From the formation of the first institutions of representative
government and the use of slavery in the seventeenth century
through the American Revolution, the Civil War, the civil rights
movement, and into the twenty-first century, Virginia's history has
been marked by obstacles to democratic change. In The Grandees of
Government, Brent Tarter offers an extended commentary based in
primary sources on how these undemocratic institutions and ideas
arose, and how they were both perpetuated and challenged.
Although much literature on American republicanism focuses on
the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others,
Tarter reveals how their writings were in reality an expression of
federalism, not of republican government. Within Virginia,
Jefferson, Madison, and others such as John Taylor of Caroline and
their contemporaries governed in ways that directly contradicted
their statements about representative--and limited-- government.
Even the democratic rhetoric of the American Revolution worked
surprisingly little immediate change in the political practices,
institutions, and culture of Virginia. The counterrevolution of the
1880s culminated in the Constitution of 1902 that disfranchised the
remainder of African Americans. Virginians who could vote reversed
the democratic reforms embodied in the constitutions of 1851, 1864,
and 1869, so that the antidemocratic Byrd organization could
dominate Virginia's public life for the first two-thirds of the
twentieth century.
Offering a thorough reevaluation of the interrelationship
between the words and actions of Virginia's political leaders, The
Grandees of Government provides an entirely new interpretation of
Virginia's political history.
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