UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Josiah Quincy and the Rise of Mass Politics in Boston, 1800–1830

Book Jacket: "The Magic of the Many" by M.H. Crocker

Matthew H. Crocker

The anatomy of a popular insurgency that ushered in a new age of American democracy

A study of partisan politics and class conflict in early nineteenth-century Boston, this book traces the history of a popular revolt against an entrenched ruling elite. Led by an unlikely populist, patrician Josiah Quincy, the rebellion against the reigning Federalist party not only altered the political landscape of Boston but also signaled the advent of the Jacksonian Age.

According to Matthew H. Crocker, Boston in the early republic was a city divided by opposing conceptions of democracy. While the Federalist elite struggled to uphold traditional notions of deference to authority, anti-Federalist insurgents rejected the idea of hierarchy and embraced a commitment to political equality. The challenge to the established order eventually coalesced around Josiah Quincy, who reversed his longstanding political loyalties and forged a popular coalition that broke the hegemony of the Federalist party. Elected in 1823 as Boston's second mayor, Quincy dominated the city's politics for nearly a decade before the people who had brought him to power turned against him.

In the end, Crocker argues, Quincy and the insurgency he led left an ambiguous legacy. On the one hand, as Boston's "Great Mayor," Quincy established himself as one of the nineteenth century's most powerful and dictatorial city executives. On the other, the populist movement that toppled the Federalist party in Boston presaged a new kind of American politics that would soon spread throughout the nation.

"Offers a novel and meticulously documented analysis of the compelling world of Boston politics in the years after the Hartford Convention. Crocker demonstrates that even in Boston, the Federalist grip on power proved much more tenuous as traditional deferential politics gave way. In Crocker's hands, the story of the Federalists' vigorous defense of their political standing in the face of numerous popular challenges provides a window onto the crucial relationship of class and politics in the early republic."

Peter S. Field, author of The Crisis of the Standing Order: Clerical
Intellectuals and Cultural Authority in Massachusetts, 1780–1833
"A well-written and well-researched book. In the rough and tumble of the Boston school of politics, Josiah Quincy was a master. Not until the days of James Michael Curley would this city see another like him—tart tongued, fiercely independent, and loved by the people."

William M. Fowler Jr., director, Massachusetts Historical Society

Matthew H. Crocker is visiting assistant professor of history at Keene State College.

American History / New England
240 pp., 2 illustrations
LC 99-15158
$40.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-222-4
1999

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