Democracy by Petition: Popular Politics in Transformation, 1790-1870

by Daniel Carpenter

Overview

Winner of the James P. Hanlan Book Award
Winner of the J. David Greenstone Book Prize
Winner of the S. M. Lipset Best Book Award

This pioneering work of political history recovers the central and largely forgotten role that petitioning played in the formative years of North American democracy.

Known as the age of democracy, the nineteenth century witnessed the extension of the franchise and the rise of party politics. As Daniel Carpenter shows, however, democracy in America emerged not merely through elections and parties, but through the transformation of an ancient political tool: the petition. A statement of grievance accompanied by a list of signatures, the petition afforded women and men excluded from formal politics the chance to make their voices heard and to reshape the landscape of political possibility.

Democracy by Petition traces the explosion and expansion of petitioning across the North American continent. Indigenous tribes in Canada, free Blacks from Boston to the British West Indies, Irish canal workers in Indiana, and Hispanic settlers in territorial New Mexico all used petitions to make claims on those in power. Petitions facilitated the extension of suffrage, the decline of feudal land tenure, and advances in liberty for women, African Americans, and Indigenous peoples. Even where petitioners failed in their immediate aims, their campaigns advanced democracy by setting agendas, recruiting people into political causes, and fostering aspirations of equality. Far more than periodic elections, petitions provided an everyday current of communication between officeholders and the people.

The coming of democracy in America owes much to the unprecedented energy with which the petition was employed in the antebellum period. By uncovering this neglected yet vital strand of nineteenth-century life, Democracy by Petition will forever change how we understand our political history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674247499
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Pages:	648
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Daniel Carpenter is Allie S. Freed Professor of Government at Harvard University and author of the prizewinning books Reputation and Power and The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy. At Harvard, he has led the creation of the Digital Archive of Antislavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions and the Digital Archive of Native American Petitions.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 Signature Moments, 1846-1849 3

Vignettes from the peak of North American petitioning-the Innu tribe of northeastern Canada; the first American woman suffrage petition from the women of Jefferson County, New York; Aaron Constant and the free Blacks of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the Irish canal workers of Indiana; Harriet Scott's freedom suit petition in St. Louis; Padre José Martinez, statehood, and slavery in New Mexico; mass Catholic petitions in the Mexican La Reforma.

2 Eruptions and Democracies 22

Documents the continental explosion and transformation of petitioning and argues that democratization-and democracy itself- must include a regular technology of claim and response. Centers the democracy of agendas as a pivotal characteristic of political equality.

Stirrings 53

3 Petitions, Prayers, and Their Venues 55

The history of petitioning, the transformation of political culture in print, religion and equality, and the significance of burgeoning venues-legislatures, bureaus, councils, synods, offices-to petitioning. The disruptions and democratic petitioning moments of the American Revolution.

4 Petitioning in the Settler Republic: Space, Capital, Soldiers 87

Describes the older, colonial model of petitioning that smoothed the development of settler societies and industrial capitalism in North America. This older model would be gradually superseded by the more democratic modes of the mid-nineteenth century.

5 First Nations, First Wave Petitioners 117

How Native North Americans-from Saint Lawrence communities to the Seneca in New York to John Ross and the Cherokee to Mexican pueblos-harnessed and transformed petitioning in response to dispossession. Describes the advance of women's role in petitioning, the targeting of administrative venues, and the marriage of legal and political strategy.

6 Slavery, Skin, and Black Strategy 164

The emergence of organized Black petitioning in the British West Indies and the United States, the debate over sectional expansion, and the stirrings of a broader campaign against slavery. Petitioning and slavery in independent Mexico and Texas.

Awakenings 201

7 Patriotes and Rebels: Petitioning and Parliamentary Sovereignty in French Canada 203

In arguably the largest petitioning campaign of the Atlantic world of its time, French Canadians depose a colonial governor, preserve provincial separation, protect parliamentary autonomy, and influence the English Chartist movement.

8 Producers, Electors, City Democrats 234

The importance of petitioning in suffrage extensions, in the emergence and transformation of labor organization, and in urban democracy movements in the United States and Canada.

3 The Coalescence of Opposition: From the Bank War to Canadian Reform 271

The role of petitioning in the emergence of opposition parties, with the Bank War campaign of 1832-1834 shaping the emergence of the Whig Party in the United States, while petitioning fuels Durhamite opposition to Tory oligarchy in Upper Canada.

10 Abolition and the Transformation of U.S. Politics 298

The transformation of collective petition campaigns led by women, whose canvassing vastly surpassed men's and whose defiance of the gag rule transformed gender roles in American politics and reshaped the slavery debate. Describes the historical peak of U.S. petitioning, the explosion of mass Black petitioning, and the petition-induced emergence of antislavery organizations.

Democracies and Closures 341

11 Women Contesting Collectively: Work, War, Iglesia, and the Ballot 343

The flourishing of women's petitioning in the northern United States and Mexico. Labor campaigns and the Lowell textile workers. American women's role in the anti-Mexican-American War campaign, the corresponding surge of women's petitioning in Mexico, and the emergence of the woman suffrage movement.

12 The Eclipse of Lordship: Petitioning and Land Tenure in the United States and Canada 384

The central role of tenant farmer memorials in the demise of manorial tenure in New York State and Lower Canada. Shows how petitioning, more than elections and legal change, effected the demise of North American feudalism.

13 Native Continuance, Native Governance 415

Native resistance, as the Seneca successfully win back reservation lands in New York, the Ojibwe preserve villages in Michigan, and the Innu and allies successfully petition for reserves in Canada.

14 The Closure of Petition Democracy in the U.S. South, 1839-1860 439

The stark decline in the number and topical variety of southern U.S. petitions, even as other hallmarks of democracy (a professional middle class, newspaper subscriptions, and presidential voting turnout) remain stable or flourish. The absence of women's collective petitioning and the narrowness of southern economic petitioning.

15 Freedom and the Petitioner's Democracy 452

Begins with the radical petition of Savannah freedmen for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Describes the centrality of mass petitioning-with Black Americans and women at the fore-in the campaign for emancipation and for the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Ends with Sojourner Truth and her petitioning campaign for Black land reparations.

Afterword: Agendas, Organization, and the Democracy of Petitions 475

Archives and Manuscript Collections Consulted 483

Abbreviations 493

Notes 495

Acknowledgments 607

Index 613

Editorial Reviews

A tour de force of prodigious research and muscular analysis. Carpenter persuasively demonstrates that petitions were critical to the process of democratization in nineteenth-century North America. Along the way, he sheds new light on a wide range of issues and episodes, many of which have previously escaped the notice of historians and political scientists. The book, quite simply, is eye-opening.

Alexander Keyssar

Democracy by Petition presents a magisterial view of an evolving political practice in which individuals and groups across North America seized the right to petition higher authorities for aid, redress, protection, or access. With riveting examples and clarifying analyses, Daniel Carpenter illuminates how Native Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans, Mexicans, French Canadians, women of all backgrounds, and many more became agents of political change, sharpening the possibility for real democracy by means of an antiquated though often effective tool: the paper prayer. A monumental achievement of political history, this book is crucial reading for anyone seeking to learn how democratic practices are forged through unexpected and ‘emergent’ politics.

Tiya Miles

An astonishing piece of scholarship, such as comes along once in a generation. Democracy by Petition urges us to reconsider what democracy is, how it extends beyond electoral politics, and how governance in North America actually works.

Richard White

Daniel Carpenter illuminates petitions as active agents of democratization, harnessed by diverse and divergent groups across North America—including Indigenous nations who refused removal and Black abolitionists who refused containment by an emergent ‘settler republic.’ As Democracy by Petition reveals, these efforts refashioned the petition itself from a humble plea into an instrument of political power.

Lisa Brooks

Possibly the most original work on democracy in 2021…Offers lessons that transcend the American experience, because it allows us to think about democracy and democratization as something far more diverse than the package of the Western Consensus.

Democracy Paradox

In this landmark book, Daniel Carpenter demonstrates the essential role that petitioning has played in the politics of democratization. Drawing upon a massive data collection effort and deep archival research, Carpenter offers a new way of thinking about how the dialogue between government and citizens shapes political development.

Eric Schickler

Daniel Carpenter’s Democracy by Petition is an extraordinary tour de force. In this extensively researched book, Carpenter places petitions at the forefront of the development of democracy in North America. He demonstrates how groups as distinct as French Canadians in Lower Canada, Indigenous nations throughout the continent as well as African Americans and women used petitions to seek redress and promote political change. Carpenter's book reshapes our understanding of the emergence of democracy in North America. It foregrounds the role of a largely overlooked set of diverse civil society actors and their novel political strategies in prompting democratic development.

Seymour Martin Lipset Best Book Award Selection Committee

Daniel Carpenter’s Democracy by Petition is an extraordinary tour de force. In this extensively researched book, Carpenter places petitions at the forefront of the development of democracy in North America. He demonstrates how groups as distinct as French Canadians in Lower Canada, Indigenous nations throughout the continent as well as African Americans and women used petitions to seek redress and promote political change. Carpenter's book reshapes our understanding of the emergence of democracy in North America. It foregrounds the role of a largely overlooked set of diverse civil society actors and their novel political strategies in prompting democratic development.

Seymour M. Lipset Prize Committee