'Men of property and understanding': The Pennsylvania Republican Party, 1776-179

This dissertation concerns the construction of a whig party in opposition to the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. Examining state events in the era between the first and second Pennsylvania Constitutions, the dissertation examines how the Republicans, a minority in 1776, articulated and represented its viewpoint using the language of whiggery. A democratic constitution and a state government under radical leadership challenged Republican whigs to produce an alternative political language and a political apparatus to bring that language before the people. What emerged, haltingly, from the Republicans' opposition was a liberal ideology of politics that at once defended the rights of property and was more tolerant of those who had not fully participated in the Revolution.;Nowhere did the fact of Revolution create as a great a disjuncture between the pre- and post-Independence leadership than in Pennsylvania. The Moderate position, articulated chiefly by John Dickinson and William Smith, no longer was tenable after 1776, nor were Moderate appeals to Pennsylvania's colonial past. Republican critics of Tom Paine and the Constitution of 1776 were therefore obliged to turn to the emerging practice of constitutionalism in order to find grounds for their political dissent. The Republican party's legitimacy as an opposition party rested with its criticisms of how the Constitution was framed and whether the document would protect the liberties of Pennsylvanians. Public representation of this constitution-making argument also shaped how the Republican party would carry out politics. Unlike colonial factions or nineteenth century mass parties, the Republicans chief concern lay with changing the political sphere itself.;In the 1780s, a closer balance of party forces in the Assembly provided for lengthy debates on political economy, citizenship, and the public role for political leaders. The issues of citizenship and the Bank of North America revealed particularly deep divisions within the state about the future of the republican experiment. Republicans defended private property, market conditions, a steady and hard currency, free trade and a strengthened state and national government to bring this balanced vision of political economy into being. The federal Constitution of 1787 and the state 1790 represented a victory for the Republicans and brought the party's purpose to an end.