction, and become "the King or Grand
Monarch of America."®^
Mounting economic difficulties and internal rebellion,
however, increased the pressure to infuse new energy into
the Union, but it became apparent that the Articles could
not simply be patched up. Congress was never intended
to become a strong center of authority. Neither economic
groups nor the separate commonwealths feit it was respon-
sive to their interests and all were fearful of faction and the
misuse of additional powers. M e n opposed to piecemeal
amendments would grant far greater influence to a govern-
ment they trusted, but this required scrapping the Articles
and devising new constitutional forms.

The Commonwealth and Constitutional Innovation. In

the fall and winter of 1787, Massachusetts considered a
new framework of government designed "to form a more
18
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

perfect Union." T h e ratifying Convention, which met in

Boston, was one of the largest assemblages in the state's
history, for the Constitution stirred intense populär in-
terest, sphtting the Commonwealth into two opposing
camps.®®
T h e lines of division were complex. T h e coastal towns
strongly favored the Constitution, and so did the inland
villages of Suffolk and Essex counties. Opposition was
strongest in the central and western counties, but the
majorities against ratification were modest in Middlesex
and Bristol counties and there was even strong pro-Con-
stitution sentiment along the lower portions of the Con-
necticut River and in southern Berkshire County. And in
the District of Maine the issue became linked with the
unique, local question of Separation from Massachusetts.
T h e checkered sectional distribution thus indicated that
the cleavage was not simply between east and west or town
and country.®®
T h e strongest proponents of the Constitution were
merchants, public security holders, artisans, and profes-
sional leadership groups, who were convinced that central-
ization was essential to promote their welfare.®^ Y e t the
sources of Support for change do not define the character
of the Opposition, for interests and attitudes were complex.
Many personalty groups expected to benefit from ratifica-
tion. But of 246 personaltyless towns, 142 opposed and 104
favored the Constitution.®® Similarly, most of those reject-
ing change were farmers, but some yeomen favored it. T h e
less insular and more commercially minded husbandmen
stood to benefit from a revival of prosperity in the ports,
whereas subsistence farmers had less stake in urban
revival.®®
T h e anticonstitutionalists often conceded the defects of
the Confederation and recognized the need for more vigor-

19
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

ous government, but they were optimistic about the future

and extremely fearful of change. Having just experienced
civil war and having only recently restored an equilibrium,
many men were loath to ordain a new and untried author-
ity. Persons who had never sympathized with rural in-
surgency, such as Gerry and Sam Adams, preferred the
famihar to the unknown.
The Constitution was a radical document which broke
with conventional notions and with estabhshed political
custom. To men who dreaded arbitrary power and feared
"even Hmited authority" it was a mysterious system füll
of Strange innovations and hidden d a n g e r s D e p a r t i n g
from experience, the framers had deliberately created a
new govemment which appeared unfamiliar and question-
able to many Americans. The ensuing controversy evoked
a clash between two different sets of assumptions, one
rooted in the familiar, the other in a fresh experiment in
Continental self-government7'
Men agreed that the polity must be responsive both to
special interests and the general good but they disagreed
Over the constitutional means to achieve republican ends.
The conventional view was that "only by protecting local
concerns [is] . . . the interest of the whole . . . preserved."'^
Fragmentation and decentralization of power was the
cornerstone of liberty since only small governmental units,
dose to the people would guard their interests. "The idea
of an uncompounded republick, on an average one thou-
sand miles in length, and eight-hundred in breadth, and
containing six millions of white inhabitants . . . is . . . an
absurdity," wrote James Winthrop, "and contrary to the
whole experience of mankind."^®
The new system presupposed that the polity suitable to
a small Commonwealth would not adequately serve "the
great affairs of thirteen states," for localism bred factional-
20
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

ism, which destroyed republicanism. An enduring union

would have to be founded on broader principles than the
continuing clash of parochial rivalries. T h e heart of the
new scheme was a modified system of representation and
an inventive distribution of power among competing
authorities.
A legislature was generally expected to mirror closely
the many disparate interests within the Community. For
this reason the unit of representation in Massachusetts
was small and homogeneous and hundreds of men elected
annually sat in the General Court. In contrast, the populär
branch of Congress would contain only sixty-five delegates
chosen for two years. Such modifications reflected the view
that the rulers of an extensive republic must divest them-
sclves of "local concerns" and become servants of the na-
tion. They must represent a fairly large geographic area
with complex and varied interests and serve at least two
years. Otherwise they would "dwindle to a servile agent,
attempting to secure local and partial benefits by cabal and
intrigue."^^ But critics wondered whether an assembly
few in numbers, far from its constituents, and elected
for long terms would either understand or serve the voters'
interests.'^®
T h e other far-reaching constitutional innovation was
the creation of a federal system which divided sovereignty
bctween local and central authority. Where the nation had
Jurisdiction, it could act conclusively and effectively, but
the states retained responsibility for large areas of govern-
ance. T h e novelty of federalism, however, was the source
of much confusion and apprehension. T h e Constitution
let the states establish franchise qualifications, but critics
charged that the vote was thrown open to men without
property.'® Similarly the absence of a bill of rights alarmed
those not satisfied with assurances that Congress lacked

2 1
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

jurisdiction to invade personal liberties. Fears of consolida-

tion reflected the difEculty many had in understanding the
subtleties of federalism. As a result the new system seemed
füll of unimaginable dangers: Congress would control elec-
tions, deprive states of local levies, control State courts,
abolish jury trial, and ultimately destroy the separate
commonwealths.
While supporters of the Constitution thought that fed-
eralism and indirect representation might overcome the
defects of the Confederation, others viewed a departure
from traditional modes as a dangerous innovation that
would concentrate power in hands insensitive to the Claims
of competing interests and the ideas of Commonwealth.
Differences of interest and ideology thus split men
sharply. Fear of change was so widespread that ratification
carried only after months of an extraordinarily educational
debate and astute political management. Skillful precon-
vention maneuvering sought to fill the assembly with as
many sympathetic delegates as possibleJ^ Seeking to win
backing from dissenters, pro-Constitution forces included
a Baptist minister among the Boston delegation, which
also had representatives of the leading factions. An effective
massing of the mechanics and tradesmen assured unanim-
ity within the Boston group despite the skepticism of
Sam Adams and Dr. Charles Jarvis.'®
In the Convention proponents of change resisted an
early decision, hoping that a prolonged discussion might
turn the tide. Though they expounded the new System
carefully and treated objections respectfully, only a few
delegates were swayed. T h e final recourse was to win over
Governor Hancock and to offer amendments that might
appease the suspicious. W i t h the State evenly split, Han-
cock was reluctant to antagonize either major bloc. Yet
his neutrality jeopardized his position among important

22
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

eastern groups aggressively pushing for ratification. In the

end he traded his support for concessions from the Bow-
doin faction. Breaking his silence, the governor offered
amendments, and a week later Massachusetts became the
seventh State to ratify/®
Though the Constitution had sharply divided the Com-
monwealth, the debate did not leave a residue of bitterness.
Before the Convention adjourned, leading critics promised
to Support the new experiment. They had lost in a fair
and honest contest and would urge their constituents to
submit to the decision of "a majority of wise and under-
standing men."®° In the weeks after adjournment, many
towns reversed themselves and the Constitution seemed to
enjoy a measure of popularity throughout the state.'^
Doubts and fears did not vanish, but people turned to the
more important task of living under the new fundamental
law. T h e real test would come when men translated the
written document into actual policies and institutions.
T h e restoration did not satisfy any group completely, but
it did not leave any permanently alienated. T h e mer-
chants, officials, and country gentry who had soundly
beaten the Shaysites did not press their advantage unduly.
A n d the yeomen, somewhat dismayed and perhaps shocked
by what hard times had driven them to, looked to politics
rather than to rebellion to promote their well-being.
For generations group rivalries had been a source of
social tension. Yet an abundance of opportunities had
taught men that they could advance their interests without
depressing those of their neighbors. T h e economy had
made Citizens truly dependent on one another. T h e farmer
relied on traders to find markets for his surplus, while the
merchant completed his cargoes with country produce and
relied upon rural folk to purchase foreign imports. In the
past, though town and country had often quarreled, they

23
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

managed to settle their conflicts peacefully. Out of this

experience had emerged a belief in an ultimate harmony of
interests.
A severe economic recession following a decade of social
dislocation temporarily undermined the old faith. Unable
to attribute their troubles to a foreign oppressor, seemingly
helpless to alter circumstances through public action,
Americans blamed hard times on each other. Farmers were
condemned for consuming vast quantities of foreign luxu-
ries even though the rural market was a pillar of urban
prosperity. Public creditors insisted that the State meet its
obligations, forgetting that unless yeomen prospered the
Commonwealth could not pay its debts no matter how
diligently the General Court levied new taxes. For a mo-
ment, men lost sight of these truths, frustrated by the dis-
appointments of independence, the ineptitude of State and
nation, and the inefEcacy of politics.
Shays' Rebellion had a therapeutic effect. It taught Citi-
zens that no group could prosper long at the expense of
another. The only Solution to common difüculties was com-
mon efforts to restore that abundance of opportunity by
which all had traditionally prospered.
Despite years of rapid change and rising tensions, the
Commonwealth did not emerge from the rebellion per-
manently divided. By the end of the decade men sought
to restore a consensus and dissolve the hostile alignments
which had briefly led to armed conflict. Though the price
of peace was stalemate, it was far better than civil war.
Yet just as Massachusetts reached an impasse, exhausting
its ability to solve problems alone, fresh hope appeared in
efforts to recast the union of independent commonwealths.

Politics in Transition. In the years immediately after rebel-

lion and ratification, Massachusetts moved further along

24
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

toward a restoration of a harmony of interests. As men

found peaceful ways of resolving conflict, rivalries softened,
apathy returned, and the State enjoyed several years of
political calm. Governor Hancock had emerged as the great
pacifier, binding the wounds of civil war and overcoming
resistance to constitutional innovation. He retained office
until his death in 1793, though discontented elements twice
sought to upset the equihbrium his hegemony symboHzed.
In the spring of 1788 some opponents of ratification
ralhed behind Elbridge Gerry for governor. As the state's
leading critic of the Constitution, Gerry realized the futil-
ity of competing with Hancock, whose re-election he did
not consider an "unfortunate circumstance."®^ Hancock
won handily, receiving support from the Bowdoin faction.
A year after routing an attack from the left, he faced a new
challenge from the right. Elements deeply disturbed by the
disorders of the decade sought to reinstall Bowdoin. Sus-
picious of the governor's compromise politics, his unwill-
ingness to antagonize interest, and his penchant for avoid-
ing unpopulär decision, advocates of strong government—
their enemies called them "fiery federalists"—doubted
Hancock's loyalty to the federal system and feared he
might become an obstructionist.®® Despite bitter personal
attacks in the press and the legislature, the former governor
won re-election easily, running well ahead of Bowdoin even
in the eastern mercantile towns. Once again voters pre-
ferred someone who would stand between "the lawless
Shaysites" and "the intriguing design of a combined aris-
tocracy," preventing the State from being "convulsed by
the violence of parties."®^
Hancock's latest triumph marked another shift in align-
ments. While he sufEered defections from the Bowdoin
camp, he gained new support from two previously hostile
elements. Opponents of ratification who had backed Gerry

25
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

the previous year now feared that Hancock's enemies were

"the seif created nobility" who sought to "pitch him Down
in the M u d " and to establish supremacy over all men of
"revolution principles."®® The governor also found new
strength in the metropolis. For a decade Sam Adams' in-
fluence had waned. Pushed aside by Hancock, alienating
yeomen by advocating harsh treatment for the rebels and
mechanics and tradesmen by giving only lukewarm support
to the Constitution, the aged patriot became increasingly
isolated. In 1787 he ran a poor third for lieutenant gov-
ernor and the following year was defeated in a bid for
Congress.®® The spring of 1789 was propitious for a recon-
ciliation with his old rival. Suffering defections in the east,
seeking additional support in the west, Hancock joined
forces with Adams and helped elect him lieutenant gov-
ernor.
By 1790 the governor had Consolidated his power, and
as long as he lived competition for the first chair virtually
ceased. Voters became apathetic and people lost interest
in politics. "If they will give me my Land at the Duck
pond," one Citizen observed, "they may do as they please
about the Matter. I will not run my shins against the stump
that does not stand in my way."®^ Important unresolved
Problems of debt and finance, trade and commerce re-
mained, but these were now largely beyond the scope of
local authority.
While State responsibilities narrowed, Citizens retained
power to shape the policies of an invigorated national gov-
ernment. The election of the Bay State's first federal repre-
sentatives was another sign of declining group tensions and
the blurring of older divisions. The choice of two senators
was compromised, one seat going to the seaboard, the
other to the interior. The legislature readily agreed on
Caleb Strong, a Northampton lawyer, to represent the in-
26
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

land towns, but the selection of bis colleague proved more

difEcult. Bowdoin, Sam Adams, and Rufus King were
among the many eastern possibilities, but Dr. Charles
Jarvis of Boston made the strengest bid. A leading member
of the Hancock circle, Jarvis might advance the governor's
national ambitions. Though favored by the lower house,
Jarvis was rejected in the State Senate, and after a tem-
porary impasse the two houses agreed on Tristram Dalton,
a Newburyport merchant of moderate views who was un-
involved in factional rivalries.®®
T h e voters played a more direct role in choosing con-
gressmen but populär interest was well below that in the
State canvass of 1787. In the Plymouth and Maine districts
George Partridge and George Thacher swept into office,
meeting little concerted Opposition.®® Elsewhere, in the
absence of political Organization and an aroused citizenry,
contests were highly factious. In half the congressional dis-
tricts multiple candidacies badly fractionalized the vote,
depriving anyone of the chance for a majority and necessi-
tating runoffs. While the antagonisms of the 1780's did not
disappear entirely, elections revealed the disorganization
of politics and the softening of older tensions.
Though the eastern maritime communities overwhelm-
ingly favored the Constitution, the first federal elections
found them disunited. Proponents of centralization in Suf-
folk county feared the area would "be much divided" since
"Adams, Otis, Arnes & Heath & James Bowdoin jr will
probably be voted for."®" T h e contest eventually narrowed
to Adams and Fisher Ames, a young Dedham lawyer who
had only recently won fame by bis eloquent advocacy of
the Constitution. Ames defeated Adams, whose lack of
enthusiasm for ratification alienated many merchants, me-
chanics, and tradesmen in Boston as well as nearby market
farmers.®^ Competition in Essex County was more complex.

27
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

Four major candidates shared the vote and none won a

majority. Nathan Dane, a county worthy of moderate
views, and Samuel Holten split the Support of towns which
had rejected ratification. T h e pro-Constitution forces di-
vided their strength between Benjamin Goodhue and
Jonathan Jackson.®^ By attracting backing from Dane and
Holten Clements, Goodhue triumphed on the second ballot.
Elections in inland communities, where Opposition to
ratification was strongest, also illustrated the fluidity of
politics. T e n of twenty-two Bristol towns had opposed the
Constitution, but all except two endorsed congressional
candidates favorable to centralization. While a little over
half the towns in Middlesex County had rejected the Con-
stitution, congressional voting patterns showed little con-
tinuity with earlier divisions. Middlesex was the home of
Elbridge Gerry, who first declined to run for Congress,
where his friends hoped he might restrain those seeking to
"involve the country in Civil wars and bloody controver-
sies."®' T h e pressure to stand mounted and Gerry con-
sented, noting that "some of the high federalists have been
urging me to go."^ Though his supporters denounced "the
proud, aristocratical gentry, who think the yeomanry . . .
unfit to have any part in the government," Gerry staked a
Claim for moderation, deprecating excessive democracy,
favoring effective centralization, and promising to Support
the Constitution with amendments.®® At the first poll anti-
Constitution towns split their votes between Gerry and
Nathaniel Gorham, while William Hull, John Brooks, and
Joseph Varnum garnered sufficient ballots to prevent a
choice. Gerry won easily the second time, and his election
was welcomed by both John Bacon, a Stockbridge critic
of the Constitution, and Henry Jackson, an ardent pro-
constitutionalist.®®
 THE POLITICS OF INDEPENDENCE

Thirty out of thirty-seven towns in Worcester County

had opposed ratification; their unity did not endure. T h e
Chief rivals for the congressional seat were Jonathan Grout
and Timothy Paine. An old revolutionary leader, lawyer,
and justice of the peace, Grout sympathized with the
yeomen and won considerable popularity, which sent him
to the State Senate in 1788. Paine was an ex-Tory who had
held numerous ofHces before the Revolution, re-entering
pubhc hfe in the 1780's. While Grout clearly attracted the
Support of husbandmen suspicious of centrahzation, most
of Paine's votes also caine from anti-Constitution towns,
and both men favored amendments.
T h e first federal elections in the Hampshire-Berlcshire
district were models of dynamic politics. Multiple candi-
dacies, general apathy, and a fractionalized vote forced nu-
merous canvasses. Both Hampshire and Berkshire claimed
the seat, adding a further sectional complication. T h e
strengest contender was Tlieodore Sedgwick, who had con-
nections in both counties.®'' T h e able Stockbridge lawyer,
however, lost a majority of Berkshire towns to John Bacon
and William Whiting, critics of the Constitution, and to
Thompson Skinner, a pro-Constitution politician from
Williamstown. Unlike his Berkshire competitors, Sedgwick
attracted considerable Support in neighboring Hampshire
County, yet repeatedly failed to muster a district majority
as long as Berkshire split its vote and Samuel Lyman took
the lion's share in Hampshire. Though Sedgwick feared a
Union between Lyman and Whiting, anti-Constitution
towns split their vote several ways.®® By the fifth ballot the
factional Situation clarified and Sedgwick won. Though he
swept Berkshire County, his margin of victory in the dis-
trict was narrow and success owed much to clever manage-
ment.'«

29
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

The unpatterned confusion of the first congressional

elections revealed a decline in the polarization of group
interests and a return to the more factious politics of an
earlier period. Neither the distress of the postwar years,
which had disrupted the harmony of interests on which
factions thrived, nor the rebeUion and ratification contro-
versies left the State permanently divided into organized
pohtical groups.
T h e hard-pressed yeomanry rebelled when government
appeared insufEciently sensitive to their troubles. Had in-
stitutions existed which regularized and formahzed partici-
pation in pohtics, the Commonwealth might have avoided
a direct challenge to authority. But the Community lacked
a tradition of active involvement of Citizens. For genera-
tions men had been accustomed to delegating pohtical
responsibilities to others. Those who could vote often had
not bothered until the folly of civil war taught them that
the ballot was a surer and better means of redress. T h e
outpouring of voters in 1787 and the triumph of a policy
of accommodation were the first steps toward restoring the
harmony of interests. Even the deep split over the wisdom
of increasing the authority of central government did not
significantly arrest the restoration. Though the revolution-
ary generation lacked formal institutions through which
later Americans settled conflict by compromise and reason
and adjustment and experimentation, it managed to avert
disunion and social chaos. By 1789 it had hopefully em-
barked on an adventure in Continental self-government
whose success rested heavily on the ability of an invigorated
Union to accommodate many different interests in a
diverse Republic.

30
 II
THE POLITICS OF ADJUSTMENT

The new Union immediately confronted a series of un-

solved and serious problems which had challenged both
the states and the Confederation for over a decade. More-
over, populär sentiment called for a more precise definition
of the federal system. The central authority's response to
these issues altered the alignments of the past, successfully
accommodated rival interests, and dissipated fears of cen-
tralization.

Adjusting to a Federal Polity. The promise of amendments

delimiting national power contributed to ratification in
Massachusetts and elsewhere. One of the most alarming
omissions in the Constitution as drafted had been a bill of
rights. A Portland publisher wrote to his future congress-
man: "You laugh at a Bill of Rights; but should one ever
be annexed to the Constitution, I will fall down, and
worship it."^ Congress was Willing to guarantee personal
liberties, but some critics of the Constitution insisted on
more fundamental modifications, such as enlarging the
national legislature, preventing interference in local elec-
tions, reserving internal taxation to the states, and generally
limiting federal authority to expressly delegated power.
But it was doubtful that these or other structural changes
would receive Support from enough states; nor was the pres-
sure for such alterations sufüciently strong or persistent.^
Another early problem was plural officeholding. The
Massachusetts Constitution explicitly banned multiple of-
ficeholding, but did this prevent a State legislator, a sheriff,

31
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

or a probate judge from serving in Congress or a federal

judge from sitting in the General Court? The consensus
was that the spirit and principle of the State Constitution
should extend to federal appointees, who should be barred
from holding plural ofEces in a manner similar to that set
forth in the Massachusetts Constitution. Thus federal
judges could not sit in the State legislature because judges
of the Supreme Judicial Court were excluded.® Hostility
to pluralism reflected fear that favored individuals might
accumulate dangerous influence. As a result, two State legis-
lators were forced to give up their posts, others did not seek
or win re-election, a federal judge was not seated, and two
congressmen resigned, one to remain a sheriflF, the other a
justice of the common pleas.^
Despite these efforts to ensure a proper balance between
local and national authority, few doubted that the Union
alone could successfully tackle the great problems of debt,
taxation, trade, and finance. Of all the questions plaguing
the Commonwealth in the 1780's, none had proved so
insoluble as the large public debt.

The Politics of Finance. In the years after the rebellion,

the size of the Massachusetts debt had changed little. Be-
cause merchants opposed high imposts and excises, and
farmers direct levies on lands and polls, revenues were suf-
ficient only to cover government Operations and interest
payments. Earlier efforts to fund public obligations had
violently disrupted the harmony of interests; the price of
peace was fiscal stalemate.
The new government, however, found ways of satisfying
creditors without disturbing the Community. Anticipating
federal action, the General Court offered to repeal imposts
and excises and to resign the funding of the debt to a
national Solution.® Since Congress controlled the riebest

32
 THE POLITICS OF ADJUSTMENT

sources of revenue, it would have to meet its responsibili-

ties or "those who are now highly federal . . . will become
Antifederal."«
T h e Union's extensive taxing power was attractive to
yeomen, who thought that land would not have to bear the
bürden because imposts and excises would be ample. Mer-
chants also preferred a federal Solution. Nationwide duties
would fall more uniformly and be collected more efficiently
than local levies and would relieve merchants of the trou-
blesome State impost. Furthermore, since Massachusetts
had one of the largest debts, it would have to tax commerce
heavily if each Commonwealth were to fund its obligations
separately/
Massachusetts therefore strongly supported Alexander
Hamilton's program to fund the national debt and assume
State debts. N o one argued more ardently against discrimi-
nating between original and subsequent holders of securi-
ties than Elbridge Gerry. If suffering soldiers sold their
paper cheaply, he favored compensating them, but not at
the expense of creditors. Though speculators bought securi-
ties at low prices, they gave "currency to property that
would lie dormant."® Discrimination, Gerry concluded,
was plainly fraudulent and violated a sacred contract. Even
if some creditors were the very "dregs of creation and the
scum of iniquity," discrimination was both impractical
and unjust.®
More important than discrimination was the rate of
interest. Hamilton offered 6 per cent on part of the debt
and 3 per cent on the remainder. T h e Senate considered
a proposal for 4 per cent. T h e lower rates meant partial
repudiation, but Congressman Fisher Arnes and others
argued that the uncertainty of revenues warranted com-
promise, especially since security owners would still benefit
substantially/"

33
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

Gerry, however, demanded 6 per cent; anything less was

repudiation. Disputing Hamilton, he argued that the na-
tion could easily Support higher interest." His views found
Support at home. A Portland creditor, John Hobby, pre-
dicted that 4 per cent would "be extreemely fatal" to honest
investors and 3 per cent would deprive them of "one half
the nominal amount of our demands." According to Ben-
jamin Goodhue, Salem's greatest merchant preferred the
defeat of assumption of the State debts rather than "have
the debt of the U S funded upon so open a violation of
contract as the Secy proposed."'^ In Boston friends of the
government were dismayed by the Senate's offer of a bare
4 per cent: "That a proposal so undisguised & unjust shou'd
come from that brauch of the Legislature was not within
our expectations."'^
Disappointed creditors. Christopher Gore reported, "may
endeavor to make terms with the State." Security holders
were numerous, important, and attached to property, and
"would change sides rather than lose any share of the
blessing."" Moreover, the delay and uncertainty of funding
may have caused some to despair of a national settlement.
In that event, George Gabot predicted, "the general gov-
ernment would be ruined."'®
The proposal to assume State debts also revealed other
divisions among security holders. Some of those whose in-
vestments were primarily in Continental paper feared that
assumption might jeopardize funding and reduce interest
rates." Others thought that unless it was linked to the gen-
eral funding scheme, assumption was doomed. Thus splits
among creditors threatened "the whole assumption, and
probably the funding system with i t . " "
When the Massachusetts legislature met in the winter
of 1790, for the first time since the rebellion a combination
of Clements fearful of consolidation together with "some

34
 THE POLITICS OF ADJUSTMENT

of the most strenuous advocates for the Constitution"

renewed efforts to fund the State debt.'® Alarmed by as-
sumption, some viewed it as the opening wedge to complete
centrahzation. The debt now became "the barrier of our
hberties," which must be paid if "we may pretend to hold
up the importance of the State Government." Otherwise
Citizens "will naturally become less attached to the welfare
of the Commonwealth, and place their dependence alto-
gether on the Federal Government." Thus it became neces-
sary to pay the interest by doubling the land and poll taxes,
a small price to retain State sovereignty. Nor must the
Commonwealth discriminate, since it must strictly adhere
to its public obligations.^®
But for obvious political reasons, antiassumptionists
sought first to increase the yield from the State excise,
offering to mortgage it to the debt. In March 1790 the
General Court adopted an elaborate new set of laws, tight-
ening administration, taxing wines, rum, coffee, sugar,
cheese, coaches, licensing inns and retailers, and appropri-
ating the receipts to the debt.^°
If some creditors hoped for a deal with the State, they
were soon disillusioned. Failing to increase levies on lands,
Massachusetts was unable to fund its debt. Moreover,
security owners realized that if assumption failed, the states
would perpetually compete with Congress for revenues.^'
Most important, merchants anxious to abolish local duties
believed that unless the Union assumed both local and
national obligations, Massachusetts would continue to need
extensive revenues and would probably bürden trade.^^
Finally, farmers would be only slightly affected by the nec-
essary federal imposts.^® Thus there seemed "no other way
under heaven by which our Citizens can be relieved from
heavy and Oppressive Land Taxes, but by such an assump-
tion."" Because Citizens were reluctant to pay federal levies

35
THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS

and still support a large local debt, the antiassumptionists

were doomed. Husbandmen would not submit to burdens
on the land for the sake of abstract fears of consolidation.
Nor did assumption necessarily mean further centraliza-
tion. On the contrary, Gerry argued, should the common-
wealths fund separately, taxes "will be so heavy as to make
the State Government unpopulär, and the destruction of
their constitutions may thereby be produced."^'' Delays
would create new demands for consolidation and the defeat
of assumption would cause the states and the nation to
compete for revenues. T h e scheme was thus vital to pre-
serve the harmony of the Union.^®
Ultimately trapped by the prospect of direct levies, anti-
assumptionists could not mass farmers behind their pro-
gram nor find much support elsewhere. Governor Han-
cock equivocated but eventually favored assumption, and
in June 1790 the legislature recommended its adoption to
"equalize the burthens of the several States, & to prevent
the too frequent Operation of large direct taxation."^^
Massachusetts promised to repeal the new excises when and
if Congress acted.^®
Continued delay in New York made some of the "best
and most substantial friends" of the new government
"damn mad and alniost ripe for anything."^® T h e Massa-
chusetts delegation in Congress worked hard for Hamil-
ton's program, Ames and Gerry were tireless debaters, and
Theodore Sedgwick eloquently appealed to "the compas-
sion of the Representatives of the people of America, to
relieve us from the pressure of intolerable burdens."®®
Congress finally reached agreement in July 1790, and in
September a special session of the General Court repealed
the local excise.®'
Assumption proved so populär that in 1792 the Com-
monwealth petitioned Congress to fund the remainder of
the debt not covered by the original measure.®^ W h e n the

36
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
ludicrous mishaps; and in a third, entitled Cassandrino dilettante e
impresario, his too great love of music and the fair sex gets him into
quarrels with tenori and bassi, and especially with the prima donna
whom he courts, and with the maestro who is his rival. This maestro
is in the prime of youth; he has light hair and blue eyes, he loves
pleasure and good cheer, his wit is yet more seductive than his
person. All these qualities, and the very style of his dress, remind the
audience of one of the few great men modern Italy has produced.
There is a burst of applause; they recognise and greet Rossini.
Of the performances of marionettes in the houses of the Italian
nobility and middle classes, it is naturally much less easy to obtain
details than of those given in public. It is generally understood,
however, that the private puppets are far from prudish, and allow
themselves tolerable license in respect of politics. At Florence, at the
house of a rich merchant, a party was assembled to witness the
performance of a company of marionettes. M. Beyle was there. “The
theatre was a charming toy, only five feet wide, and which,
nevertheless, was an exact model of a large theatre. Before the play
began, the lights in the apartment were extinguished. A company of
twenty-four marionettes, eight inches in height, with leaden legs, and
which had cost a sequin apiece, performed a rather free comedy,
abridged from Machiavelli’s Mandragora.” At Naples the
performance was satirical, and its hero a secretary of state. In pieces
of this kind, there is generally a speaker for every puppet; and as it
often happens that the speakers are personally acquainted with the
voice, ideas, and peculiarities of the persons intended to be
caricatured, great perfection and point is thus given to the
performance.
When the passion of the Italians for marionettes is found to be so
strong, so general, so persevering, and, we may add, so refined and
ingenious, it is not to be wondered at that most other European
countries are largely indebted to Italy for their progress,
improvement, and, in some cases, almost for the first rudiments of
this minor branch of the drama. Even the Spain of the Middle Ages,
in most things so original and self-relying, was under some
obligations to Italy in this respect. The first name of any mark which
presents itself to the student of the history of Spanish puppet-shows
is that of a skilful mathematician of Cremona, Giovanni Torriani,
surnamed Gianello, of whom the learned critic Covarrubias speaks as
“a second Archimedes;” adding, that this illustrious foreigner
brought titeres to great perfection. That so distinguished a man
should have wasted his time on such frivolities requires some
explanation. The Emperor Charles V.’s love of curious mechanism
induced many of the first mechanicians of Germany and Italy to
apply themselves to the production of extraordinary automatons.
Writers have spoken of an artificial eagle which flew to meet him on
his entrance into Nuremberg, and of a wonderful iron fly, presented
to him by Jean de Montroyal, which, took wing of itself, described
circles in the air, and then settled on his arm—marvels of science
which other authors have treated as mere fables. Gianello won the
emperor’s favour by the construction of an admirable clock, followed
him to Spain, and passed two years with him in his monastic retreat,
striving, by ingenious inventions, to raise the spirits of his
melancholy patron, depressed by unwonted inactivity. “Charles V.,”
says Flaminio Strada, historian of the war in Flanders, “busied
himself, in the solitude of the cloisters of St Just, with the
construction of clocks. He had for his master in that art Gianello
Torriani, the Archimedes of that time, who daily invented new
mechanisms to occupy the mind of Charles, eager and curious of all
those things. Often, after dinner, Gianello displayed upon the
prince’s table little figures of horses and armed men. There were
some that beat the drum, others that sounded the trumpet; some
were seen advancing against each other at a gallop, like enemies, and
assailing each other with lances. Sometimes the ingenious
mechanician let loose in the room small wooden birds, which flew in
all directions, and which were constructed with such marvellous
artifice that one day the superior of the convent, chancing to be
present, appeared to fear that there was magic in the matter.” The
attention of Charles V., even in the decline of his genius, was not,
however, wholly engrossed by such toys as these. He and Torriani
discussed and solved more useful and more serious problems—one,
amongst others, which Gianello realised after the prince’s death, and
which consisted in raising the waters of the Tagus to the heights of
Toledo. The improvements introduced by the skilful mechanician of
Cremona into the construction of marionettes were soon adopted by
the titereros. Puppets were already a common amusement in Spain,
and had right of station on all public places, and at all fairs, and
entrance into most churches. It is to be observed, that Italian
influence can be traced in the Peninsula only in the material and
mechanical departments of the marionette theatres. The characters
and the subjects of the plays have always been strictly national,
notwithstanding that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century
down to the commencement of the nineteenth—and probably even at
the present day—the exhibitors of these shows were principally
foreigners, including many gypsies. Punchinello succeeded in getting
naturalised under the name of Don Cristoval Pulichinela; but he does
not appear ever to have played a prominent part, and probably was
rather a sort of supernumerary to the show, like Master Peter’s ape.
Occupation was perhaps hard to find for him in the class of pieces
preferred by Spanish taste. The nature of these it is not difficult to
conjecture. Spain, superstitious, chivalrous, and semi-Moorish,
hastened to equip its puppets in knightly harness and priestly robes.
“Moors, knights, giants, enchanters, the conquerors of the Indies, the
characters of the Old and the New Testament, and especially saints
and hermits, are,” says M. Magnin, “the usual actors in these shows.
The titeres so frequently wear monkish garb, especially in Portugal,
that the circumstance has had an influence on their name in this
country, where they are more often called bonifrates than titeres.
The composition of bonifrate (although the word is old, perhaps
older than titere) indicates an Italian origin.” Legends of saints and
the book of ballads (Romancero) supplied most of the subjects of the
plays performed by Spanish puppets. Of this we have an example in
the drama selected by Cervantes for performance by Master Peter’s
titeres before Don Quixote. In the course of his researches, M.
Magnin was surprised to find (although he ought, perhaps, to have
expected it) that bull-fights have had their turn of popularity on the
boards of the Spanish puppet-show. He traces this in a curious old
picaresque romance, the memoirs of the picara Justina. This
adventurous heroine gives sundry particulars of the life of her great-
grandfather, who had kept a theatre of titeres at Seville, and who put
such smart discourse into the mouths of his actors that, to hear him,
the women who sold fruit and chestnuts and turrones (cakes of
almonds and honey, still in use in Spain) quitted their goods and
their customers, leaving their hat or their brasero (pan of hot
embers) to keep shop. The popular manager was unfortunately of
irregular habits, and expended his substance in riotous living. His
money went, his mules, his puppets—the very boards of his theatre
were sold, and his health left him with his worldly goods, so that he
became the inmate of an hospital. When upon the eve of giving up
the ghost, his granddaughter relates, he lost his senses, and became
subject to such furious fits of madness, that one day he imagined
himself to be a puppet-show bull (un toro de titeres), and that he was
to fight a stone cross which stood in the court of the hospital.
Accordingly, he attacked it, crying out, “Ah perra! que te ageno!”
(words of defiance), and fell dead. The sister of charity, a good
simple woman, seeing this, exclaimed, “Oh the thrice happy man! he
has died at the foot of the cross, and whilst invoking it!” At a recent
date (1808), a French savant, travelling in Spain, went to the puppet
theatre at Valencia. The Death of Seneca was the title of the piece
performed. In presence of the audience, the celebrated philosopher,
the pride of Cordova, ended historically by opening his veins in a
bath. The streams of blood that flowed from his arms were simulated
cleverly enough by the movement of a red ribbon. An unexpected
miracle, less historical than the mode of death, wound up the drama.
Amidst the noise of fireworks, the pagan sage was taken up into
heaven in a glory, pronouncing, as he ascended, the confession of his
faith in Jesus Christ, to the perfect satisfaction of the audience. The
smell of powder must have been a novelty to Seneca’s nostrils; but
doubtless the rockets contributed greatly to the general effect of the
scene, and Spain, the country of anomalies, is not to be disconcerted
by an anachronism.
Into whatever country we follow the footsteps of the numerous and
motley family of the Puppets, we find that, however exotic their
habits may be on their first arrival in the land, they speedily become
a reflex of the peculiar genius, tastes, and characteristics of its
people. Thus in Italy, the land of song and dance, of strict theatrical
censors, and despotic governments, we find the burattini dealing in
sharp but polished jests at the expense of their rulers, excelling in the
ballet, and performing Rossini’s operas, without suppressions or
curtailment, with an orchestra of five or six instruments and singers
behind the scenes. The Spanish titere couches his lance and rides
forth to meet the Moor and rescue captive maidens, marches with
Cortes to the conquest of Montezuma’s capital, or enacts, with more
or less decorum, a moving incident from Holy Writ. In the Jokken
and Puppen of Germany we recognise the metaphysical and
fantastical tendencies of that country, its broad and rather heavy
humour, its quaint superstitions, domestic sprites, and enchanted
bullets. And in France, where puppet-shows were early cherished,
and encouraged by the aristocracy as well as by the people, we need
not wonder to find them elegant, witty, and frivolous—modelling
themselves, in fact, upon their patrons. M. Magnin dwells long upon
the puppets of his native land, which possess, however, less character
and strongly marked originality than those of some of the other
countries he discourses of. It is here he first traces the etymology of
the word marionette—unmistakably French, although it has been of
late years adopted in Germany and England. He considers it to be
one of the numerous affectionate diminutives of the name of Marie,
which crept into the French language in its infancy, and which soon
came to be applied to those little images of the Virgin that were
exhibited, gaily dressed and tinsel bedecked, to the adoration of the
devout. In a pastoral poem of the 13th century, he finds the pretty
name of Marionette applied by her lover to a young girl called
Marion. “Several streets of old Paris, in which were sold or exposed
images of the Virgin and saints, were called, some Rues des
Marmouzets (there are still two streets of this name in Paris), others
Rues des Mariettes, and somewhat later, Rues des Marionettes. As
irony makes its way everywhere, the amiable or religious sense of the
words Marotte, Mariotte, and Marionette, was soon exchanged for a
jesting and profane one. In the 15th century there was sung, in the
streets and taverns, an unchaste ditty called the Chant Marionnette.
The bauble of a licensed fool was called, and is still called, marotte;
‘by reason,’ says Ménage, ‘of the head of a marionette—that is to say,
of a little girl’—which surmounts it; and at last mountebanks
irreverently called their wooden actors and actresses marmouzets
and mariottes. At the end of the 16th century and commencement of
the 17th, several Protestant or sceptical writers were well pleased to
confound, with an intention of mockery, the religious and the
profane sense of the words marmouzets and marionettes. Henry
Estienne, inveighing, in his Apologie pour Herodote, against the
chastisements inflicted on the Calvinists for the mutilation of
madonnas and images of saints, exclaims: ‘Never did the Egyptians
take such cruel vengeance for the murder of their cats, as has been
seen wreaked, in our days, on those who had mutilated some
marmouzet or marionette.’” It is curious here again to trace the
connection between Roman image-worship and the puppet-show.
The marionette, at first reverently placed in niches, with spangled
robe and burning lamp, is presently found perched at the end of a
jester’s bauble and parading a juggler’s board. The question here is
only of a name, soon abandoned by the sacred images to its
disreputable usurpers. But we have already seen, especially in the
case of Spain, what a scandalous confusion came to pass between
religious ceremonies and popular entertainments, until at times
these could hardly be distinguished from those; and, as far as what
occurred within them went, spectators might often be perplexed to
decide whether they were in a sacred edifice or a showman’s booth.
With respect to the French term marionette, it had yet to undergo,
after its decline and fall from a sacred to a profane application, a still
deeper degradation, before its final confinement to the class of
puppets it at the present day indicates. In the 16th century it came to
be applied not only to mechanical images of all kinds, sacred and
profane, but, by a strange extension of its meaning, to the supposed
supernatural dolls and malignant creatures that sorcerers were
accused of fostering, as familiar imps and as idols. From a huge
quarto printed in Paris in 1622, containing a collection of trials for
magic which took place between 1603 and 1615, M. Magnin extracts a
passage showing how certain poor idiots were accused of “having
kept, close confined and in subjection in their houses, marionettes,
which are little devils, having usually the form of toads, sometimes of
apes, always very hideous.” The rack, the gallows, and the faggot
were the usual lot of the unfortunate supposed possessors of these
unwholesome puppets.
There are instances on record of long discussions and fierce
disputes between provinces or towns for the honour of having been
the birthplace of some great hero, poet, or philosopher. In like
manner, M. Magnin labours hard, and expends much erudition, to
prove that the French Polichinelle, notwithstanding the similarity of
name, is neither the son, nor in any way related to the Italian
Pulcinella, but is thoroughly French in origin and character. That
Harlequin and Pantaloon came from south of the Alps he readily
admits; also, that a name has been borrowed from Italy for the
French Punch. But he stands up manfully for the originality of this
jovial and dissipated puppet, which he maintains to be a thoroughly
Gallic type. Whether conclusive or not—a point to the settlement of
which we will not give many lines—the arguments and facts he brings
forward are ingenious and amusing. After displaying the marked
difference that exists in every respect, except in that of the long
hooked nose and the name, between the Punchinello of Paris and
that of Naples—the latter being a tall straight-backed active fellow,
dressed in a black half-mask, a grey pointed hat, a white frock and
trousers, and a tight girdle, and altogether of a different character
from his more northern namesake—he has the audacity to broach,
although with some hesitation, the bold idea that Polichinelle is a
portrait of the great Béarnais. “To hide nothing of my thought, I
must say that, under the necessary exaggeration of a loyal caricature,
Polichinelle exhibits the popular type, I dare not say of Henry IV.,
but at any rate of the Gascon officer imitating his master’s bearing in
the guardroom of the palace of St Germain, or of the old Louvre. As
to the hunch, it has been from time immemorial the appendage, in
France, of a facetious, witty fellow. In the thirteenth century, Adam
de la Halle was called the hunchback of Arras, not that he was
deformed, but on account of his humorous vein.
On m’appelle bochu, mais je ne le suis mie.

The second hump, the one in front, conspicuous under his

spangled doublet, reminds us of the glittering and protuberant
cuirass of men-at-arms, and of the pigeon-breasted dress then in
fashion, which imitated the curve of the cuirass.[6] The very hat of
Polichinelle (I do not refer to his modern three-cornered covering,
but to the beaver, with brim turned up, which he still wore in the
seventeenth century), was the hat of the gentlemen of that day, the
hat à la Henri IV. Finally, certain characteristic features of his face,
as well as the bold jovial amorous temper of the jolly fellow, remind
us, in caricature, of the qualities and the defects of the Béarnais. In
short, notwithstanding his Neapolitan name, Polichinelle appears to
me to be a completely national type, and one of the most vivacious
and sprightly creations of French fancy.”
The first puppet-showmen in France whose names have been
handed down to posterity, were a father and son called Brioché.
According to the most authentic of the traditions collected, Jean
Brioché exercised, at the beginning of Louis XIV.’s reign, the two
professions of tooth-drawer and puppet-player. His station was at
the end of the Pont Neuf, near the gate of Nesle, and his comrade
was the celebrated monkey Fagotin. With or without his consent,
Polichinelle was about this time dragged into politics. Amongst the
numerous Mazarinades and political satires that deluged Paris in
1649, there was one entitled Letter from Polichinelle to Jules
Mazarin. It was in prose, but ended by these three lines, by way of
signature:—
“Je suis Polichinelle,
Qui fait la sentinelle
A la porte de Nesle.”

It is also likely that the letter was the work of Brioché or Briocchi
(who was perhaps a countryman and protégé of the cardinal’s),
written with a view to attract notice and increase his popularity (a
good advertisement, in short), than that it proceeded from the pen of
some political partisan. But in any case it serves to show that the
French Punch was then a great favourite in Paris. “I may boast,” he is
made to say in the letter, “without vanity, Master Jules, that I have
always been better liked and more respected by the people than you
have; for how many times have I, with my own ears, heard them say:
‘Let us go and see Polichinelle!’ whereas nobody ever heard them
say: ‘Let us go and see Mazarin!’” The unfortunate Fagotin came to
an untimely end, if we are to put faith in a little book now very rare
(although it has gone through several editions), entitled, Combat de
Cirano de Bergerac contre le singe de Brioché. This Cirano was a
mad duellist of extreme susceptibility. “His nose,” says Ménage,
“which was much disfigured, was cause of the death of more than ten
persons. He could not endure that any should look at him, and those
who did had forthwith to draw and defend themselves.” This lunatic,
it is said, one day took Fagotin for a lackey who was making faces at
him, and ran him through on the spot. The story may have been a
mere skit on Cirano’s quarrelsome humour; but the mistake he is
said to have made, appears by no means impossible when we become
acquainted with the appearance and dress of the famous monkey.
“He was as big as a little man, and a devil of a droll,” says the author
of the Combat de Cirano; “his master had put him on an old Spanish
hat, whose dilapidations were concealed by a plume; round his neck
was a frill à la Scaramouche; he wore a doublet with six movable
skirts, trimmed with lace and tags—a garment that gave him rather
the look of a lackey—and a shoulder-belt from which hung a
pointless blade.” It was this innocent weapon, according to the writer
quoted from, that poor Fagotin had the fatal temerity to brandish
against the terrible Cirano. Whatever the manner of his death, his
fame lived long after him; and even as certain famous French
comedians have transmitted their names to the particular class of
parts they filled during their lives, so did Fagotin bequeath his to all
monkeys attached to puppet-shows. Loret, in his metrical narrative
of the wonders of the fair of St Germain’s in the year 1664, talks of
“the apes and fagotins;” La Fontaine praises Fagotin’s tricks in his
fable of The Lion and his Court, and Molière makes the sprightly and
malicious Dorine promise Tartuffe’s intended wife that she shall
have, in carnival time,
“Le sal et la grand ’branle, à savoir deux musettes,
Et parfois Fagotin et les marionnettes.”

Great honour, indeed, for a quadrumane comedian, to obtain even

incidental mention from France’s first fabulist and greatest
dramatist. It was at about the time of Tartuffe’s performance (1669)
that puppet-shows appear to have been at the zenith of their
popularity in France, and in the enjoyment of court favour. In the
accounts of expenditure of the royal treasury is noted a payment of
1365 livres “to Brioché, player of marionettes, for the stay he made at
St Germain-en-Laye during the months of September, October, and
November, to divert the royal children.” Brioché had been preceded
by another puppet-showman, who had remained nearly two months.
The dauphin was then nine years old, and evidently very fond of
Polichinelle—to whose exploits and drolleries, and to the tricks of
Fagotin, it is not, however, to be supposed that the attractions of
Brioché’s performances were confined. He and his brother showman
had doubtless a numerous company of marionettes, performing a
great variety of pieces, since they were able to amuse the dauphin
and his juvenile court for nearly five months without intermission.
Like all distinguished men, Brioché, decidedly one of the celebrities
of his time, and to whom we find constant allusions in the prose and
verse of that day, had his enemies and his rivals. Amongst the former
was to be reckoned no less a personage than Bossuet, who
denounced marionettes (with a severity that might rather have been
expected from some straight-laced Calvinist than from a prelate of
Rome) as a shameful and impure entertainment, calculated to
counteract his laborious efforts for the salvation of his flock. M.
Magnin’s extensive researches in puppet chronicles leave him
convinced that the eloquent bishop must have been in bilious temper
when thus attacking the poor little figures whose worst offences were
a few harmless drolleries. Anthony Hamilton, in a letter, half verse
and half prose, addressed to the daughter of James II. of England,
describes the fête of St Germain-en-Laye, and gives us the measure
of the marionettes’ transgressions. “The famous Polichinelle,” he
says, “the hero of that stage, is a little free in his discourse, but not
sufficiently so to bring a blush to the cheek of the damsel he diverts
by his witticisms.” We would not take Anthony Hamilton’s evidence
in such matters for more than it is worth. There was, no doubt, a fair
share of license in the pieces arranged for these puppets, or in the
jests introduced by their invisible readers; and as regards their
actions, M. Magnin himself tells us of the houzarde, an extremely
gaillarde dance, resembling that called the antiquaile mentioned in
Rabelais. Notwithstanding which, the marionettes were in great
favour with very honest people, and Charles Perrault, one of the most
distinguished members of the old French Academy, praised them in
verse as an agreeable pastime. The jokes Brioché put into the mouths
of his actors were greatly to the taste of the Parisians; so much so
that when an English mechanician exhibited other puppets which he
had contrived to move by springs instead of strings, the public still
preferred Brioché, “on account of the drolleries he made them say.”
That he was not always and everywhere so successful, we learn by a
quaint extract from the Combat de Cirano, already mentioned.
Brioché, says the facetious author, “one day took it into his head to
ramble afar with his little restless wooden Æsop, twisting, turning,
dancing, laughing, chattering, &c. This heteroclite marmouzet, or,
better to speak, this comical hunchback, was called Polichinelle. His
comrade’s name was Voisin. (More likely, suggests M. Magnin, the
voisin, the neighbour or gossip of Polichinelle.) After visiting several
towns and villages, they got on Swiss ground in a canton where
marionettes were unknown. Polichinelle having shown his phiz, as
well as all his gang, in presence of a people given to burn sorcerers,
they accused Brioché to the magistrate. Witnesses declared that they
had heard little figures jabber and talk, and that they must be devils.
Judgment was pronounced against the master of this wooden
company animated by springs. But for the interference of a man of
sense they would have made a roast of Brioché. They contented
themselves with stripping the marionettes naked. O poveretta!” The
same story is told by the Abbé d’Artigny, who lays the scene at
Soleure, and says that Brioché owed his release to a captain of the
French-Swiss regiment then recruiting in the cantons. Punch at that
time had powerful protectors. Brioché’s son and successor, Francis,
whom the Parisians familiarly called Fanchon, having been
offensively interfered with, wrote at once to the king. It would seem
that, without quitting the vicinity of the Pont Neuf, he desired to
transfer his standing to the Faubourg St Germains end, and that the
commissaire of that district prohibited his exhibition. On the 16th
October 1676, the great Colbert wrote to the lieutenant-general of
police, communicating his majesty’s commands that Brioché should
be permitted to exercise his calling, and should have a proper place
assigned to him where he might do so.
The history of the French marionettes, during the first half of the
eighteenth century, is given in considerable detail by M. Magnin, but
does not contain any very striking episodes. It is to be feared their
morals got rather relaxed during the latter years of Louis XIV.’s
reign, and under the Regency, and Bossuet might then have
thundered against them with greater reason than in 1686. Towards
the middle of the century, a great change took place in the character
of their performances: witty jests, and allusions to the scandal of
court and city, were neglected for the sake of mechanical effects and
surprises; the vaudeville and polished farce, for which the French
stage has long been and still is famous, were replaced by showy
dramas and pièces à spectacle, in which the military element seems
to have predominated, judging from the titles of some of them—The
Bombardment of Antwerp, The Taking of Charleroi, The General
Assault of Bergen-op-Zoom. It was the commencement of the decline
of puppet performances in France; the public taste underwent a
change; the eye was to be gratified, wit and satire were in great
measure dispensed with. “Vaucanson’s automatons, the flute-player,
the duck, &c., were imitated in every way, and people ran in crowds
to see Kempel’s chess-player. At the fair of St Germains, in 1744, a
Pole, named Toscani, opened a picturesque and automatical theatre,
which seems to have served as a prelude to M. Pierre’s famous show.
‘Here are to be seen,’ said the bills, ‘mountains, castles, marine
views; also figures that perfectly imitate all natural movements,
without being visibly acted upon by any string; and, which is still
more surprising, here are seen a storm, rain, thunder, vessels
perishing, sailors swimming, &c.’ On all hands such marvels as these
were announced, and also (I blush to write it) combats of wild
animals.” Bull and bear baits, wolf and dog fights, in refined France,
just a century ago, for all the world as in England in the days of
buxom Queen Bess. M. Magnin copies an advertisement of one of
these savage exhibitions, which might pass for a translated placard of
the beast-fighting establishment that complained of the opposition
made to them by Will Shakespeare and his players. Martin was the
name of the man who kept the pit at the barrière de Sèvres; and
after lauding the wickedness of his bull, the tenacity of his dogs, and
the exceeding fierceness of his new wolf, he informs the public that
he has “pure bear oil for sale.” When Paris ran after such coarse
diversions as these, what hope was there for the elves of the puppet-
show? Punch shrugged his hump, and crept moodily into a corner.
Bull-rings and mechanism were too many for him. Twenty years later
we find him again in high favour and feather at the fair of St
Germains, where Audinot, an author and ex-singer at the united
comic and Italian operas, having quarrelled with his comrades and
quitted the theatre, exhibited large marionettes, which he called
bamboches, and which were striking likenesses of the performers at
the Opéra Comique, Laruette, Clairval, Madam Bérard, and himself.
Polichinelle appeared amongst them in the character of a gentleman
of the bedchamber, and found the same sort of popularity that
Cassandrino has since enjoyed at Rome. The monarchy was in its
decline, the follies and vices of the courtiers of the 18th century had
brought them into contempt, and a parody of them was welcome to
the people. The fair over, Audinot installed his puppets in a little
theatre on the boulevard, which he called the Ambigu Comique, to
indicate the variety of the entertainments there given, and there he
brought out several new pieces, one, amongst others, entitled Le
Testament de Polichinelle. It was quite time for Punch to make his
will; his theatre was in a very weakly state. It became the fashion to
replace puppets by children; and one hears little more of marionettes
in France until Seraphin revives them in his Ombres Chinoises. Few
persons who have been in Paris will have failed to notice, when
walking round the Palais Royal between two and three in the
afternoon, or seven and nine in the evening, a shrivelled weary-
looking man, standing just within the railings that separate the
gallery from the garden, and continually repeating, in a tone between
a whine, a chant, and a croak, a monotonous formula, at first not
very intelligible to a foreigner. This man has acquired all the rights
that long occupation can give: the flagstone whereon, day after day,
as long as we can remember—and doubtless for a score or two of
years before—he has stood sentry, is worn hollow by the shuffling
movement by which he endeavours to retain warmth in his feet. He
is identified with the railings against which he stands, and is as much
a part of the Palais Royal as the glass gallery, Chevet’s shop, or the
cannon that daily fires itself off at noon. A little attention enables one
to discover the purport of his unvarying harangue. It begins with
“Les Ombres Chinoises de Seraphin”—this very drawlingly spoken—
and ends with “Prrrrenez vos billets”—a rattle on the r, and the word
billets dying away in a sort of exhausted whine. In 1784, the
ingenious Dominique Seraphin exhibited his Chinese shadows
several times before the royal family at Versailles, was allowed to call
his theatre “Spectacle des Enfans de France,” and took up his
quarters in the Palais Royal, in the very house opposite to whose
door the monotonous and melancholy man above described at the
present day “touts” for an audience. There for seventy years Seraphin
and his descendants have pulled the strings of their puppets. But
here, as M. Magnin observes, it is no longer movable sculpture, but
movable painting—the shadows of figures cut out of sheets of
pasteboard or leather, and placed between a strong light and a
transparent curtain. The shadows, owing doubtless to their
intangible nature, have passed unscathed through the countless
political changes and convulsions that have occurred during the
three quarters of a century that they have inhabited a nook in the
palace which has been alternately Cardinal, Royal, National, Imperial
—all things by turn, and nothing long. They have lasted and thriven,
as far as bodiless shades can thrive, under Republic and Empire,
Directory and Consulate, Restoration and Citizen Monarchy,
Republic, and Empire again. We fear it must be admitted that time-
serving is at the bottom of this long impunity and prosperity. In the
feverish days of the first Revolution, marionettes had sans-culotte
tendencies, with the exception of Polichinelle, who, mindful
doubtless of his descent from Henry IV., played the aristocrat, and
carried his head so high, that at last he lost it. M. Magnin passes
hastily over this affecting phase in the career of his puppet friends,
merely quoting a few lines from Camille Desmoulins, which bear
upon the subject. “This selfish multitude,” exclaims the Vieux
Cordelier, indignant at the apathetic indifference of the Parisians in
presence of daily human hecatombs, “is formed to follow blindly the
impulse of the strongest. There was fighting in the Carrousel and the
Champ de Mars, and the Palais Royal displayed its shepherdesses
and its Arcadia. Close by the guillotine, beneath whose keen edge fell
crowned heads, on the same square, and at the same time, they also
guillotined Polichinelle, who divided the attention of the eager
crowd.” Punch, who had passed his life hanging the hangman, was at
a nonplus in presence of the guillotine. He missed the running noose
he was so skilful in drawing tight, and mournfully laid his neck in the
bloody groove. Some say that he escaped, that his dog was dressed
up, and beheaded in his stead, and that he himself reached a foreign
shore, where he presently regained his freedom of speech and former
jollity of character. M. Magnin himself is clearly of opinion that he is
not dead, but only sleeps. “Would it not be well,” he asks, “to awaken
him here in France? Can it be that the little Æsop has nothing new to
tell us? Above all, do not say that he is dead. Polichinelle never dies.
You doubt it? You do not know then what Polichinelle is? He is the
good sense of the people, the brisk sally, the irrepressible laugh. Yes,
Polichinelle will laugh, sing, and hiss, as long as the world contains
vices, follies, and things to ridicule. You see very well that
Polichinelle is not near his death. Polichinelle is immortal!”
To England M. Magnin allots nearly as many pages as to his own
country, and displays in them a rare acquaintance with our language,
literature, and customs. It would in no way have surprised him, he
says, had the playful and lightsome muse of the puppet-show been
made less welcome by the Germanic races than by nations of Greco-
Roman origin. The grave and more earnest temper generally
attributed to the former would have accounted for their disregard of
a pastime they might deem frivolous, and fail to appreciate. He was
well pleased, then, to find his wooden clients, his well-beloved
marionettes, as popular and as well understood on the banks of the
Thames, the Oder, and the Zuyder Zee, as in Naples, Paris, or Seville.
“In England especially,” he says, “the taste for this kind of spectacle
has been so widely diffused, that one could hardly name a single
poet, from Chaucer to Lord Byron, or a single prose-writer, from Sir
Philip Sydney to Hazlitt, in whose works are not to be found
abundant information on the subject, or frequent allusions to it. The
dramatists, above all, beginning with those who are the glory of the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I., supply us with the most curious
particulars of the repertory, the managers, and the stage of the
marionettes. Shakespeare himself has not disdained to draw from
this singular arsenal ingenious or energetic metaphors, which he
places in the mouths of his most tragic personages at the most
pathetic moments. I can name ten or twelve of his plays in which this
occurs.” (The list follows.) “The cotemporaries and successors of this
great poet—Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Davenant,
Swift, Addison, Gay, Fielding, Goldsmith, Sheridan—have also
borrowed many moral or satirical sallies from this popular diversion.
Thanks to this singular tendency of the English dramatists to busy
themselves with the proceedings of their little street-corner rivals, I
have found in their writings much assistance—as agreeable as
unexpected—in the task I have undertaken. Deprived, as one
necessarily is in a foreign country, of direct sources and original
pamphlets, having at my disposal only those standard works of great
writers that are to be met with on the shelves of every library, I have
found it sufficient, strange to say! to collate the passages so
abundantly furnished me by these chosen authors to form a
collection of documents concerning English puppets more
circumstantial and more complete, I venture to think, than any that
have hitherto been got together by the best-informed native critics.”
Others, if they please, may controvert the claim here put forward; we
shall content ourselves with saying that the amount of research
manifested in M. Magnin’s long essay on English puppets does as
much credit to his industry as the manner of the compilation does to
his judgment, acumen, and literary talent. It must be observed,
however, that he has not altogether limited himself, when seeking
materials and authorities, to the chosen corps of English dramatists,
poets, and essayists, but has consulted sundry antiquarian
authorities, tracts of the time of the commonwealth, the works of
Hogarth, those of Hone, Payne Collier, Thomas Wright, and other
modern or cotemporary writers. At the same time, this portion of his
book contains much that will be novel to most English readers, and
abounds in curious details and pertinent reflections on old English
character and usages. If we do not dwell upon it at some length, it is
because we desire, whilst room remains, to devote a page or two to
Germany and the Northerns. We must not omit, however, to mention
that M. Magnin joins issue with Mr Payne Collier on the question of
the origin of the English Punch. Mr Collier makes him date from
1688, and brings him over from Holland in the same ship with
William of Orange. M. Magnin takes a different view, and makes out
a very fair case. He begins by remarking that several false derivations
have been assigned to the name of Punch. “Some have imagined I
know not what secret and fantastical connection between Punch’s
name, and even between the fire of Punch’s wit, and the ardent
beverage of which the recipe, it is said, came to us from Persia. It is
going a great deal too far in search of an error. Punch is simply the
name of our friend Pulchinello, a little altered and contracted by the
monosyllabic genius of the English language. In the early period of
his career in England we find the names Punch and Punchinello used
indifferently for each other. Is it quite certain that Punch came to
London from the Hague, in the suite of William III.? I have doubts of
it. His learned biographer admits that there are traces of his presence
in England previous to the abdication of James II.... Certain passages
of Addison’s pretty Latin poem on puppet-shows (Machinæ
Gesticulantes) prove that Punch’s theatre was in great progress on
the old London puppet-shows in the days of Queen Elizabeth.” The
personal appearance, and some of the characteristics of Punch,
certainly induce a belief that he is of French origin; and even though
it be proved that he was imported into England from Holland, may it
not be admitted as highly probable that he went to the latter country
with the refugees, who for several years previously to the Revolution
of 1688 had been flocking thither from France? We risk the question
with all diffidence, and without the slightest intention of
pronouncing judgment on so important a matter. And as we have no
intention or desire to take up the cudgels in behalf of the origin of
that Punch, who, as the unfortunate and much-battered Judy can
testify, himself handles those weapons so efficiently, we refer the
reader to M. Magnin for the pros and cons of the argument, and start
upon a rapid tour through Germany and northern Europe. M.
Magnin accelerates his pace as he approaches the close of his
journey, and pauses there only where his attention is arrested by
some striking novelty or original feature, to omit mention of which
would be to leave a gap in the history he has undertaken to write.
Germany is the native land and head-quarters of wood-cutters. We
mean not hewers of wood for the furnace, but cunning carvers in
smooth-grained beech and delicate deal; artists in timber, we may
truly say, when we contemplate the graceful and beautiful objects for
which we are indebted to the luxuriant forests and skilful knives of
Baden and Bavaria. The Teutonic race also possess, in a very high
degree, the mechanical genius, to be convinced of which we have but
to look at the ingenious clocks, with their astronomical evolutions,
moving figures, crowing cocks, and the like, so constantly met with in
all parts of Germany, in Switzerland, and in Holland. This double
aptitude brought about an early development of anatomical
sculpture in Germany, applied, as usual, to various purposes,
religious and civil, serious and recreative, wonderful images of
saints, figures borne in municipal processions, and dramatic
puppets. These latter are traced by M. Magnin as far back as the 12th
century. Even in a manuscript of the 10th century he finds the word
Tocha or Docha used in the sense of doll or puppet (puppa), and also
in that of mime (mima, mimula). Somewhat later the word Tokke-
spil (puppet-show) occurs in the poems of the Minnesingers. One of
these, Master Sigeher, when stigmatising the Pope’s abuse of his
influence with the Electors of the Empire, writes—
“Als der Tokken spilt der Welche mit Tutschen Vürsten.”

“The Italian plays with the German princes as with puppets.”

There still exists in the library at Strasburg a manuscript dating

from the end of the 12th century, and adorned with a great number
of curious miniatures, one of which, under the strange title of Ludus
Monstrorum, represents a puppet-show. Two little figures, armed
cap-à-pie, are made to move and fight by means of a string, whose
ends two showmen hold. The painting proves not only the existence
of marionettes at that period, but also that they were sufficiently
common to supply a symbol intelligible to all, since it is put as an
illustration to a moral reflection on the vanity of human things. From
the equipment of the figures it may also be inferred that military
subjects were then in favour on the narrow stage of the puppet-show.
And M. Magnin, zealous to track his fox to its very earth, risks the
word Niebelungen, but brings no evidence to support his surmise. In
the 14th and 15th centuries we obtain more positive data as to the
nature of the puppenspiel, and of its performances. Romantic
subjects, historical fables, were then in fashion—the four sons of
Aymon, Genevieve of Brabant, the Lady of Roussillon, to whom her
lover’s heart was given to eat, and who killed herself in her despair.
The history of Joan of Arc was also a favourite subject. That heroine
had an episodical part in a piece performed at Ratisbon in 1430.
“There exists,” says M. Magnin, “a precious testimony to a
performance of marionettes at that period. In a fragment of the poem
of Malagis, written in Germany in the 15th century, after a Flemish
translation of our old romance of Maugis, the fairy Oriande de
Rosefleur, who has been separated for fifteen years from her beloved
pupil, Malagis, arrives, disguised as a juggler, at the castle of
Rigremont, where a wedding is being celebrated. She offers the
company the diversion of a puppet-show; it is accepted; she asks for
a table to serve as a stage, and exhibits upon it two figures, a male
and female magician. Into their mouths she puts stanzas, which tell
her history and cause her to be recognised by Malagis. M. Von der
Hagen has published this fragment from the MS. preserved at
Heidelberg, in Germania, vol. viii., p. 280. The scene in question is
not to be found either in the French poem or the French prose
romance.” The 16th century was an epoch in the annals of German
puppets. Scepticism and sorcery were the order of the day. Faust
stepped upon the stage and held it long.
It appears to have been the custom, rarely deviated from by the
puppet-shows of any nation or time, to have a comic character or
buffoon, who intruded, even in the most tragical pieces, to give by his
jests variety and relief to the performance. There was nothing odd or
startling in this in the Middle Ages, when every great personage—
emperor, king, or prelate—had his licensed jester attached to his
household. M. Magnin is in some doubt as to the name first given to
this character in Germany, unless it was Eulenspiegel (a name which
in modern times has acquired some celebrity as a literary
pseudonyme), or rather Master Hemmerlein, whose caustic sarcasm
partakes at once of the humour of the devil and the hangman. Master
Hemmerlein, according to Frisch, had a face like a frightful mask; he
belonged to the lowest class of marionettes, under whose dress the
showman passes his hand to move them. This author adds that the
name of Hemmerlein was sometimes given to the public executioner,
and that it is applied to the devil in the Breviarium Historicum of
Sebald. This will bear explanation. The word Hämmerlein or
Hämmerling (the latter is now the usual orthography) has three very
distinct meanings—a jack-pudding, a flayer, and a gold-hammer
(bird). The German headsman, in former days, combined with his
terrible duties the occupation of a flayer or knacker, charged to
remove dead horses and other carrion; hence he was commonly
spoken of as Master Hämmerlein.[7]
It is difficult to say by what grim mockery or strange assimilation
his name was applied to the buffoon of the puppet-show. We have
little information, however, concerning Hämmerlein the droll, who
appears to have had but a short reign when he was supplanted by the
famous Hanswurst, to whom out-spoken Martin Luther compared
Duke Henry of Brunswick. “Miserable, choleric spirit” (here Martin
addresses himself to Satan), “you, and your poor possessed creature
Henry, you know, as well as all your poets and writers, that the name
of Hanswurst is not of my invention; others have employed it before
me, to designate those rude and unlucky persons who, desiring to
exhibit finesse, commit but clumsiness and impropriety.” And that
there might be no mistake as to his application of the word, he adds:
“Many persons compare my very gracious lord, Duke Henry of
Brunswick, to Hanswurst, because the said lord is replete and
corpulent.” One of the consequences in Germany of Luther’s
preachings, and of the more fanatical denunciations of some of his
disciples and cotemporaries, was terrible havoc amongst church
pictures and statues, including automatical images and groups, then
very numerous in that country, and an end was at that time put to
dramatic church ceremonies, not only in districts that embraced the
new doctrine, but in many that adhered to Rome. Some of the
performances were of the most grotesque description. They were
particularly frequent in Poland, where, at Christmas time, in many
churches, and especially in those of monasteries, the people were
amused between mass and vespers, by the play of the Szopka or
stable. “In this kind of drama,” says M. Magnin, “lalki (little dolls of
wood or card-board) represented Mary, Jesus, Joseph, the angels,
the shepherds, and the three Magi on their knees, with their offerings
of gold, incense, and myrrh, not forgetting the ox, the ass, and St.
John the Baptist’s lamb. Then came the massacre of the innocents, in
the midst of which Herod’s own son perished by mistake. The wicked
prince, in his despair, called upon death, who soon made his
appearance, in the form of a skeleton, and cut off his head with his
scythe. Then a black devil ascended, with a red tongue, pointed
horns, and a long tail, picked up the king’s body on the end of his
pitchfork, and carried it off to the infernal regions.” This strange
performance was continued in the Polish churches until the middle
of the 18th century, with numerous indecorous variations. Expelled
from consecrated edifices, it is nevertheless preserved to the present
day, as a popular diversion, in all the provinces of the defunct
kingdom of Poland. From Christmas-tide to Shrove Tuesday it is
welcomed by both the rural and the urban population, by the
peasantry, the middle classes, and even in the dwellings of the
nobility.
In Germany, the last twenty years of the seventeenth century
witnessed a violent struggle between the church and the stage, or it
should rather be said a relentless persecution of the latter by the
former, which could oppose only remonstrances to the intolerant
rigour of the consistories. The quarrel had its origin at Hamburg. A
clergyman refused to administer the sacrament to two stage-players.
An ardent controversy ensued; the dispute became envenomed; the
Protestant clergy made common cause; the anti-theatrical movement
spread over all Germany. In vain did several universities, appealed to
by the comedians, prove, from the most respectable authorities, the
innocence of their profession, of which the actors themselves
published sensible and judicious defences; in vain did several princes
endeavour to counterbalance, by marks of esteem and consideration,
the exaggerated severity of the theologians; the majority of the public
sided with its pastors. Players were avoided as dissolute vagabonds;
and although, whilst condemning the performers, people did not
cease to frequent the performances, a great many comedians, feeling
themselves humiliated, abandoned the stage to foreigners and to
marionettes. The regular theatres rapidly decreased in number, and
puppet-shows augmented in a like ratio. “At the end of the 17th
century,” says Flögel, “the Haupt-und-Staatsactionen usurped the
place of the real drama. These pieces were played sometimes by
mechanical dolls, sometimes by actors.” The meaning of the term
Haupt-und-Staatsaction is rather obscure, but it was in fact applied
to almost every kind of piece performed by puppets. It was bound to