American Democracy: The View From Scotland, 1776–1832

Abstract

The American democratic model was utilized by Scottish reformers and conservatives who saw in American events a confirmation of their own ideas and hopes. The ideals articulated by the American Revolution and the political institutions created in the new nation were analyzed as matters that impinged on the deepest commitments of Scottish intellectuals. Conservatives perceived America as a threat to the stability and continuance of British political tradition, which they saw as dependent upon the preservation of Scotland's distinctive national past. The American experience was significant to reformers of all persuasions because it invested their discursive thought with a reality it had not known before. Yet American principles and precepts were not determinative, but rather were used to convey certain carefully selected ideas. As Adam Ferguson, one of Scotland's brightest enlightenment minds, noted, “If nations actually borrow from their neighbors, they probably borrow only what they are nearly in a condition to have invented themselves.” America was useful to Scottish political thinkers because Britain was ready to “invent” her own political forms.The differences that divided Scotland's most articulate political writers were fundamental. The conservatives firmly believed that man's brutish nature required restraints, an established church, a balanced hierarchical social-political order, and stability. Radical Scots argued that with freedom and democratic institutions society would be humane and prosperous. Reformers spoke out against the worst social evils: they advocated Catholic emancipation, abolition of the slave trade, an end to flogging in the army and navy, prison reform and, in 1832, the extension of the franchise to the middle class.