Book Review

Canada and the United States

This volume addresses several central questions in early North American history: what role did ideology play in moving the colonies toward revolution, and what factors propelled South Carolina toward confrontation and secession in the mid-ninteenth century? Rebecca Starr suggests that the Carolina elite's exposure to interest-group lobbying shaped both these developments. Lobbying encouraged a view of the state as composed of diverse interests rather than individuals, an emphasis on harmony within the group, and a willingness to provoke confrontation with outsiders when persuasion failed.

1

Several factors pushed South Carolina leaders in this direction. More fully than other colonial elites, they embraced the commercial world and welcomed individual merchants within their ranks. Moreover, by the mid-eighteenth century, they had collaborated repeatedly in transatlantic efforts to lobby imperial authorities in England. During the 1760s and 1770s, several Carolinians gained greater familiarity with British practices through involvement in Bristol merchants' efforts to shape the colonial policies of the home government. In Bristol and London, men with Carolina connections joined in measures that attempted to influence electoral politics as well as incumbent officials and that moved beyond the pursuit of practical commercial interests to the quest for broader political objectives. Tellingly, they did not align themselves with the followers of John Wilkes and the earl of Chatham who sought radical changes in English government and who were closely associated with the country philosophy. Instead, they worked with the Rockingham Whigs, who supported more modest reforms that did not challenge the established structures of power and influence. The Carolinian reluctance to embrace independence after the American Revolution began reflected this pragmatic and conservative faith in the politics of interest rather than ideology.

. . .