Abstract
This chapter develops in detail the argument that American collonial society possessed two features that sit uncomfortably within the analytical frameworks of modernization: advanced, individualistic, entrepreneurial spirit and old, medieval forms of political representation and decision-making. These two elements combine into a “localist-libertarian” framework that challenges the prevailing ideas of modernization as a uniform development from tribalism, localism, and primitive economy to centralized administrative rule and open, free market economy. The evidence from early America shows a dramatic disjunction between these two aspects of modernization: whereas cultural and economic progress is clear and convincing, political “development” conspicuously lags behind: enterprising, self-confident, individualistic Americans even relapse back into the medieval forms of politics, including predominance of localism, mandatory instructions, frequent elections, bottom-up federalism, and so on. In colonial and early modern America, we can safely assert that modern society exists and flourishes, but not the modern state.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Radical Whig literature includes the writings a variety of English pamphleteers and economists who criticized gradual consolidation of political power into a modern state during the Walpole age. It is usually described as “revolutionary” although, as we shall see, it has many reactionary and conservative aspects. See Bailyn (1967) and Chapter 4.
- 2.
- 3.
See Brunner (1992).
- 4.
Clarke (1964: 11), writes: “all [members of Parliament] must consent to leave of absence for members, to amended judgements in cases of difficulty and to grants of taxation [emphasis added].”
- 5.
This is a very bitter pill to swallow for many modern scholars who attempt incessantly to project the modern notions of the “state” and “civil society” back into the medieval institutions and avoid the inescapable conclusion that a medieval king did not represent a Weberian “government.” They assume that the king has always been an absolute ruler, and that all seemingly democratic and representative institutions of the Middle Ages were created just as “consultative bodies,” used by the “government” (the king) to facilitate his “policy making.” However, if this was the case, it would be difficult to explain why the king would insist that local representatives should have plena potestas from their communities, if they were just called in for consultations? For such attempts to project anachronistic modern notions of “state” and “government” into the English Middle Ages see Monahan (1987), Madicott (2010). For the refutation, see Brunner (1992) and Kaminsky (2002).
- 6.
It is highly significant that the medieval sources do not talk about “taxation,” but rather about “help and aid,” “subsidies,” “grants,” and so on, underlying the voluntary and contractual nature of the financial revenue the king was obtaining from his subjects.
- 7.
A series of tax rebellions in England against the centralizing policies and high taxation needed for military buildup under Tudors testify to this: The sixteenth century was a golden age of tax rebellions in England, for example, Kett’s Rebellion 1549, Wayat Rebellion 1553, Pilgrimage of Grace 1536, and so on, see Tilly (1975: 22–23). Those rebellions were the last stand of localist authorities against the advancing and consolidating modern state. Similar phenomena could be observed in France, Spain, and other continental countries (ibid.).
- 8.
- 9.
As, for example, Andrews (1924), Kaufman (2009), and Bailyn (1968) show the power of colonial governments was very weak, especially when compared to the power of central government in the Canadian colonies. The main reason was that the colonial authorities, led by the governors, did not have much of a power of patronage, which made a Walpole-style “influence” on popular legislatures very difficult to exert. Thereby, although in theory (law) the governor and his hand-picked upper chambers have great deal of power, in practice their power was very limited. For this, see especially a detailed analysis in Bailyn (1968: 70–105).
- 10.
For changes in Tocqueville’s approach to liberty over time, see Jankovic (2016).
- 11.
Fischer (1989: 198) in his famous book concurs: “When the Puritans came to America, this ancient system of government by town meetings, selectmen and fundamental laws became the basis of local government in New England.”
- 12.
This will later become the foundation of the famous conception of the “fusion of powers” in the Westminster-style democracies; simultaneous control of the legislature and executive by the current majority. However, the germs of this mature conception were in those early debates about short elections.
- 13.
- 14.
See above, pp. 3–5.
- 15.
In most cases, this tradition was not identified as medieval by the colonists, but simply as “American.” Or, alternatively, as “ancient” or “Gothick.”
- 16.
See Bailyn (1967: 170).
References
Andrews, C. (1924). The Colonial Background of the American Revolution. New Heavan: Yale University Press.
Bailyn, B. (1967). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bailyn, B. (1968). The Origins of American Politics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Bassani, L. M., & Lottieri, C. (2003). The Problem of Security; Historicity of the State and “European Realism”. In H. H. Hoppe (Ed.), The Myth of National Defense. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Boutton, N. (Ed.). (1877). Miscellaneous Documents Relating to New Hampshire. Concord, NH: Edward E. Jenks Printer.
Brunner, O. (1992). Land and Lordship: Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria (Translation and Introduction by H. Kaminsky & J. van Horn Melton). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Clarke, M. V. (1964). Medieval Representation and Consent: A Study of Early Parliaments in England and Ireland. New York: Russell & Russell.
Colbourn, T. H. (1958). Thomas Jefferson’s Use of the Past. The William and Mary Quarterly, 15(1), 56–70.
Edwards, J. G. (1942). Taxation and Consent in the Courts of Common Pleas, 1338. English Historical Review, LVII, 473–478.
Edwards, J. G. (1958). Commons in Medieval English Parliaments. Creighton Lecture for 1957. London.
Fischer, H. D. (1989). Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Greene, J. P. (1986). Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Developments in the Extended Polities of the British Empire 1607–1788. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Jankovic, I. (2016). Das Tocqueville Problem: Individualism and Equality Between Democracy in America and Ancient Regime. Perspectives on Political Science, 45(2), 125–136.
Jefferson, T. (1967). Complete Jefferson. In K. Saul (Ed.), Padover. New York: Books for Libraries Press.
Jensen, M. (Ed.). (1967). The Tracts of the American Revolution. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merril Company Inc.
Jensen, M. (1968). The Founding of a Nation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kaminsky, H. (2002). The Noble Feud in the Later Middle Ages. Past and Present, 177(1), 55–83.
Kantorowicz, E. (1957). The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kaufman, J. (2009). The Origins of Canadian and American Political Differences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Macfarlane, A. (1978). The Origins of English Individualism. Oxford: Basic Blackwell.
Madicott, J. (2010). The Origins of the English Parliament, 924–1327. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Madicott, J. R. (1981). “Parliament and the Constituencies 1272–1377”. In Davis and Danton, The English Parliament in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania University Press.
Martin, J. F. (1991). Profits in the Wilderness. Chapell Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Monahan, A. P. (1987). Consent, Coercion and Limit: The Medieval Origins of Parliamentary Democracy. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Post, G. (1943). Plena Potestas and Consent in Medieval Assemblies: A Study in Romano-canonical Procedure and the Rise of Representation 1150–1325. Traditio, 1, 355–408.
Publicola, pseud. (1776). To the Electors of New York. NY: Broadsides.
Reid, J. P. (1989). The Concept of Representation in the Age of the American Revolution. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Skinner, Q. (1989). “The State.” In Ball, T., Farr, J., and Hanson, R. L. Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (pp. 90–131). Cambridge University Press.
Tilly, C. (Ed.). (1975). The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
de Tocqueville, A. (1998). The Old Regime and the Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
de Tocqueville, A. (1969). Democracy in America (G. Lawrence, Trans.). New York: Double Day.
Wood, G. S. (1969). The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Wood, G. S. (2011). Federalism from the Bottom-Up. University of Chicago Law Review, 78(2), 705–732.
Wrightson, K. (1982). English Society, 1580–1680. London: Hutchinson.
Zubly, J. J. ([1769] 1972). Revolutionary Tracts. New York: Reprint Company.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jankovic, I. (2019). Consent, Representation, and Liberty: America as the Last Medieval Society. In: The American Counter-Revolution in Favor of Liberty. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03733-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03733-8_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03732-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03733-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)