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Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607-1788
Greene, Jack P.
- GenresHistoryAmerican History
274 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Jack P. Greene
57 books11 followersJack P. Greene is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at The Johns Hopkins University.
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April 12, 2021
Jack Greene's Peripheries and Center attempts to trace the development of constitutional thinking in the early modern British Empire (and the United States up through the creation of the federal constitution in 1788). These states were "extended polities" ("far flung associations of separate political entities", ix) according to Greene, meaning that they were associated but distinct political organizations.
Greene's thesis is that, from 1607 to 1788, the classic problem of the extended polity plagued the British Empire and United States. The search for reconciliation between "the strong presiding power" and the "liberty and safety of the provinces" "was a significant and persistent concern for British-Americans in their relations with the metropolis before 1776 and with each other thereafter" (2-3).
Part 1 traces the experience of this problem throughout the first century and a half of British Atlantic colonization, from 1607 to 1763. The initial period of colonization was predicated on "a series of reciprocal agreements... that permitted the sponsors and the individual colonists a generous amount of political freedom and wide latitude to pursue their own personal objectives in return for extending the dominions of the sponsors and the monarchy" (12). Following the Restoration, Charles II and his brother sought to reduce the colonies by increasing the crown's power in royal colonies, preventing the creation of more private colonies, and consolidating existing colonies for easy administration (14-15). "The underlying goals of metropolitan colonial policy [were] not changed" by the Revolution in 1688 (16). Thus throughout the later Stuart period, the main goal of the center was extending the royal prerogative over the colonial dominions. Prior to the 1760s, the center held three assumptions about the colonies: 1) "the colonies were dependent entities"; 2) "the primary reason for the existence of the colonies was to contribute to the well-being of the parent state"; 3) "the political systems of the colonies had to be and were subordinate to the government of Britain" (18).
The colonists, for their part, used two lines of reasoning to defend their assemblies' right to legislate without the excesses of absolutist governors. The first was that, as transplanted Englishmen, colonists were entitled to the rights of Englishmen, most especially the right to government by consent (36-37). The second was that that of custom: "on the basis of custom - both English and local - colonial political leaders justified not only the existence of the assemblies but also their claims to full legislative powers and to rights peculiar to their specific polities" (40). Through continuous usage, colonial assemblies gained the force of law, according to contemporary English jurisprudence.
Thus the metropole and the center held incompatible views of the nature of the imperial constitution and the relationship of the colonies to the crown. Yet between 1688 and 1763 "the metropolitan government never made any sustained effort to govern the colonies in ways that were at serious variance with colonial opinion" (45). Walpole's tactic of "avoid[ing] any issues involving fundamentals [...and] restrict[ing] the active role of government" coupled with the "localization of power" brought about by the Glorious Revolution led to a period of benign neglect, where neither crown nor parliament significantly interfered with colonial administration (45, 63).
Prior to the 1760s, the constitutional contest between colony and metropole was primarily between crown and assembly - for "colonial concern tended to fix not upon Parliament's efforts to turn the economies of the colonies into channels thought to be most profitable to the metropolis... but upon the crown's claims to extensive authority within the colonies" (20). Metropolitan analysts argued that "the crown might change the constitutions" of the colonies whenever and however it saw fit, as these were merely royal favors and not the rights of colonists (34). Yet the crown's failure to press the issue in a significant way between 1688 and 1763 allowed the empire to run smoothly but kept the constitutional crisis festering.
While I certainly agree that in general the Restoration monarchs (especially after the Exclusion Crisis) adopted increasingly absolutist methods of both domestic and imperial governance, the contention they prevented the creation of further private colonies appears unfounded - from 1660 to 1680, New Jersey, Carolina, Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania were all chartered as private colonies. The absolutist centralization appears to have been primarily a feature of Jacobite (and late Carolingian) administration.
I am even more skeptical of the conflation of Jacobite and Williamite imperial policy. While both policies aimed at imperial cohesion, the former's foundation in absolutist Dominion (see for example the "Dominion of New England") and the latter's founded on an extension of Whiggish, proto-liberal principles after the Revolution.
Finally, to what extent does it make sense to cleave apart Parliamentary and Crown sovereignty in this period? Oftentimes, royal administrators were charged with securing enforcement of Parliamentary statutes (such as the Navigation Acts). Thus in the 1670s Edward Randolph, royal customs collector, could report that the Governor of Massachusetts Bay had informed him that it was the colony's position that with regard to the Navigation Acts, "the laws of England are bounded within the four seas, and do not reach America."
Part two details the lead up to independence in the 1760s and 70s. Most important, it describes the pivot from constitutional clashes centering on the crown and assemblies to clashes between Parliament and the assemblies.
"Before the mid-1760s, Parliament's authority over the colonies was an infinitely less important issue than that of the crown" (55). In 1765, this changed. With the passage of the Stamp Act, Parliament became the target of colonial ire. Colonists protested that Parliament lacked authority to legislate on internal matters - such as levying internal taxes for revenue - in the colonies, but had authority to legislate on external matters, such as "regulations concerning the trade and good order of the" empire (88-90). The colonies posited that the empire was federal in nature, that they had "no civil connection [with Britain], but by means of the King as the bond of union and the sovereign of both" (94).
Yet this ran directly contrary to contemporary British understandings of sovereignty as residing in a supreme Parliament. "Most people in the metropolis thought the empire a unitary state, organized on the principle of devolution with sovereignty... vested in Parliament and the authority of the colonies consisting merely of privileges" (103). Returning authority to the crown in colonial affairs would "[dissolve] the constitution and annihilat[e] the most important foundation of British liberty" (108). This is why "the very sovereignty of" Britain depended on "an inherent right to lay inland duties" in the colonies (81). Parliament was the sovereign of Britain - if the colonies were a part of the British Empire, they must remain subject to Parliament. To permit the resources of the colonies and Ireland to return to "the crown and beyond the reach of Parliament" would "strike directly at the root of" Parliamentary supremacy (143).
The Federal model of empire advanced by the colonists became untenable when it became clear "that George III was every bit as committed to the idea of parliamentary sovereignty as was the rest of the metropolitan political nation" (144). The inability to reconcile these two views, which crystallized over the course of the debates between crown and parliament from 1763 to 1776, was the principal cause of the Revolution (153).
Section 3 reveals how the newly independent United States sought to address this problem. Their initial settlement, the Articles of Confederation, was created more out of exigency than theory (172). It overcame, for a time, the centrifugal forces that sought to make the several states distinct, but with the decline of the war the flaws of the Articles - in particular their lack of a "mechanism by which congress could force the states to comply with its authority" led to a rise in state power (181, 186). Two factors in the 1780s countered this: 1) a desire, especially among smaller states, to maintain state integrity against other states and separatist groups, and 2) the "emergence... of a broadly diffused fear of anarchy" resulting from paper money and insurrection (195-6).
The Constitution was able to "legitimize the doctrine of coordinate sovereignty by founding it upon the concept of popular sovereignty, the idea that sovereignty resided not in government but in the people" (203). Doing so allowed them to divide "the basic powers of sovereignty... without dividing sovereignty itself" (205). There was no longer imperium in imperio - the people were the sole sovereign, and could delegate their powers accordingly.
I know relatively little about this period from my own primary research, so my comments here are likely to be somewhat more speculative.
I have some skepticism about the unanimity of either the colonial or metropolitan views discussed. Furthermore there were likely issues of bias against crown officials that had more to do with expediency than ideology - anytime there was colonial factionalism, individuals opposite the governor's faction could have argued that his power was unconstitutional.
Furthermore, as with every empire-wide explanation of the American Revolution, I am forced to ask why the 13 colonies stood alone. Greene suggests that similar ideological transformations wracked the other British colonies, but their lack of an independence movement would have merited from further explanation (slavery, often touted as the cause for the Caribbean islands, seems a little too simplistic, considering that other colonies with large enslaved populations DID declare independence).
Still, the idea of an imperial constitution, based on custom, which ambiguously defined the nature of center-periphery relations, is insightful and productive, even if the exact nature of each of those entities was more complicated than it at times appears in this story. By and large, I can find little to object to in the latter 2 sections. The notion that Parliamentary supremacy in England created a conflict between legislative bodies makes me wonder to what extent the first part is really necessary to this story - parts two and three could be read in isolation without considerable loss.
This book is essential reading for those interested in American constitutional and legal history.
Greene's thesis is that, from 1607 to 1788, the classic problem of the extended polity plagued the British Empire and United States. The search for reconciliation between "the strong presiding power" and the "liberty and safety of the provinces" "was a significant and persistent concern for British-Americans in their relations with the metropolis before 1776 and with each other thereafter" (2-3).
Part 1 traces the experience of this problem throughout the first century and a half of British Atlantic colonization, from 1607 to 1763. The initial period of colonization was predicated on "a series of reciprocal agreements... that permitted the sponsors and the individual colonists a generous amount of political freedom and wide latitude to pursue their own personal objectives in return for extending the dominions of the sponsors and the monarchy" (12). Following the Restoration, Charles II and his brother sought to reduce the colonies by increasing the crown's power in royal colonies, preventing the creation of more private colonies, and consolidating existing colonies for easy administration (14-15). "The underlying goals of metropolitan colonial policy [were] not changed" by the Revolution in 1688 (16). Thus throughout the later Stuart period, the main goal of the center was extending the royal prerogative over the colonial dominions. Prior to the 1760s, the center held three assumptions about the colonies: 1) "the colonies were dependent entities"; 2) "the primary reason for the existence of the colonies was to contribute to the well-being of the parent state"; 3) "the political systems of the colonies had to be and were subordinate to the government of Britain" (18).
The colonists, for their part, used two lines of reasoning to defend their assemblies' right to legislate without the excesses of absolutist governors. The first was that, as transplanted Englishmen, colonists were entitled to the rights of Englishmen, most especially the right to government by consent (36-37). The second was that that of custom: "on the basis of custom - both English and local - colonial political leaders justified not only the existence of the assemblies but also their claims to full legislative powers and to rights peculiar to their specific polities" (40). Through continuous usage, colonial assemblies gained the force of law, according to contemporary English jurisprudence.
Thus the metropole and the center held incompatible views of the nature of the imperial constitution and the relationship of the colonies to the crown. Yet between 1688 and 1763 "the metropolitan government never made any sustained effort to govern the colonies in ways that were at serious variance with colonial opinion" (45). Walpole's tactic of "avoid[ing] any issues involving fundamentals [...and] restrict[ing] the active role of government" coupled with the "localization of power" brought about by the Glorious Revolution led to a period of benign neglect, where neither crown nor parliament significantly interfered with colonial administration (45, 63).
Prior to the 1760s, the constitutional contest between colony and metropole was primarily between crown and assembly - for "colonial concern tended to fix not upon Parliament's efforts to turn the economies of the colonies into channels thought to be most profitable to the metropolis... but upon the crown's claims to extensive authority within the colonies" (20). Metropolitan analysts argued that "the crown might change the constitutions" of the colonies whenever and however it saw fit, as these were merely royal favors and not the rights of colonists (34). Yet the crown's failure to press the issue in a significant way between 1688 and 1763 allowed the empire to run smoothly but kept the constitutional crisis festering.
While I certainly agree that in general the Restoration monarchs (especially after the Exclusion Crisis) adopted increasingly absolutist methods of both domestic and imperial governance, the contention they prevented the creation of further private colonies appears unfounded - from 1660 to 1680, New Jersey, Carolina, Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania were all chartered as private colonies. The absolutist centralization appears to have been primarily a feature of Jacobite (and late Carolingian) administration.
I am even more skeptical of the conflation of Jacobite and Williamite imperial policy. While both policies aimed at imperial cohesion, the former's foundation in absolutist Dominion (see for example the "Dominion of New England") and the latter's founded on an extension of Whiggish, proto-liberal principles after the Revolution.
Finally, to what extent does it make sense to cleave apart Parliamentary and Crown sovereignty in this period? Oftentimes, royal administrators were charged with securing enforcement of Parliamentary statutes (such as the Navigation Acts). Thus in the 1670s Edward Randolph, royal customs collector, could report that the Governor of Massachusetts Bay had informed him that it was the colony's position that with regard to the Navigation Acts, "the laws of England are bounded within the four seas, and do not reach America."
Part two details the lead up to independence in the 1760s and 70s. Most important, it describes the pivot from constitutional clashes centering on the crown and assemblies to clashes between Parliament and the assemblies.
"Before the mid-1760s, Parliament's authority over the colonies was an infinitely less important issue than that of the crown" (55). In 1765, this changed. With the passage of the Stamp Act, Parliament became the target of colonial ire. Colonists protested that Parliament lacked authority to legislate on internal matters - such as levying internal taxes for revenue - in the colonies, but had authority to legislate on external matters, such as "regulations concerning the trade and good order of the" empire (88-90). The colonies posited that the empire was federal in nature, that they had "no civil connection [with Britain], but by means of the King as the bond of union and the sovereign of both" (94).
Yet this ran directly contrary to contemporary British understandings of sovereignty as residing in a supreme Parliament. "Most people in the metropolis thought the empire a unitary state, organized on the principle of devolution with sovereignty... vested in Parliament and the authority of the colonies consisting merely of privileges" (103). Returning authority to the crown in colonial affairs would "[dissolve] the constitution and annihilat[e] the most important foundation of British liberty" (108). This is why "the very sovereignty of" Britain depended on "an inherent right to lay inland duties" in the colonies (81). Parliament was the sovereign of Britain - if the colonies were a part of the British Empire, they must remain subject to Parliament. To permit the resources of the colonies and Ireland to return to "the crown and beyond the reach of Parliament" would "strike directly at the root of" Parliamentary supremacy (143).
The Federal model of empire advanced by the colonists became untenable when it became clear "that George III was every bit as committed to the idea of parliamentary sovereignty as was the rest of the metropolitan political nation" (144). The inability to reconcile these two views, which crystallized over the course of the debates between crown and parliament from 1763 to 1776, was the principal cause of the Revolution (153).
Section 3 reveals how the newly independent United States sought to address this problem. Their initial settlement, the Articles of Confederation, was created more out of exigency than theory (172). It overcame, for a time, the centrifugal forces that sought to make the several states distinct, but with the decline of the war the flaws of the Articles - in particular their lack of a "mechanism by which congress could force the states to comply with its authority" led to a rise in state power (181, 186). Two factors in the 1780s countered this: 1) a desire, especially among smaller states, to maintain state integrity against other states and separatist groups, and 2) the "emergence... of a broadly diffused fear of anarchy" resulting from paper money and insurrection (195-6).
The Constitution was able to "legitimize the doctrine of coordinate sovereignty by founding it upon the concept of popular sovereignty, the idea that sovereignty resided not in government but in the people" (203). Doing so allowed them to divide "the basic powers of sovereignty... without dividing sovereignty itself" (205). There was no longer imperium in imperio - the people were the sole sovereign, and could delegate their powers accordingly.
I know relatively little about this period from my own primary research, so my comments here are likely to be somewhat more speculative.
I have some skepticism about the unanimity of either the colonial or metropolitan views discussed. Furthermore there were likely issues of bias against crown officials that had more to do with expediency than ideology - anytime there was colonial factionalism, individuals opposite the governor's faction could have argued that his power was unconstitutional.
Furthermore, as with every empire-wide explanation of the American Revolution, I am forced to ask why the 13 colonies stood alone. Greene suggests that similar ideological transformations wracked the other British colonies, but their lack of an independence movement would have merited from further explanation (slavery, often touted as the cause for the Caribbean islands, seems a little too simplistic, considering that other colonies with large enslaved populations DID declare independence).
Still, the idea of an imperial constitution, based on custom, which ambiguously defined the nature of center-periphery relations, is insightful and productive, even if the exact nature of each of those entities was more complicated than it at times appears in this story. By and large, I can find little to object to in the latter 2 sections. The notion that Parliamentary supremacy in England created a conflict between legislative bodies makes me wonder to what extent the first part is really necessary to this story - parts two and three could be read in isolation without considerable loss.
This book is essential reading for those interested in American constitutional and legal history.
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