WEBVTT NOTE 32. New Jersey and Maryland Follow 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Volume 4, Chapter 32, New Jersey and Maryland Follow 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:22.000 New Jersey, a scene of conflict between rebel and Tory, had felt understandably diffident about antagonizing its two powerful and arch-conservative neighbors, New York and Pennsylvania. 3 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:37.000 Lexington and Concord galvanized New Jersey, as it did the other colonies, and a provincial convention in Trenton was formed in the spring of 1775 out of a general provincial conference of county commitment. 4 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:46.000 But while favoring military measures, the convention had continued to protest its loyalty to the king. 5 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:56.000 By early 1776, the New Jersey Revolutionaries had established a Provincial Congress with a Committee of Safety as its executive arm. 6 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:08.000 Even so, the Tories remained strong in New Jersey, and Royal Governor William Franklin continued to be active in political affairs, as we have seen. 7 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:19.000 Leading the radically militant forces in New Jersey was the distinguished president of Princeton College, the Scottish-born Reverend Dr. John Witherspoon. 8 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:25.000 An early advocate of independence, he had seen his students fill the ranks of the Sons of Liberty, 9 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:34.000 and he was prominent enough in the revolution that he was one of the three Americans burned in effigy by the British and Tories 10 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:40.000 When General Howell captured Staten Island in July 1776. 11 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:51.000 By early June, an internal drive for militancy, combined with the transformation of Pennsylvania, easily swung New Jersey into the independence camp. 12 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:59.000 The elections to the June meeting of the Provincial Congress at Burlington produced a clear, radical victory. 13 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:18.000 Two conservative delegates to Philadelphia were immediately recalled, and on June 21, the New Jersey Congress selected an entirely new delegation, all of whom staunchly favored independence. The new delegation included Witherspoon. 14 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:30.000 The Provincial Congress also ordered the arrest of Governor Franklin, sent him to prison in Connecticut and authorized the delegates to Philadelphia to concur in a Declaration of Independence. 15 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:40.000 After completing this drive for independence, the Provincial Congress promptly decided to write a constitution for the virtually independent province. 16 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:48.000 The new constitution on which Dr. Witherspoon was the main influence was approved at the beginning of July. 17 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:58.000 It was moderately conservative, establishing a bicameral legislature, but also, by a vote of five counties to four, 18 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:03.000 abolishing the old freehold qualifications for voting. 19 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:13.000 Suffrage was broadened to all inhabitants with assets, personal or real, valued at 50 or more pounds. 20 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:30.000 Perhaps through careless wording, the unintended effect of the legislation after time was to give the vote to widows inheriting property worth at least 50 pounds, an initial breakthrough for women's suffrage. 21 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:38.000 New Jersey's swift adhesion to the cause of independence left only Maryland and New York unconverted. 22 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:51.000 Maryland was a proprietary colony of the Baltimore family, and for a century its politics had been expressed in terms of pro and anti-proprietary parties. 23 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:58.000 The Court Party was the party of the allies and receivers of special privilege from the proprietary. 24 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:04.160 It defended the quit rents and other exactions imposed by the Baltimore's. 25 00:04:04.160 --> 00:04:09.960 It naturally controlled appointed officialdom, the governor, the council, the established 26 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:14.600 Anglican clergy and the body of the petty bureaucracy. 27 00:04:14.600 --> 00:04:21.640 In opposition was the country party, dominating the elected lower house of the legislature. 28 00:04:21.640 --> 00:04:27.400 Added to the disfranchisement of the sizeable minority of Roman Catholic voters, the property 29 00:04:27.400 --> 00:04:33.600 Public qualifications for voting proved high enough to disfranchise proportionately more 30 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:37.960 citizens in Maryland than in any other province. 31 00:04:37.960 --> 00:04:42.720 Probably little more than two-fifths of the white adult males of Maryland were eligible 32 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:44.200 to vote. 33 00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:50.340 Furthermore, as elsewhere in the South, apportionment for the assembly was weighted heavily in favor 34 00:04:50.340 --> 00:04:56.900 of the older Eastern counties, containing large slave-holding plantations and fewer 35 00:04:56.900 --> 00:05:24.900 The exactions of the proprietary upon the land of the inhabitants were not merely academic, they included quit rents, caution money from land purchasers, rents from proprietary manors and alienation fines on those who transferred their land. 36 00:05:24.900 --> 00:05:43.900 From these sources, as well as fines, and fees, and tonnage, and export duties on Maryland's staple tobacco, the proprietary derived a net annual income in the decade before the revolution of £12,500. 37 00:05:43.900 --> 00:06:03.900 In addition to this substantial sum, the people of Maryland were forced to pay £12,000 in taxes per year to support the proprietary officials who enforced these exactions upon them, as well as £8,000 to support the established Anglican clergy. 38 00:06:03.900 --> 00:06:15.900 Thus over 32,000 pounds were extracted from the Marylanders to support the proprietary and a hundred-odd appointed bureaucrats and ministers. 39 00:06:15.900 --> 00:06:27.900 In contrast, the entire government of Maryland, including provincial, county and local operations, costs Maryland only 18,500 pounds per year. 40 00:06:27.900 --> 00:06:38.900 It is easy to see that saddled with perhaps the most expensive state in the colonies, the grievances of the country party were real indeed. 41 00:06:38.900 --> 00:06:52.900 Both court and country parties were dominated by the social and economic leaders of the province, the wealthy planter oligarchs, their wealth based on slave cultivation of tobacco. 42 00:06:52.900 --> 00:07:00.300 The continuing attack by the country party on the place and privileges of the court party 43 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:06.380 led naturally to their leading the wider opposition to British exactions in Maryland. 44 00:07:06.380 --> 00:07:11.860 In the course of the revolutionary movement, the country party established periodic extra-legal 45 00:07:11.860 --> 00:07:18.180 provincial conventions with a council of safety appointed to operate in the interior. 46 00:07:18.180 --> 00:07:24.040 The political convention functioned as a supreme court and appointed county committees. No 47 00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:31.800 American colony labored under such tight control of a small, interlocking clique as Maryland 48 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:38.920 under the country party. Virtually complete control was exercised by very few men. First 49 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:44.900 and foremost was the very wealthy Matthew Tillman, head of a very prominent and powerful 50 00:07:44.900 --> 00:07:48.900 and the National Planter Family on Maryland's Eastern Shore. 51 00:07:48.900 --> 00:07:52.900 Tillman presided over all the provincial conventions, 52 00:07:52.900 --> 00:07:56.900 was usually President of the Council of Safety, and later 53 00:07:56.900 --> 00:08:00.900 was President of Maryland's Constitutional Convention. 54 00:08:00.900 --> 00:08:04.900 Also prominent was Edward Lloyd, first cousin of Tillman, 55 00:08:04.900 --> 00:08:08.900 and an extremely wealthy member of another leading Eastern 56 00:08:08.900 --> 00:08:12.900 Shore family. Lloyd was one of the largest slaveholders 57 00:08:12.900 --> 00:08:42.900 Another important figure in the province was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a resident of the capital city of Annapolis. Carroll had the largest slave holdings in Maryland and was not only the wealthiest man in the province, but one of the wealthiest in America. A delegate to the Continental Congress, he achieved political prominence despite being a Roman Catholic. 58 00:08:42.900 --> 00:08:50.400 Almost equally important was another Charles Carroll of Annapolis, a distant relation to Carroll of Carrollton. 59 00:08:50.400 --> 00:08:55.400 Yet another Charles Carroll was the son-in-law of Carroll of Carrollton. 60 00:08:55.400 --> 00:08:59.400 He too was one of the wealthiest people in Maryland. 61 00:08:59.400 --> 00:09:06.400 Three prominent Annapolis lawyers, once partners, rounded out the country party leadership. 62 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:11.820 William Packer, a delegate to the Continental Congress, made his fortune by marrying into 63 00:09:11.820 --> 00:09:18.320 the Lloyd family and became a leading planter and slave holder. Thomas Johnson, another 64 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:25.320 congressional delegate, specialized in acquiring land grants in unoccupied Western Maryland. 65 00:09:26.520 --> 00:09:31.540 Before the revolution, having put on enough pressure to gain himself the land, Johnson 66 00:09:31.540 --> 00:09:36.980 had joined with George Washington to try to persuade the Maryland and Virginia legislatures 67 00:09:36.980 --> 00:09:44.500 to open a vast Potomac navigation system to raise the value of their lands enormously. 68 00:09:44.500 --> 00:09:51.340 The third of these lawyers, Samuel Chase, was also a delegate to the Continental Congress. 69 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:56.940 Under this sort of control, it is not surprising that Maryland's revolutionary movement was 70 00:09:56.940 --> 00:10:03.140 was staunchly conservative and opposed the radical drive for independence, and as we 71 00:10:03.140 --> 00:10:10.020 have seen, Robert Eden was courteously allowed to remain as nominal governor, though he retained 72 00:10:10.020 --> 00:10:18.940 no power. As late as May 15, 1776, the Maryland Provincial Convention reconfirmed its aim 73 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:26.700 of reconciliation with Britain and its corollary, instructions to the delegates at Philadelphia. 74 00:10:26.700 --> 00:10:33.420 The American radicals almost despaired of Maryland, but its very tight control afforded 75 00:10:33.420 --> 00:10:40.020 a chance of radical change through conversion of a few of the inner circle. 76 00:10:40.020 --> 00:10:46.900 The break came with the ardent adoption of the independence cause by two of the top oligarchs, 77 00:10:46.900 --> 00:10:51.540 Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 78 00:10:51.540 --> 00:10:56.500 To gain sufficient support and pressure for independence, they were forced to stump the 79 00:10:56.500 --> 00:11:02.820 of the Western Country, raising demands for independence among the Maryland masses, thus 80 00:11:02.820 --> 00:11:07.140 taking the risk of arousing domestic radicalism as well. 81 00:11:07.140 --> 00:11:13.620 In fact, along with a host of local committee resolutions for independence in Western Maryland, 82 00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:18.740 many of the local groups were stimulated to agitate for domestic reform. 83 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:23.700 Committees in Western Frederick County, seeing the link between independence and domestic 84 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:30.700 Change attacked the tyranny and discriminatory representation in the assembly as part of 85 00:11:30.700 --> 00:11:37.700 an effort to develop political organs that would agree to independence. Military participation 86 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:43.940 heightened pressure for reform as soldiers in the fight against Britain felt with a special 87 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:51.220 keenness their disfranchisement and handicaps in representation. They pressed for broadening 88 00:11:51.220 --> 00:12:02.220 in the highly restrictive Maryland suffrage, and demands arose for allowing all adult arms-bearing taxpayers the right to vote. 89 00:12:02.220 --> 00:12:10.220 Clearly, mass democratic pressure was beginning to push against the tight aristocratic control of the province. 90 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:17.220 Chase's campaign and Western mass pressure affected a remarkable change in Maryland's position, 91 00:12:17.220 --> 00:12:40.220 The shift aided by Maryland's sudden, unwelcome isolation among the colonies and General Lee's agitation from Williamsburg. Moreover, Maryland was sternly confronted by the request of the Continental Congress for military aid and this presented the stark choice of conforming or standing alone. 92 00:12:40.220 --> 00:12:46.420 Originally on June 28, the Maryland Convention revoked its instructions against independence 93 00:12:46.420 --> 00:12:52.820 and authorized its delegates to join in a Declaration of Independence. 94 00:12:52.820 --> 00:12:57.740 Governor Eden was gracefully permitted to leave for Britain on a British warship. 95 00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:03.740 The Convention also decided to draft the State Constitution on August 1. 96 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:09.780 Property qualifications for the Constitutional Convention were to remain the same, but representation 97 00:13:09.780 --> 00:13:17.740 was partially corrected by splitting Frederick County into three parts and adding more delegates 98 00:13:17.740 --> 00:13:20.980 from the major cities of Baltimore and Annapolis. 99 00:13:20.980 --> 00:13:28.620 Thus, by the end of June, all the colonies but one stood four square for independence 100 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:34.220 and almost all had either formally adopted a new government or were in the process of 101 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:43.020 of Doing So. But one, New York, powerful and firmly in arch-conservative hands, still stood 102 00:13:43.020 --> 00:13:45.340 in the way of American independence.