Map of Ohio

In these years, Ohio changed from a virtually unpeopled frontier area within the Northwest Territory to the fourth most powerful state in federal elections. Its first significant elections were for the lower house of the Territorial Assembly in December 1798. Suffrage was restricted to adult males who owned fifty acres freehold (the most limited franchise in the nation), although Governor Arthur St. Clair extended the vote to those who owned town lots of comparable value. Voting took place viva voce at the county seat, under the supervision of men appointed by the governor, who also determined apportionment and could veto legislation and prorogue (postpone) and dissolve the Assembly. The upper house, the Council, was appointed by the president from a list of names drawn up by the house; Congress appointed the governor on the president's nomination. This authoritarian system was overthrown when Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1802, authorizing the calling of a convention elected virtually on the basis of manhood suffrage.

Ohio became a state in March 1803, operating under the constitution drafted in November 1802. That instrument gave little power or patronage, and no veto, to the governor, who was elected biennially. The all-powerful General Assembly was divided into two chambers: The House was elected annually by county constituencies, and the Senate was elected biennially, half the members each year, in districts made up of one or more counties. There were no property qualifications for membership in the Assembly. Every four years the state took a census of adult males and redistributed legislative seats, and congressional districts were reapportioned each decade immediately after Congress had reapportioned the federal House and electoral college. Beginning with the first presidential election in 1804, the electors were chosen by statewide popular vote. The right to vote was limited to white adult males who had been resident for one year and had paid a tax. However, because the state constitution defined compulsory work on the roads as a tax and all adult males between the ages of 18 and 55 were obliged to work on the roads (or buy a substitute), this amounted to a nearly all-inclusive franchise for white males. From the start, voting was by secret ballot, with ballots deposited in special locked boxes, and whereas under the territory, voters had had to travel to the few county seats to vote, people now voted at a central place in each of the rapidly multiplying townships.

This democratic electoral system produced elections that saw a surprising degree of partisan action and comparatively high—but fluctuating—voter involvement, especially after 1807 when the key elections began to coincide in even years. The Federalist predominance of the territorial period was overthrown in 1802—1803, and the then overwhelmingly dominant Democratic-Republican party soon divided along factional lines, notably over the role of the judiciary. In some parts of the state, the Federalist Party revived after 1807 but suffered a severe decline after 1816. As a consequence, nonpartisan elections became even more common, although old-party considerations operated in some local elections into the 1820s. In 1824 Ohio's first competitive election for the presidency saw turnout surge as voters began giving their allegiance to entirely new political formations.

<h3>Bibliography </h3> <ul> <li><title>Annual Report of the Secretary of the State to the Governor of the State of Ohio: including the statistical report to the general assembly for the year 1875. Colombus, OH: Nevins & Myers, State Printers, 1876. (Lists members of the General Assembly and their districts from the formation of the state)
  • Brown, Jeffrey P. and Andrew R. L. Cayton, eds. The Pursuit of Public Power: Political Culture in Ohio, 1787–1861. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994.
  • Cayton, Andrew R. L. The Frontier State: Ideology and Politics in the Ohio Country. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1986.
  • Ohio Historical Society, Ohio Fundamental Documents Searchable Database,
    http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/database/funddocs.html
  • Ratcliffe, Donald J. "Voter Turnout in Early Ohio," Journal of the Early Republic, 7 (1987): 223–251. Reprinted in New Perspectives on the Early Republic, ed. Ralph D. Gray and Michael A. Morrison. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994, pp. 269–297.
  • ________. "The Mystery of Ohio's Missing Presidential Election Returns, 1804–1848," Archival Issues: The Journal of the Midwest Archives Conference, 17(2)(1992): 137–144.
  • ________. Party Spirit in a Frontier Republic: Democratic Politics in Ohio, 1793–1821. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998.
  • ________. The Politics of Long Division: The Birth of the Second Party System in Ohio, 1818–1828. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000.
  • ________. "The Changing Political World of Thomas Worthington." in The Center of a Great Empire: The Ohio Country in the Early Republic, ed. Andrew R. L. Cayton and Stuart D. Hobbs. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005, pp. 36–61.
  • Utter, William T. The Frontier State, 1803–1825, 1943 reprint ed. Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1968), Vol. 2 of Carl Wittke, ed., A History of the State of Ohio, 6 vols. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941–1944.

  • Quid

    The Quids

    In Pennsylvania, the Quids, known first as "Constitutionalists", arose out of a split among the Republicans in local Philadelphia politics.

    The various Republican splinter movements in New York [Burrites, Lewisites and Clintonians] although most had underlying economic and reform issues, they often instead rallied around a central personality. As did most Republican splinter movements in Pennsylvania with exception of the Constitutional Republicans, a movement formed to prevent proposed judicial changes to the Pennsylvania Constitution. In addition to these, there were within Congress a group of individuals who were often classified as Quids. Among this group were congressmen from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, New Jersey and North Carolina. Mainly elected in 1804 and 1806 as Republicans, they began to question some actions and direction of their party. When reaction to the Embargo revitalized the Federalist; New York and Pennsylvania dissident Republican movements moved back into the main party. On the Congressional level, a few remained in opposition, some declined to run for re-election, and others were not re-nominated.

    "The first evidence of this appeared in reports of a dinner of the 'Democratic Constitutional Republicans' held at the White Horse Tavern in Philadelphia on March 4, 1805, to celebrate Jefferson's second inauguration. A few days later the Freeman's Journal printed a proposal, dated March 14, for forming 'The Society of Constitutional Republicans.' This document recognized the sovereignity of the people, the principle of majority rule, and the right of the people, to alter and abolish their government as they saw fit. However, it described the Pennsylvania Constitution, along with the Federal Constitution, as 'the noblest invention of human wisdom, for the self-government of man' and avowed that it should be changed only when the motives and causes were 'obvious, cogent, general and conclusive.' Great political blessings were enjoyed under the Constitution, and it required no alteration. The list of the society's principles closed with an assertion of loyalty to the existing State and Federal administrations." (The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816. Sanford W. Higginbotham. 1952. p 82-83)

    "Continuing the practice of the preceding year, the Aurora referred to the Constitutional Republicans as Quids. The latter professed to find the title an honorable one. A writer on the Freeman's Journal asserted that a 'tertium quid' was a substance used in pharmacy to transform a poison into a medicine and avowed that there was a great need for such an element in politics. A third party would determine whether there would be 'liberty of despotism.'" (Higginbotham, p 91)

    "The incident [the Special election of State Senator for District 1 in December of 1805] highlighted one aspect of the dilemma which faced the Pennsylvania Quids so long as they existed - how to avoid becoming a tail to the Federalist kite when the Democratic leaders would not permit them to rejoin their old party." (Higginbotham, p 105)

    "With McKean ineligible for another term in 1808 and with national issues making union with the Federalists less and less palatable, the great majority of Constitutional Republicans wished to return to the Republican ranks. However, they had no desire to submit to the leadership of Leib and Duane after the many indignities they had suffered at their hands. An alliance with the country Republicans, who were also seeking to rid the party of the domination of Leib and Duane, seemed a logical and natural arrangement." (Higginbotham, p 138)

    "The election of 1808 was a significant demonstration of the depth and strength of Pennsylvania Republicanism. The Federalists had been favored by many circumstances - Republican disunity over presidential candidates; the Leib-Boileau quarrel among the Democrats; Quid cooperation with them in the three preceding elections; and, most important, the economic hardships of the embargo. Yet they had lost by an overwhelming majority. Republican unity reappeared under the stimulus of a revived Federalism campaigning on national issues. Internal divisions were suppressed, and the Republicans gave undivided support to Madison and Snyder. The stresses of the campaign destroyed the Constitutional Republicans as a third party, though there were vestiges in a few counties." (Higginbotham, p 176)

    "The strength and nature of this factionalism varied, but it never entirely disappeared. The first stage lasted from 1800 to 1805. Personal and local differences appeared almost immediately as the Federalists virtually abandoned politics. The struggle between Governor McKean and the country Democrats in the legislature over judicial reform and the failure of the attack on the judiciary culminated in the movement for a constitutional convention. Duane and Leib, whose arbitrary control of the party in Philadelphia had produced a violent schism, took sides against the Governor. Aided by the Federalists, the Constitutional Republicans, generally called Quids, were able to defeat the project for a convention and to re-elect McKean." (Higginbotham, p 328)

    "Adapted from tertium quid, a 'third something,' the name 'Quid' was first prominently used in a political sense in Pennsylvania in 1804, and it was soon affixed to a faction of the Republican party officially calling itself the Society of Constitutional Republicans. The Pennsylvania Quids attracted Federalist support and in 1805 re-elected Governor Thomas McKean, who had been the choice of a united Republican party in 1802 but was opposed by the majority wing of the party in 1805. (fn: Sanford W. Higginbotham. The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816, p. 69, 346.)." ("Who Were the Quids?" Noble E. Cunningham, Jr. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. 50, No. 2 (Sep. 1963), p. 254)

    "The use of 'Quid' to refer to various third-party factions which plagued the Jeffersonian Republicans must not, however, be construed to mean that all Quids were part of the same third-party movement. When John Randolph referred to the third party, he was not being accurate. There was no such thing. The Quids in Pennsylvania and in New York - the only states where they represented organized factions - were neither in league with each other nor supporters of Randolph. In both states, the Republican divisions were the products of local controversies over men, offices, and state policies, and the Quid factions had not direct connection with the schism produced in national politics by Randolph's defection." (Cunningham, p 255)

    "The opponents of the Philadelphia Democrats and their rural allies were called at various times the Rising Sun Party (after a tavern where they first met in 1802), the Third Party, the Tertium Quids (Third Whats), and more often simply the Quids. The Quids hoped to tame popular politics by discrediting the radicalism that they blamed on the Philadelphia Democrats. To do so, they emphasized the nation's future greatness and the prosperity each citizen would enjoy in a vibrant economy with a peaceful representative politics committed to promoting internal economic development. Accepting, even welcoming, democracy in Pennsylvania, the Quids attempted to redefine the term. Popular politics would remain the instrument the citizens used to create the conditions that produced material independence. But democracy would only provide such indepedence of circumstances when Pensylvanians realized that their power should not be used to disrupt or hindred private energies or the use of property." (Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania. Andrew Shankman. University Press of Kansas. 2004. p. 96)

    Additional Sources:

    • The Keystone in the Democratic Arch: Pennsylvania Politics, 1800-1816. Sanford W. Higginbotham. 1952.
    • Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania. Andrew Shankman. University Press of Kansas. 2004.