Results navigation
2702. Massachusetts 1823 State Senate, Norfolk District
2703. Massachusetts 1823 State Senate, Plymouth District
2704. Massachusetts 1823 State Senate, Suffolk County, Special
2705. Massachusetts 1823 State Senate, Suffolk District
2706. Massachusetts 1823 State Senate, Worcester County
2707. Massachusetts 1823 Treasurer, Barnstable County
2708. Massachusetts 1823 Treasurer, Essex County
2709. Massachusetts 1823 U.S. House of Representatives, Essex South District, Ballot 2
2710. Massachusetts 1823 U.S. House of Representatives, Norfolk District, Special
2711. Massachusetts 1823 U.S. House of Representatives, Worcester North District, Ballot 2
2712. Massachusetts 1823 U.S. House of Representatives, Worcester North District, Ballot 3
2713. Massachusetts 1823 U.S. House of Representatives, Worcester South District, Ballot 2
2714. Massachusetts 1823 U.S. Senate
2715. Massachusetts 1823 Warden, Boston, Ward 3
2716. Massachusetts 1823 Warden, Boston, Ward 5
2717. Massachusetts 1824 Alderman, Boston
2718. Massachusetts 1824 Alderman, Boston, Special
2719. Massachusetts 1824 Chaplain of the House of Representatives
2720. Massachusetts 1824 Chaplain of the House of Representatives
2721. Massachusetts 1824 Chaplain of the House of Representatives
2722. Massachusetts 1824 Chaplain of the Senate
2723. Massachusetts 1824 Clerk of the House of Representatives
2724. Massachusetts 1824 Electoral College
2725. Massachusetts 1824 Governor
2726. Massachusetts 1824 Governor's Council
2727. Massachusetts 1824 Governor's Council
2728. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Amherst
2729. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Andover
2730. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Blandford
2731. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Boston
2732. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Boston, Ballot 2
2733. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Brookline
2734. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Chatham
2735. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Danvers
2736. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Danvers
2737. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Fitchburg
2738. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Leominster
2739. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Leominster
2740. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Leominster
2741. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Salem
2742. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, South Hadley
2743. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Tisbury
2744. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Truro
2745. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Watertown
2746. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Weston
2747. Massachusetts 1824 House of Representatives, Worcester
2748. Massachusetts 1824 Lieutenant Governor
2749. Massachusetts 1824 Mayor, Boston
2750. Massachusetts 1824 Moderator, Lynn
Results navigation
With independence from Great Britain in 1776, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was governed by the same bicameral legislature that existed during the colonial period. It was not until 1780 that John Adams, armed with a statewide mandate for a constitutional convention, set about drafting a formal state constitution. What Adams forged proved so successful that it later became a template for the Constitution of United States. What made the 1780 Massachusetts constitution so influential was how it seemingly balanced the populist ideals promised to the citizenry by the Revolution with the fundamentally conservative expectations of the existing Massachusetts elite. In terms of structure, it established an elective chief magistrate (the governor), a bicameral legislature (the General Court made up of a House and a Senate), and an independent judiciary (an appointed state court system). Also, Adams included a declaration of rights to ensure civil liberties (as well as his brainchild's ratification). Although ratified by town meetings throughout the commonwealth, the document was fundamentally conservative in that it secured the ruling elite's control over the state by giving disproportionate power to the wealthy coastal counties of Suffolk and Essex. Not surprisingly, the 1780 constitution became the darling of the Federalist Party establishment that fought to resist constitutional reform. In opposition, the Democratic-Republicans chafed at the propertied basis for representation in the Senate, which gave an eastern county like Suffolk six senators to Berkshire's two, despite the fact that Berkshire had a larger population. Also, the Democratic-Republicans, whose popular base was in the western part of the state and tended to be of modest means, despised the pecuniary qualifications for the franchise, as well as the nonelected judiciary, claiming both were profoundly undemocratic.
In 1820 the opponents to the 1780 constitution had their chance when the Maine district of Massachusetts was broken off and given statehood. As a result of such radical change, the General Court called for a constitutional convention to revisit the constitution of 1780. Despite optimistic expectations for major constitutional reform, an assortment of conservatives, led by a highly sophisticated Federalist Party machine, outwitted the forces of reform at the convention, and little significant change was effected. Power remained centralized in the east, with Boston serving as its epicenter. Although the state constitutional convention proved a great victory for the Federalist establishment, in the early 1820s the party faced an angry populist insurgency fed up with the dictatorial leadership style of the Federalists. In Boston a third party, the Middling Interest, emerged that rejected the deferential nature of past politics and took up an activist stand for reform. In the mayoral election of 1822, the insurgency forced Federalist Party boss Harrison Gray Otis to bow out of the race and elected a Middling Interest candidate, thus marking the demise of the Federalist Party in Massachusetts. Although it still existed in name for a few more years, the party never regained its once dominant position in Massachusetts political life, thus signaling the advent of the Jacksonian Age and the Second Party System.
Bibliography
- Banner, James M., Jr.
To the Hartford Convention: The Federalist and the Origins of Politics in Massachusetts. New York: Knopf, 1970. - Brooke, John L.
The Heart of the Commonwealth: Society and Political Culture in Worchester County, Massachusetts, 1713–1861 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. - Brown, Richard D. and Jack Tager.
Massachusetts: A Concise History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. - Cayton, Andrew R. L.
"The Fragmentation of 'A Great Family': The Panic of 1819 and the Rise of the Middling Interest in Boston, 1818–1822," Journal of the Early Republic, 2 (Summer 1982), 143–167. - Clark, Christopher.
The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780–1860 Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. - Crocker, Matthew H.
The Magic of the Many: Josiah Quincy and the Rise of Mass Politics in Boston, 1800–1830. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. - Crocker, Matthew H.
"'The Siege of Boston is once more raised'": Municipal Politics and the Collapse of Federalism, 1821–1823," inMassachusetts Politics: Selected Essays, ed. Jack Tager, Martin Kaufman, and Michael F. Konig. Westfield, MA: Institute for Massachusetts Studies Press, 1998, pp. 52–71. - Dalzell, Robert F., Jr.
Enterprising Elite, The Boston Associates and the World They Made. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. - Fisher, David Hackett.
The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965. - Formisano, Ronald P.
The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. - Handlin, Oscar and Mary Flug Handlin.
Commonwealth: Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy, 1774–1861, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969. - Hartford, William F.
Money, Morals, and Politics: Massachusetts in the Age of the Boston Associates. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001. - McCaughey, Robert A.
Josiah Quincy, 1772–1864: The Last Federalist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974. - Morison, Samuel Eliot.
Harrison Gray Otis, 1765–1848: The Urbane Federalist. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. - Morison, Samuel Eliot.
The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783–1860. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. - Peterson, Merrill D., ed.
Democracy, Liberty, and Property: The State Constitutional Conventions of the 1820's. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966. - Sheidley, Harlow W.
Sectional Nationalism: Massachusetts Conservative Leaders and the Transformation of America, 1815–1836. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. - Smith, Page.
John Adams: 1784–1826, Vol. II. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962. - Story, Ronald.
Harvard and the Boston Upper Class: The Forging of an Aristocracy, 1800–1870 Middletown, CN: Wesleyan University Press, 1980. - Wilkie, Richard W. and Jack Tager, eds.
Historical Atlas of Massachusetts. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.