16. The Virginia Political Structure

The political structure of eighteenth-century Virginia featured the form of democracy (except of course for slaves and servants), prettifying the hard reality of oligarchic rule by the large planters. Accordingly, the hierarchy of officialdom was continuously permeated by the scions of a handful of leading planter families. As Professor Sydnor states:

At the peak of the official hierarchy were the members of the Council, who were chosen from the top families of the planter aristocracy... and they were in a favorable position, which they did not hesitate to use, to secure large grants of land. Good family helped to put a man in the Council; in turn membership in the Council enabled a man to improve the fortunes of his family. The advantages of the office were enjoyed by a rather small number of families interrelated by blood and marriage. One kind of relationship is indicated by the fact that only fifty-seven family names appear on a list of the ninety-one men appointed to the Council from 1680 to the Revolution. Nine family names account for almost a third of the Councillors during this century; and fourteen other names for almost another third. Five Councillors bore the name of Page; three each the names of Burwell, Byrd, Carter, Custis, Harrison, Lee, Ludwell and Wormley. *

A similar though necessarily broader social structure held for the distribution of the powerful appointive county offices headed by local county judges, who performed executive and legislative as well as judicial functions. It held, also, for the elective House of Burgesses, especially in the positions of power in that chamber. As Sydnor concludes:

Birth into one of the ruling families was almost essential to the making of a political career in eighteenth-century Virginia. A man inherited local prominence from his father or uncle in much the same way that he inherited land and slaves and social position. It is difficult to recall the name of any Virginian of the Revolutionary generation who rose to high office without the aid of influential relatives.*

In contrast to the other offices that were appointive, the powerful House of Burgesses was elected democratically by the citizens. But various not-too-subtle devices were employed to ensure oligarchic control of the results. For one thing, the voting, as was usual in that era, was by open oral declaration in front of the oligarchically selected sheriff and not by secret ballot. One common device was for the leading planters of the locality to be called upon first to declare their votes; the lesser folk of the county well understood their role. In addition, the sheriff, an appointee of the oligarchic county court, had complete power to set the dates and times of the poll and to open or close it at his whim. Furthermore, he had the power to decide which voter was properly qualified. As an extra lagniappe for the large planters, everyone could vote in any county in which he held a sufficient amount of land.

In addition to these devices, which wrapped the rule of oligarchy in a cloak of democratic procedure, there applied the general truths of the rule of oligarchy within the democratic form, such truths as were analyzed by the great political theorist Gaetano Mosca. As Mosca wrote:

In all societies... two classes of people appear—a class that rules and a class that is ruled. The first class always is the less numerous, performs all political functions, monopolizes power and enjoys the advantages that power brings, whereas the second, the more numerous class, is directed and controlled by the first in a manner that is now more or less legal, now more or less arbitrary and violent, and supplies the first, in appearance at least, with material means of subsistence and with the instrumentalities that are essential to the vitality of the political organism....

What happens in other forms of government—namely that an organized minority imposes its will on the disorganized majority—happens also and to perfection but under the appearances of the contrary under a representative system. When we say that the voters “choose” their representatives, we are using a language that is very inexact. The truth is that the representative has himself elected by the voters and if that phrase should seem too inflexible and too harsh to fit some cases, we might qualify it by saying that his friends have him elected....

The political mandate has been likened to the power of attorney that is familiar in private law. But in private relationships delegations of power and capacities always presuppose that the principal has the broadest freedom in choosing his representative. Now in practice in popular elections that freedom of choice, though complete theoretically, necessarily becomes null not to say ludicrous. If each voter gave his vote to the candidate of his heart we may be sure that in almost all cases the only result would be a wide scattering of votes. When very many wills are involved, choice is determined by the most various criteria, almost all of them subjective, and if such wills were not coordinated and organized it would be virtually impossible for them to coincide in the spontaneous choice of one individual. If his vote were to have any efficacy at all, therefore, each voter is forced to limit his choice to a very narrow field, in other words, to a choice among the two or three persons who have some chance of succeeding; and the only ones who have any chance of succeeding are those whose candidacies are championed by groups, by committees, by organized minorities.*

*Charles S. Sydnor, American Revolutionaries in the Making (New York: Collier Books, 1962), p. 63.

*Ibid., p. 74.

*Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1939), pp. 50, 154.