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Subject: H-Law Review Rhoden on Gutzman, _Virginia's American
Revolution_

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (May 2008)

Kevin R. C. Gutzman. _Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to
Republic, 1776-1840_. Lanham: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield,
2007. xii + 233 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $70.00 (cloth), ISBN
0-7391-2131-6; $28.95 (paper), ISBN 0-7391-2132-4.

Reviewed for H-Law by Nancy L. Rhoden, Department of History, University
of Western Ontario

Kevin R. C. Gutzman's careful study of Virginian state politics and
constitutional history from the American Revolution to the end of the
1830s deliberately rejects what he finds to be a nationalistic bias. The
dominance of Virginia in federal politics, and such notable Virginians
as George Washington, James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, and
Thomas Jefferson, to name the most obvious suspects, has understandably
attracted a lot of scholarly interest. Instead, Gutzman prefers to
examine issues from the viewpoint of the state and state-centered
politicians and intellectuals, and offers a valuable and, at times,
novel perspective. Virginians were, he finds, self-centered in their
strong conviction that the United States should mirror the qualities and
republican values of self-government found in the Old Dominion. This
"self-centeredness" expressed itself in Virginia's leading role in the
creation of the federal Constitution, but also in its campaigns against
the Constitution and subsequent criticisms of the federal government (p.
2).

_Virginia's American Revolution_ addresses a wide range of topics, from
perhaps the high point of its influence on revolutionary era views on
self-government in 1776 to the low point of the state's political
preeminence by the 1830s. Chapter 1 aptly traces the major
constitutional arguments about self-governance that were captured by
George Mason, Richard Bland, the House of Burgesses, and Jefferson, as
well as the state constitution of 1776 and the Declaration of Rights.
The implementation of the Revolution (1776-88), or specifically the
political, legal, and social reorganization required to embrace
republican principles, is the focus of the second chapter. This chapter
provides a good overview. Though his discussion concerning
disestablishment is less clear or comprehensive than the treatment of
other matters, Gutzman significantly highlights the variety of concerns
related to the West: the Pennsylvania border dispute, Kentucky as a
separate state, and East-West disputes over western internal
improvements. The Virginia ratification convention of 1788 is the
subject of the third chapter, as well as "the most persuasive of all
campaigns" against the federal Constitution (p. 3). Virginian opposition
to Federalism in the 1790s, as well as Virginia's Republican
understanding of the Alien and Sedition Acts and response with the
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 forms the core of chapter 4.
The last two chapters describe the breakdown of consensus among
Virginian Republicans during severe economic problems and attempts at
educational reform, and finally the escalation of internal political
stresses from 1815 to 1830, as revealed through reaction to the Missouri
Compromise and several legal cases (i.e., _Martin v. Hunter's Lessee_
[1816]; _McCulloch v. Maryland_ [1819]; and _Cohens v. Virginia_
[1821]). In these contests, Gutzman finds debate over the meaning of
self-government, the American Revolution's legacy, and Virginia's
future.

Gutzman asserts that "state identity dominated people's consciousness in
a way barely conceivable now," and that "state-level activity of those
years struck contemporaries as more important" (pp. x, 1). Both views
are helpful in balancing a nationalistic perspective, although it was
largely in reaction to specific federal policies that Virginian state
politicians or thinkers typically articulated their pro-state views.
Rather than proving (as the above quotation suggests) that one level of
the American Revolution, the state versus the nation, was more important
to contemporaries, Gutzman's work does reveal the interplay of federal
and state concerns that highlighted and encouraged expressions of state
allegiance and Virginian Republicanism. One might, however, also wonder
about the impact of local, community, or family matters on the
state-level discussions, particularly given Gutzman's recognition that
"local institutions--parishes with their vestries; county courts; and
militia units--were far more important than the House of Burgesses, the
Council, and the governor in the lives of common Virginians and members
of the gentry alike" (pp. 14-15). Additional exploration of local issues
(and whether state leaders embodied local popular opinion) might have
deepened this argument about the primacy of state political identity.

Although claiming that he is avoiding "a great man-centered approach,"
Gutzman instead turns state politicians, rather than federal ones, into
his great or leading characters (p. x). This approach does not
deliberately aim to capture popular opinion, but it does provide a keen
understanding for the political, constitutional, and legal views of
those Virginian Republicans who opposed the federal government in this
era. Many little-known state figures are prominently featured, and so
readers can become better acquainted with now relatively obscure
personalities like George Nicholas, Thomas Ritchie, and Spencer Roane.
John Taylor of Caroline gets particular attention and praise. Featured
in several chapters, Taylor's opinions are described as both "brilliant"
and influential (p. 117). Gutzman later asserts that Taylor was "once
again to become Virginia's favorite thinker in the last decade of his
life" (p. 171). Gutzman does a fine job describing and analyzing
Taylor's views, yet the extent of his authority among Virginians is
harder to demonstrate. Edmund Randolph apparently believed that
Virginian planters had fallen under Taylor's influence, but in his
concern over federal policies, did he shape as well as "share" popular
opinion (p. 117, 131n14)?

While this state-centered approach offers a worthwhile corrective, one
might still wonder if the inclusion of a more deliberate and thorough
treatment of prominent Virginian Federalists would have added to, rather
than detracted from, the author's overall considerations of Virginian
state identity. Consider Virginians like Washington or Marshall (who
Gutzman admits make only "fleeting appearances in this account");
through their highly influential roles in the national sphere, they
potentially contributed to the definition of the new Republic in a
manner consistent with or in opposition to the peculiarly "Virginian"
understanding that Gutzman emphasizes (p. 4). The presence of such
prominent Virginians in national offices may have perpetuated
state-centered Virginians' expectations that the United States could be
made, or remade, in Virginia's image. Might Virginians, whether
Federalists or Republicans, have agreed on that principle, if not the
actual characteristics to be emulated? If national issues and federal
policies were the context in which state discussions were occurring,
then would not the perspectives of prominent Federalist Virginians have
had an impact on the state-level discussions that are the main focus of
this study?

Washington's characterization by Gutzman is also somewhat troublesome
for its limitations. Noted as "the foremost lobbyist for connection of
the great Virginia waterways to the rivers of the west," evidence of his
Federalism, Washington is described as growing in the war years into an
identification "with America generally, not with Virginia specifically"
(pp. 51, 61). Given Washington's persistent and extensive ties to
Virginia and his retirement there during much of the (early national)
period under study herein, he may not have seen his federal duties as
inconsistent or in any way incompatible with his Virginian affections.
The "either/or" quality of Gutzman's characterization of state vs.
national identity seems an oversimplification. In Washington's case, the
one quoted passage from a letter to Patrick Henry does not seem
thoroughly convincing on this point. Gutzman also does not account for,
or mention, contrary interpretations (e.g., by Warren Hofstra in _George
Washington and the Virginia Backcountry_ [1998] and others) that might
seem to suggest that Washington's story and Virginia's story are
inextricably linked, at least in the colonial-revolutionary era and, one
may argue, potentially beyond. On balance, it is the Federalism of
Washington that accounts for his relative absence; Jefferson, another
famous Virginian significant to national politics, makes more frequent
appearances, given his state-centered philosophies.

Overall, this book has a traditional understanding of Virginia's
hierarchical society in prerevolutionary and revolutionary times, one
that accepts the idealistic and idyllic account of many contemporary
elites and some modern historians that deference of the lower classes to
their social betters ensured peaceful and harmonious relations between
people. Gutzman writes early in the book that "commoners evidently did
not resent gentry domination of Virginia politics and society" and
common participation in events "made the yoke of gentry domination
light" (p. 15). On Virginian politics, he comments, "Men knew their
place, and they generally stayed in it" (p. 92). In discussing Edmund
Pendleton, he remarks, "The fealty to the House of Hanover and the easy
acceptance of hierarchy that had long been strong elements of
Virginians' mental makeup died hard in him" (p. 93). This interpretation
of elite hegemony and lower-class obedience owes a lot to historians
Charles Sydnor and Rhys Isaac, the latter of whom is included in the
bibliography, but Gutzman does not appear to consider more recent
literature (e.g., works by Woody Holton or Michael McDonnell) that
suggests that deference, even in Virginia, had its limits and that
obedience of the lower classes was not at all secure, particularly
during the Revolutionary War.[1] Gutzman's chronological focus from 1776
forward might have steered him away from many colonial secondary
materials, like Richard R. Beeman's worthwhile analysis that argued that
"the conduct as well as the self-conception of Virginia's political
ruling class" in the eighteenth century revealed a "picture that ...
falls substantially short of the deferential ideal."[2] These
reinterpretations of Virginian society, one might claim, are peripheral
to Gutzman's mainly constitutional, legal, and political history. Still,
they have serious implications for his arguments on elite self-identity.
Did leading Virginians in the early Republic expect deference, if it had
long been seen as functionally precarious, or were they already well
practiced in and experienced with alternative leadership methods and
suppositions?

This study is a profoundly political and constitutional one, though it
appropriately acknowledges the significance of social and religious
changes in this period. Passages comment on religious disestablishment
and property law transformations, particularly the ending of
primogeniture and entail. Gutzman also considers briefly those early
republican moments when Virginians debated seriously on slavery. While
such social and racial considerations are not among the strongest
features of this book, these issues do fully warrant inclusion for they
converged with related arguments about sovereignty, self-government, and
the relationship between state and federal governments that concerned
state-oriented Virginians of this era. Instead, this book is far more
effective and innovative in its consideration of the meaning of
self-government, especially those constitutional, political, and legal
arguments that persisted, Gutzman finds, from the imperial crisis of the
1760s throughout the first decades of the early Republic. In examining
the ideas of Virginia's leading men in state affairs, Gutzman displays a
detailed, even at times sympathetic (though not uncritical)
understanding that many readers should find particularly worthwhile.

Notes

[1]. Woody Holton, _Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the
Making of the American Revolution in Virginia_ (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1999) does not appear in Gutzman's
bibliography, although that would appear to be an error since it is
cited on a related point page 16 and in note 47 on page 38.

[2]. Richard R. Beeman, _The Varieties of Political Experience in
Eighteenth-Century America_ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2004), 35.

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Michael J. Pfeifer
Book Review Editor, H-Law
Associate Professor of History
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, C

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