American Revolutionaries in the Making: Political Practices in Washington’s Virginia. By Charles S. Sydnor. (New York: The Free Press, c. 1965. Pp. 160).
Though the American Revolution covered thirteen of Britain’s North American colonies, a large portion of the movement’s political leadership came from a few select states. The relationship between Massachusetts men and the repression of dissent in Boston is a fairly easy line to draw. In contrast, hierarchical Virginia also produced a number of dedicated politicians with well-formed political ideologies that prized liberty and republican sentiment. Charles Sydnor attempts to uncover the source of these ideologies, as well examine the system that produced such a large quantity of uniquely qualified men. His American Revolutionaries in the Making looks at the political processes of colonial and early republic Virginia, hoping to find the origins of the new nation’s political structure, as well as its earliest great figures.
The great benefit of Sydnor’s book is his ability to describe the various structures and processes that characterized Virginia’s politics in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He uses familiar names such as Washington and Jefferson, but also James Madison and John Marshall, veterans of the process, to reveal the path to elected office. Men would announce their intention to stand for office (not run) shortly before the election date, and then cultivate support though social events and general meetings. On the date of election, as established by the local judge, the candidates would stand in front of the assembled voters and watch as individuals came forward to publicly announce their votes. Gentleman landowners, those with significant holdings and a degree of wealth were the most common candidates to stand for office, as they could most easily afford the trappings of campaigning, in particular supplying for the picnics where much vote-wrangling took place. Sydnor focuses most on the process of campaigning for the House of Burgesses, as that body represented the main avenue for many Virginians to participate in the process of government. He does, though, also include other positions, such as judges whose ability to select the date and location of the election could prove influential, even decisively so. These lower offices also provided for pathways into the Burgesses. Many candidates gained valuable government experience and public exposure through carrying out the duties of these lesser positions. He does go to great lengths at times to point out that while fairly modern, Virginia hardly represented a twentieth-century version of democracy, as it excluded women and even many landowners whose holdings did not meet the legal minimums, and of course for the presence of slaves.
While his explication of Virginian political practices is comprehensive and interesting, the larger conclusions he attempts to draw overall weaken the book. Sydnor draws a direct line from the pseudo-democratic Virginia process to the system designed by Madison for the early Constitutional period. Though he makes passing mention of the benefits of Virginia compared to South Carolina, where a tidewater aristocracy heavily dominated colonial politics with little room for democracy, he seems to put a bit too much emphasis on the larger impact of his chosen state. A more comparative approach would have made this point much more clearly and convincingly. He also takes the profound leap of suggesting that Virginia’s system somehow acted uniquely in finding a large quantity of particularly qualified men and preparing them for the governing they did in the years surrounding the Revolution. Such a conclusion, not particularly well-supported, downplays the uniqueness of the Revolutionary generation. He seems to not account for the fact that perhaps Washington and Jefferson were merely the right men for their moment, rather than the end result of a particularly Virginian process.
Sydnor’s book is actually a re-release of an earlier work, Gentleman Freeholders, published in 1952. Unfortunately, he does not make any mention as to what changed in the intervening thirteen years to necessitate a new version. The title change suggests the differences stem from a new analysis of Virginians’ roles in the Revolution, though the need for speculation should suggest the need for further explanation. Still, Sydnor’s book is still quite useful for the comprehensive way it lays out the Virginian electoral process. Even if we do not accept his larger conclusions, this alone makes his work an important source for understanding politics in both the colonial and early republic periods.
Texas Christian University Keith Altavilla