Sociological history of New England Town Meetings: The question of their deliberative culture

Historical New England Town Meetings have long had an important role in the collective imaginary as exemplary models of democratic participation. However, scholarly investigation has pointed to important limitations with respect to the democratic credentials of these assemblies. In this paper, we engage with recent theorising from deliberative democracy to provide an updated historical examination of the deliberative and democratic qualities of Town Meetings from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. We show that Town Meetings provided a space to engage in meaningful deliberation in the context of settlers’ communities. Nonetheless, through analyses using the notions of deliberative culture and group style, we show that these communities featured deep anti-democratic norms that curtailed the democratic potential of these assemblies.

Historical insight has been particularly important to the birth and development of the field of deliberative democracy. Besides Habermas’ (1989) seminal analysis of the transformation of the bourgeois public sphere, major contributions in the theory of deliberative democracy are based on historical investigation (Ackerman 1991, 2000; Gutmann & Thompson, 2009; Manin, 1997; Polletta, 2002). As Cossart, Talpin, and Keith (2012, p. 9) remark, in order to properly understand the development of citizen participation in political life it is necessary to view social facts in all their historical thickness. Although we cannot generally speak about deliberative democracy in a modern sense (Dryzek, 2002, p. 2), history is rich in ‘speeches and experiments valorising a public exchange of arguments of the assembled citizens, oriented towards the search for an agreement on the common good’ (Cossart et al., 2012, pp. 9–10). This is fully in line with the core idea of deliberative democracy, according to which legitimate decisions are arrived at not just through the mere aggregation of preferences, but also through substantial and inclusive exchange of ideas.

Despite its fruitfulness, and notable exceptions notwithstanding (Bacqué & Sintomer, 2011; Chambers, 2000; Cossart, 2013; Gustafson, 2011), historical investigation remains far from central in deliberative scholarship. Often, references to the past are ‘superficial and allusive’, as writes Charles Girard regarding references, certainly those most commonly made, to the assemblies of ancient Greece. It is often a matter of ‘legitimising a current paradigm [deliberative democracy] at low cost by presenting it as the distant heir of a respectable ancestor’: this is to idealise without careful study (Girard, 2011, p. 142). At the same time, recent work on participatory research has stressed the need for more historical work (Font, Della Porta, & Sintomer, 2012). This paper aims to show that historical analysis can be successfully coupled with recent theoretical developments to provide original insight into contemporary debates on deliberative democracy. One such debate concerns the way deliberation emerges and develops in different contexts, a theme that has come to prominence in the aftermath of the systemic turn in deliberative democracy (Parkinson & Mansbridge, 2012). Hence, we look at the case of historical New England Town Meetings and explore how democratic deliberation emerged in this context, which, as we shall see, was in many ways rather inhospitable to the establishment of deliberative and democratic norms. In particular, our analysis of historical New England Town Meetings highlights how cultural aspects greatly affect the democratic qualities of these forums. As illustrated in this introduction, we mainly explore the role of culture through the notions of ‘group style’ and ‘deliberative culture’.

Town meeting-based institutions certainly occupy an important place in the political imaginary. Along with the city government of ancient Athens – a parallel that one can find in various writings of different types and epochs (Bryan, 2004, pp. 1–13; Dwight, 1821, p. 31; Tocqueville, 1835) – historical New England Town Meetings have traditionally been cited as one of the fullest and earliest realisations of the idea of democratic government (Emerson, 1835) and of deliberation at work (Fiske, 1904, p. 94). To the historian Kenneth Lockridge (1985, p. xi), the New England Town Meeting ‘is one of the myths out of which Americans’ conception of their history has been constructed’. Tocqueville, in the 1830s, in his famous study of the American political system, Democracy in America, marvelled at Town Meetings. For him, Town Meetings were true ‘schools of democracy’; they contributed to his view that local participation is a key condition for developing a virtuous citizenship, where all community members are concerned with the general interest and are aware of their responsibilities (Tocqueville, 1835; see also Caeser, 2011; Gannett, 2003; Robinson, 2011, pp. 3–6). For Henry Thoreau (1973), the town meeting institution was ‘the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States’. To be sure, commentary on Town Meetings has not always been enthusiastic. However, nowadays the great debate on deliberative and participatory democracy has once again worked to position the Town Meeting as a symbol of democratic deliberation (Fishkin, 2011; Gastil & Keith, 2005; Goodin, 2012, p. 265; Shane, 2004, p. 72). As Berry, Portney and Thomson claim (1993, pp. 1, 9), although ‘participatory democracy may seem a hopelessly romantic notion, evoking Tocqueville’s small-town America and visions of quaint New England Town Meetings,’ arguably ‘the New England Town Meeting still captures our imagination as an example of true democracy in action.’

Our investigation suggests that, although Town Meetings were far from ideal models, they presented some remarkably deliberative and democratic features for their times. This occurred despite Town Meetings being hosted in contexts quite at odds with deliberative-democratic ideals, featuring, as they did, homogenous communities which did not prize diversity and where distinct religious and commercial views and interests had a critical influence on politics. Our analysis suggests that culture, interpreted here as ‘group style’ (Eliasoph & Lichterman, 2003), fostered the deliberative qualities of Town Meetings while reducing their democratic features. In our effort to shed light on this aspect, we follow Sass and Dryzek (2014), who argue that historical insight can shed light on the complex and largely unexplored relationship between culture and deliberation.

Sass and Dryzek refer specifically to the issue of ‘deliberative cultures’: how different cultural contexts affect the emergence of deliberative practices and how deliberation manifests itself in different cultures. In this paper, we do not develop a fully-fledged historical analysis of the role of culture in New England Town Meetings. Rather, our investigation is intended to offer a first step in this direction. In fact, having provided a critical understanding of these assemblies, we explore the role of just one cultural aspect, ‘group style’, in affecting the deliberative-democratic characteristics of these assemblies.

Our study is mainly based on a five-month period of fieldwork conducted at Harvard University (mainly Widener) Library, New York University (Bobst) Library, the New York Historical Society Library, the New York Public Library, the Boston Public Library, and the Historical Societies of Watertown, Bedford, Braintree, Dedham, Medford, Cambridge, Hatfield, Amherst, Brookline, Quincy, and Massachusetts. Our sources include town records, bylaws governing the holding of meetings, general textbooks on the same subject, warrants, circulars, writings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on Town Meetings, and a large bibliography of studies on the subject.

Although some towns, among which Dedham is a most notable example, have extensive records, the absence of a body of detailed records of Town Meeting proceedings represents an obvious difficulty in assessing their quality from a deliberative-democratic perspective. This problem would be insurmountable were the goal of this paper to assess the specific qualities of some given Town Meeting. However, the ambition of this paper lies elsewhere. This work seeks to identify some overall characteristics of Town Meetings from a deliberative-democratic standpoint on the basis of an in-depth investigation of a vast literature including original records of New England towns and contemporary and early secondary sources.

The following section introduces Town Meetings, assesses their quality, and identifies their main features from a deliberative-democratic perspective. Of course, we are aware that certain aspects might vary depending on the location and the size of the town, but we intend here to provide a general overview, which we hope will be useful for further research. The paper then focuses on a limited exploration of the culture characterising the context in which Town Meetings developed, adopting mainly the concept of ‘group style’. In the concluding section, we suggest that our investigation may contribute to reinforcing historical and cultural analysis in democratic scholarship in general and deliberative democracy in particular.

In order to understand the deliberative-democratic qualities of Town Meetings, this paper engages with the idea of deliberative capacity, according to which discussions can feature different degrees of authentic, inclusive, and consequential deliberation (see Dryzek, 2009). Deliberations are authentic to the extent that they are not affected by coercion, and induce reflection, display claims that are systematically connected to more general principles, and are characterised by an effort to communicate in ways ‘that others can accept’ (Dryzek, 2010, pp. 136–137). In this paper, we do not intend to assess historical Town Meetings against contemporary standards for high-quality deliberation. Thus, rather than ‘grading’ New England Town Meetings, we have the more modest ambition of developing a reasonable and theoretically informed account of the potential and limitations of these assemblies from a deliberative standpoint. ‘Inclusivity’ is especially important in assessing the democratic qualities of a deliberative process, which can be tested ‘for the degree to which they are inclusive of relevant interests and voices’ (Dryzek, 2009, p. 1385). Accordingly, the inclusivity of Town Meetings is related to their ability to accommodate different elements in their local communities.¹ Finally, consequentiality concerns the extent to which inclusive and substantial deliberative processes ‘have an impact’ or ‘somehow make a difference’ to social and political life (Dryzek, 2010, pp. 10, 137). Therefore, this paper also assesses the consequentiality of Town Meetings, in terms of their ability to produce effects on political decisions and influence social change in their communities.

The emergence of many Town Meetings in New England goes back to the time of these townships’ very foundation. For instance, as early as 1634, the founders of Dedham and Watertown gathered town assemblies to make decisions on local issues (Lockridge & Kreider, 1966, p. 550). As soon as a town was created, a meeting house was erected. It

Clearly, the host of references to Town Meetings as deliberative assemblies that can be found in early records does not entail that what occurred there is in line with what is generally meant by deliberation today. Records pre-date scholarly work on deliberative democracy and are not based on dedicated empirical analyses of the qualities of Town Meetings. Nonetheless, it appears undeniable that these meetings granted an important role to discussion among community members as a means to address political problems. ‘In New England (…) a vigorous public life existed in which leaders and citizens mutually discussed their common affairs openly and freely’ (Kotler, 1974, p. 91).

Thinking of Town Meetings as a genuine case of ‘talk-centric’ politics (see Bächtiger, Spörndli, Steenbergen, & Steiner, 2005) is nonetheless probably inaccurate. Voting, in fact, remained an important mechanism, though far from perfectly implemented (Syrett, 1964, pp. 362–364). It was through voting that disputes had to be resolved and it was through voting, after due discussion, that the meetings adopted their resolutions (De Wolf, 1890, p. 27). Certainly, deliberating and voting need not necessarily be in opposition. Deliberative democrats repeatedly stress that a core problem lies not in voting per se but in permitting a better relation between voting and deliberating in steering the life of political systems. According to recent deliberative scholarship at both the micro and the systemic level, non-deliberative politics may be not only justifiable but necessary to allow for high-quality deliberation (Mansbridge et al., 2012). The kernel of the problem, in the case of Town Meetings too, is whether quality deliberation occurred before voting (Goodin, 2008).

Town Meetings seem to have embodied some deliberative characteristics. First, participants were generally expected to present their views publicly in order to gain the support of the audience. Thus, Town Meetings were arguably meant to induce reflection in participants. Since Town Meetings were concerned with issues (whether public or private) relevant to the community at large, participants had to convince those with different interests as well. Proposals could not be justified only in terms of one’s own interests. In the context of Town Meetings, particular claims needed to be connected to more general principles (Brown, 1975, p. xii; Kotler, 1974, pp. 91, 95; Miller, 1999, pp. 11, 22, 43; Zuckerman, 1970, p. 71). However, appeals to higher principles could take the form of paternalism and act to strengthen social domination. In this regard, it seems to have mattered greatly whether appeals to higher principles could be connected to the good of the community or with religious dogmas or social norms (appeals to the Bible, for instance, seem frequent; see Zuckerman, 1970, p. 51). Arguably, while Town Meetings allowed the airing of dissent on certain issues, they seemed to offer little space for developing and expressing views deviating from the norm (Zuckerman, 1978). This issue is intimately related to the need for deliberative communication to be framed ‘in terms that others can accept’. At Town Meetings, it was the lower elements in the townships who had to conform to the social norms of the dominant groups. The former also had to engage in debate within the constraints of discourses that they were certainly not encouraged to challenge (Green & Pole, 1983; Pole, 1979). Clearly, this is problematic from the point of view of our enquiry, as dissent and contestation are important not only for societal deliberation (Sunstein, 2005) but also for democratic deliberation in the strict sense (Bächtiger, 2011).

What was the role of coercion in Town Meetings? Certainly, they were regulated by rather detailed guidelines and, while they could host quite turbulent sessions, overt coercion was discouraged (see Adams, Goodell, Chamberlain, & Channing, 1892, pp. 15–39; Copeland, 1892; De Wolf, 1890, p. 23; Metcalf, 1880, p. 545; The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1874 , p. 30). If the forms taken by these meetings seem to vary slightly from town to town, the same major rules of procedure and debate can be found in the bylaws regulating them.²

Town Meetings seem to have been ill-suited to counter more subtle forms of coercion in deliberation. Non-coercion, within the framework of communicative action and communicative rationality (Habermas, 1984), can be thought of as a ‘situation [that] should be free from deception, self-deception, strategic behavior, and domination through the exercise of power’ (Dryzek, 1990, p. 14). Though there is no clear evidence to assess the extent of deception during Town Meetings, it is apparent that they had few or no procedures in place to prevent domination by the elites, or economic dependency, affecting the debate. Indeed, seating arrangements, for instance, sometimes seemed deliberately laid out to make social distinction and influence within the group of deliberators clear to anyone attending. In the town of Mendon, a committee was chosen in 1699 in order ‘to seat the meeting house’: ‘the duty of this committee (…) was to assign the seats, (…) so that each family should readily find its allotted place’ (Metcalf, 1880, p. 135). In Springfield, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the selectmen or a special committee were regularly in charge of assigning the seats: ‘The rule followed was wordly condition and social importance’ (Green, 1886, pp. 129–131). In Murrayfield (a New England Town now called Chester), at a Town Meeting in 1773, it was decided ‘to seat the meeting house’: some persons or families were granted a special seat, in particular, those who had contributed financially to build the meeting house (see, for instance, Copeland, 1892, pp. 84–85; Green, 1886, p. 131; Metcalf, 1880, p. 135). The same effect may have been obtained when Town Meetings were hosted in the private residences of local notables (Hudson, 1889, p. 425). Nonetheless, these meetings strove to grant everyone equal formal opportunities to participate. For instance, rules governed the way one could speak; they aimed to preserve order in the assembly, for example, by avoiding situations in which someone interrupted a speaker without permission from the moderator. In the Rules and Orders Adopted for the Government of Town Meetings in Bedford in 1845, one can read, for instance, ‘When two or more persons happen to rise at once the moderator shall name the person who is first to speak, giving the preference to those persons who have not previously spoken on the subject then before the meeting;’ ‘Every person when about to speak shall rise and respectfully address the moderator, shall confine himself to the question under debate and avoid personality, and shall sit down when he has finished;’ and ‘No person rising to move a question shall proceed to speak until the motion has been distinctly stated to the meeting by the moderator, and no person speaking shall be interrupted by another but by rising up to call order.’ Quincy’s By-Laws (of 1876) states that ‘No person shall by indecent or disorderly conduct or by the use of profane, indecent, or insulting language in any public way, or place, annoy any person peaceably being or passing thereon’ (a rule that applies also to Town Meetings). Later, in 1910 (where the rules seem to derive from older by-laws which unfortunately have not been preserved by the Historical Society of the town), in Watertown:

Nonetheless, there remained ways to safeguard the privileges of the local elites, the seating arrangements being among them. In his study based on the town of Windham, Connecticut, from 1755 to 1786 – chosen as a case study ‘because its political, economic, and social structure appears to have been broadly representative of the towns in Eastern Connecticut during the eighteenth century’ – William F. Willingham shows that this town ‘presents a mixture of democratic and nondemocratic elements which has come to be called deference democracy’: ‘popular participation was limited and elite direction assured’ (see Willingham, 1973).

The dominant position of the local elites not only diminished the space for egalitarian reason-giving in the context of Town Meetings, it also restricted inclusivity in terms of the discourses and views that could be voiced. Not only were such meetings not representative in any substantial way, arguably they could also be taken to embody the shortcomings of direct democracy. Consequently, the model for future city government in America was intended to safeguard the deliberative nature of Town Meetings by replacing their direct and participatory aspects with a framework of representation through electoral competition (see Lord, 1919; Smith, 1955). Following this choice, deliberation was intentionally pursued at a distance from participatory- and direct-democracy ideals, and the prospect of deliberation was tied to the representative model and its adversarial and aggregation logics.³

When we observe Town Meetings’ inclusivity in terms of the background of actual participants, we see that a tension emerges between efforts to enfranchise the community as a whole, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a complex machinery for excluding some elements from any actual power (Pole, 1957). The case of women is one of the most obvious forms of exclusion. Although women could generally participate and vote on school boards, they were systematically excluded from Town Meetings (De Wolf, 1890, p. 16). In addition, ‘paupers’, ‘minors, idiots, women, lunatics, and aliens are excluded from taking part in the government either as voters or as officers’ (De Wolf, 1890, p. 15). Certainly, Town Meetings were not meant for indigenous populations, which indeed were not members of the settlers’ communities. To a considerable degree exclusion also affected the male population, as meetings open to the entire adult male population residing in the settlements were an exception to the norm. Generally, there were conditions to be met in order to be allowed to participate in Town Meetings, and further restrictions were in place for the right to vote (De Wolf, 1890, p. 16). Only some of the ‘Inhabitants’ were ‘Qualified to vote’ (Watertown Records, 1900 , p. 79) or were ‘Legal Voters’ (Hanover Records, 1905, p. 52). At a minimum the ability to read (the Constitution) and write (one’s name) were demanded of any voter, as well as being 21 years of age and a tax-payer (De Wolf, 1890, pp. 15–16).

Although criteria for participation varied greatly, residency, religious views, and the ownership of property were (individually or in combination) key factors in determining whether one could attend Town Meetings, whether one could vote and what office one could hold (Adams et al., 1892, pp. 42–44; Breen, 1970; Syrett, 1964, pp. 359–362). An evolving terminology identifies ‘freemen’, ‘residents’, ‘inhabitants’, ‘townsmen’, or ‘members of the church’ as different members of the community entitled (and generally expected) to participate (Breen, 1970). Historians have long debated the significance of these categories in modulating participation in Town Meetings. To Adams et al. (1892, p. 19), ‘freemen’, ‘townsmen’, and ‘inhabitants’ essentially referred to property-owners, and the admission of new inhabitants was resisted, as they were not welcome to ‘share their corporate privileges’ (Adams et al. 1892, 33). In the same volume, however, this view is contrasted with an account depicting towns as agricultural communities where political arrangements, including Town Meetings, derived from English customs and imposed few restrictions on participation on the basis of wealth (Adams et al., 1892, pp. 77–90). In his panegyric on the development of American towns, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1835, p. 7) claims that as early as 1641 ‘every man – freeman or not –inhabitant or not – might introduce any business into public meeting.’ Selectmen were responsible for calling Town Meetings (De Wolf, 1890, p. 11). For instance, in Sudbury’s Town Meeting (p. 457), it was ‘voted and ordered’ that ‘the selectmen shall appoint every year for the time & [sic] seasonably warn the Town meeting.’ However, as reported, for instance, in the Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (1874, p. 30), ‘ten or more of the freeholders of any town’ had the right to request selectmen to call for a Town Meeting on any issue. Finally, it should be borne in mind that practical impediments to attendance were significant. Well into the second half of the eighteenth century, the populations of the settlements concerned were in a constant struggle for survival. Attendance at meetings was especially difficult for those who were worse off, and who, moreover, were not always informed of the calls for meetings (see Lord, 1919, p. 69; Syrett, 1964, pp. 355–359). Yet measures were sometimes taken to counter low attendance, such as imposing a fine on those who did not attend (see, for instance, Metcalf, 1880, p. 71).

Selection criteria also existed with regard to who could occupy different roles. Anyone deemed capable could be nominated as an officer for some specific function such as fence viewer, field driver, measurer of wood and bark, and so on. On the other hand, officers to be ‘chosen by ballot’ included more important roles such as assessor, collector of taxes, health officer, overseer of the poor, road commissioner, treasurer, and of course moderator, clerks and selectmen (De Wolf, 1890, pp. 68–70). Town Meetings also retained the power to appoint special committees to consider special matters (for instance, Copeland, 1892, pp. 133–136). A well-respected personality would be generally selected as Meeting moderator. ‘The moderator is a political leader (…): as the agent of Town Meeting he appoints a number of committees authorized by it’ (Smith, 1955, p. 395). Finally, the board of selectmen was also normally composed of notables. Although access to this body was, over time, granted to an increasingly large part of the population, control over the board was usually maintained by local elites. Once elected (De Wolf, 1890, p. 30), notables were generally confirmed each year (Smith, 1955). Depending on the local rules, selectmen could appoint over 40 types of officers (from ‘weighers of beef’ and watchmen to police officers) (De Wolf, 1890, p. 71). Overall, although possibly for partly practical reasons, the board of selectmen was a markedly more exclusive body than were Town Meetings.

Understanding the board of selectmen is also important to the discussion of the meetings’ consequentiality. Town Meetings were steadily integrated into the local political and legislative landscape. What was discussed and voted upon affected the community in ways that most modern-day deliberative assemblies could not dream of. However, the allocation of prerogatives between the Meetings and the boards of selectmen varied greatly over time and in different communities. At one extreme, we find selectmen boards with power over all the political business of the community, with Town Meetings relegated to yearly events in charge of providing overall directions. At the opposite end stand very powerful Town Meetings with selectmen boards exclusively addressing minor, routine issues (see, for instance, Lockridge & Kreider, 1966). Arguably, the limited capacity of deliberative-democratic politics to steer the lives of these communities was jeopardised when the authority of the boards of selectmen superceded that of Town Meetings.

Overall, therefore, while Town Meetings featured some valuable deliberative-democratic characteristics, they were also affected by important limitations. Some fundamental features of Town Meetings from a deliberative-democratic standpoint emerge from the analysis above. In particular, they promoted community assembly as an effective means for arriving at political decisions; provided space for discursive engagement, albeit constrained by social hierarchies; manifested inclusive tendencies, albeit curtailed by exclusionary measures; and sought to balance community discussion and centralisation of powers.

In line with the Habermas notion of deliberative democracy (1984, 1989), it may be posited that an ideal context for the practice of deliberative-democratic engagement is one that allows for non-coercive and consequential exchange of high-quality arguments among a varied set of actors. As we have seen, however, the context in which Town Meetings arose and developed is substantially different from this ideal picture. We now investigate how culture played a role in shaping the deliberative and democratic strengths and weaknesses of these meetings. In particular, we focus on the concept of ‘group style’.

The study of culture and its effects on political processes presents specific challenges. According to Sass and Dryzek (2014, pp. 6–7), in political studies culture is often used as a residual category rather than a matter deserving of conceptual and methodological clarity (see also Lane, 1992; Johnson, 2003). As already mentioned, in this study we utilise just one particular concept of relevance to the discussion on ‘deliberative cultures’, that of ‘group style’. This latter concept, originally developed to understand how culture works in everyday interaction, refers to the idea that ‘actors make meaning with collective representations, and they do so in a way that usually complements the meaningful, shared ground for interaction,’ their group style (Eliasoph & Lichterman, 2003, p. 737). Group style is composed of assumptions put into practice in three different respects: ‘group boundaries’, ‘what the group’s relationship (imagined and real) to the wider world should be’; ‘group bonds’, ‘what members’ mutual responsibilities should be’; and ‘speech norms’, ‘what appropriate speech is’ (2003, p. 739). For Eliasoph and Lichterman, group styles ‘are elements of culture’ and ‘shared across many groups’ (2003, p. 737). These attitudes represent a manifestation of the ‘partly tacit rules and norms’ which play a crucial role in group interactions (Della Porta & Rucht, 2013, p. 13) and that Polletta (2012, pp. 49–51) refers to as ‘institutional norms’.

Interestingly, ‘group style’ has been employed by a number of scholars observing the way in which cultural features affect the rise of deliberative and participatory practices (Felicetti, 2016; Haug & Rucht, 2013; Haug, Rucht, & Teune, 2013; Polletta, 2012). ‘Group style’ is directly referred to by Sass and Dryzek (2014, p. 17) in their discussion on ‘deliberative cultures’ as a valuable concept in investigating some of the ways in which culture affects deliberative practice. Though we certainly cannot claim that ‘group style’ captures all aspects of ‘deliberative cultures’, it is safe to argue that it represents a relevant component. We believe that our approach is not only valuable in that it represents a fundamental first step in understanding the role of culture in New England Town Meetings, upon which future researchers may build, but is also one that is justified by the sources of our study. In fact, we deliberately refrain from adopting general notions of political culture that hinge on individual values, norms, and orientations. While this approach certainly has an important place in research (Almond, 1956; Badie, 1986; Pye & Verba, 1969), it tends to rely on direct investigation of a vast array of primary sources, which is not the type of analysis we set out to perform here. Rather, we build on an extensive investigation of secondary data from archival sources, which can give us some insight into interesting, and previously overlooked, public characteristics of New England Town Meetings, such as shared bonds, boundaries, and speech norms.

Thus, in order to understand the emergence of Town Meetings in New England settlements we investigate some key aspects that stand out as central in our historical analysis of settlers’ culture. These include the above-mentioned ‘group boundaries’ concerning the relevance of social unity and the role of religion in the political life of the towns; ‘group bonds’ regarding the importance of consensus, and ‘speech norms’ about social deference (see Eliasoph & Lichterman, 2003).⁴

Unity (indeed, unanimity) is emphasised in nearly all Town Meeting reports. ‘It is ordered by one consent’ (1642), for instance, can frequently be read in the records of the town of Braintree (Braintree Town Records, 1886). In the records of Sudbury, which refer to decisions by the Town Meeting with formulas such as: ‘it is ordered by the town … ’ (p. 147) ‘it is ordered and agreed … ’, or ‘it is agreed by general consent of townsmen … ’ (Sudbury Town Records, 1903 ). In Watertown: ‘Agreed by the consent of the Freemen’ (1634) … (Historical Society, 1894 ). In Cambridge: ‘It is agreed that … ’ (1633). In Dorchester: ‘this year they agreed upon’ (1645) … (Blake, ed. 1846). In Braintree: ‘It was ordered by one consent’ (1642), ‘it is agreed and ordered that’ (1652).

Exceptions, implying that the majority – that is, not all the participants – agreed, can be found occasionally: ‘At a publike towne meeting it was voted and consented to by the major vote; that … ’ (Braintree Town Records, 1674). Some occurrences of debates are also mentioned, but vary rarely. In Dedham, for instance, in 1672: ‘At a generall meeting of the inhabitace: after much debate it was propouded to the Towne whither thay would build or erect a new meetinge house.’ Very infrequently, in cases where unanimity does not exist – or is not alleged – it happens that the names of people who disagree are mentioned in the town records. But this is more a sign of the exceptional nature of discord than a proof that attention is paid to the plurality of opinions. Overall, the general consensus that is combined with most decisions that were made and transcribed in the town records suggests that we are dealing with unified social communities. This, at least, is what is shown publicly.

If we change sources, and use for example the memoirs of some of the participants (for instance, the journal of Thomas Hodgkin, quoted in Hodgkin, 2008), things can seem different. In fact, as several authors have noticed, a significantly lower level of unity emerges.

‘Towns acted often as units – ideally, as unified political moral communities’ (Formisiano, 1983, p. 25). Importantly, community values, those of uniformity and consensus, were articulated most often in times of stress and conflict, that is, when an issue ‘threatened the internal cohesion of the community’ (Henretta, 1971, p. 395). ‘Politics without parties’, in a sense (Hall, 1972). Memoirs such as those of town clerks, rather than suggesting deliberate decisions to hide the internal divisions of the community identified within the town, testify to an element of the political culture surrounding Town Meetings which gives high priority to unity and consensus. In the town records, meetings are presented as homogeneous bodies, where a shared public interest is sought and obtained, and narrow individual interests transcended. New England towns appear to function as single organic wholes.

Where does this ‘sense of an undivided town interest’ (Zuckerman, 1978) come from? The population of New England is largely constituted at this time of Puritan settlers who created colonies there that had strong ethical and spiritual goals.⁵ When Archbishop William Laud was chosen by Charles I to head the Church of England, he dismissed hundreds of Puritan ministers. As a consequence, thousands of Puritans fled to America. The year 1630 marks the beginning of the exodus, with the departure of 900 Puritans led by John Winthrop – and the next decade about 10,000 Puritans who migrated to the colony. Winthrop considered England to be morally corrupted. He told the migrants, in his sermon ‘A Model of Christian Charity’: ‘We must consider that we shall be a City upon a Hill,’⁶ envisioning a reformed Christian society (Terchek & Conte, eds., 2000; see also Brener, 2004). With his associates, he created the Massachusetts Bay Colony, of which Boston represented the main centre. Their joint corporation – the General Court of shareholders – was transformed into a representative political system. There was a governor, a council and an assembly. As already suggested in the first part of this article, they reserved for church members the right to vote or to hold office. It can thus be said that the Town Meetings were developed in an environment where religion and politics were closely linked.

The importance of religious factors in influencing political life in New England cannot be overstated. Adams’ (1921) work adopts this attitude and discusses the affirmation and overcoming of religion-based oligarchy in New England. Several authors have focused on the question of the influence of religion on town politics and meetings (Green, 1886, pp. 16–18; Hudson, 1889, pp. 84–85). ‘Loyalty and love for the community, unmistakably Puritan values, preclude a universal democracy. (…) As repellent as some of their ideas and practices may seem, the Puritans made an important contribution to the democratic tradition in American political thought,’ writes Miller (1999, pp. 22–23). The Puritans would value the public good beyond private interests. Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, pointed out that Puritanism was not just a religious doctrine but resonated in several respects with republican and democratic views (see Kessler, 1992).⁷ The New England Puritans, indeed, criticised the Anglican and Catholic churches as too centralised. They eliminated bishops in order to place power in the hands of ordinary church members. This does not mean that they believed in freedom of speech and individual rights or interests, or that they valorised democracy. But, ‘unlike modern liberals, the Puritans attributed to the public realm a sense of purpose and mission that required the active support of its citizens’ (Miller, 1999, p. 43).⁸

For Zuckerman (1970), the spirit of the founders of the Massachusetts colony was not based on the idea of inclusion. The idea of inclusion does not stem from Puritan theology or thought. It is simply the context that led to it: it was necessary to use inclusion in order to preserve public order. Consensus was to govern Massachusetts communities: harmony was needed. But he stresses that ‘government by consent (…) did not imply democracy’ and that ‘neither conflict, dissent, nor any structured pluralism ever obtained legitimacy in the towns of the Bay before the Revolution’ (Zuckerman, 1978, p. 40). From this perspective, the Town Meeting is an instrument of authority, giving institutional expression to the peace imperative. Town Meetings are places where consensus and social conformity are produced. Their prime purpose was not ‘the provision of a neutral battleground for the clash of contending parties or interest groups’. ‘The Town Meeting (…) aimed at unanimity. Its function was the agreement or, more often, the endorsement of agreements already arranged, and it existed for accommodation, not disputation’ (Zuckerman, 1978, p. 46). This was made possible because the towns were characterised by ethnic and cultural homogeneity. People shared common moral and economic ideas as well as practices.

It has also to be underlined that the utopia of the settlers who created the Town Meetings was largely a ‘peasant’ one. In his study of the case of Dedham, Lockridge (1985, p. 18) writes:

David Hall has underlined the importance of British norms. Ownership of land was widely distributed at this time (even if this did not imply equality of status). Inhabitants managed to build a group of property-owners, distributing the land between the heads of the families. In this way, a society was built where independent households, ordinary farmers, had equal power in the Town Meeting.

In this cultural system, what are the roles of social deference, aristocracy or oligarchy? Here a substantial divide seems to exist among historians. Historians like Lockridge (1985) or Waters (1968) have emphasised the importance of deference and oligarchy in New England society of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This position has more recently been taken by Thompson (2001, p. 37) too. On the other hand, in his impressive study, Thompson (2001) shows that New England politics should not be understood only in terms of the remarkable power of merchant aristocracy. According to him, if the issue of democracy was fundamental in the struggle for independence, this is not because democracy was lacking within New England communities themselves. Rather, democratic ideas were employed as a tool against the wishes of Britain to regain control over the colony of Massachusetts. This view seems in line with earlier works. For instance, Brown, writing about Samuel Adams – a leader of the Revolution who has been called ‘the man of the Town Meetings’ (Hosmer, 1884) – reports that ‘Adams was known for his anti-British views, not for being opposed to upper classes in America’ (Brown, 1955, p. 223). Indeed, for him, ‘the trouble in Massachusetts had nothing to do with an internal revolution for more democracy’ (Brown, 1955, p. 227). Nonetheless, in the Town Meetings, elected officials were accountable to the people; and if they were not, they were fired, as had happened for instance with townsmen who were changed when the population was dissatisfied with their job. People had seen enough everyday autocracy in the England of Charles I to be ever alert to the signs of executive tyranny. For Brown, we are dealing with a sovereignty of the people, a ‘middle-class democracy’. The same perspective is shared by other authors (see for instance Kotler, 1974).

Overall, some main elements of the settlers’ group style at work in the context of New England Town Meetings can be identified from this analysis. Clear group boundaries seem to emerge. In particular, settlers seem concerned with maintaining social unity and promoting the central role of religion in political life. Moreover, in terms of group bonds, settlers seem concerned with using Town Meeting politics as means to seek a harmonious political order in the community, that is, one where the distance between the bottom and the top of the society is not too wide and where consensus is encouraged, against the overt manifestation of dissent. Finally, and relatedly, speech norms during meetings encourage social deference, stifling the emergence of views endangering the constituted social and economic order.

Town Meetings were a fundamental device in the political life of New England communities. They allowed for the inclusion of fundamental components of local communities, that is, mainly, the large category of property-owners. Such inclusion enabled the nascent communities to be particularly sensitive to challenges as they emerged and became capable of having a sense of and control over the local situation. Participants voiced their pressing concerns in Town Meetings and directly contributed to devising workable solutions accepted by key elements in the communities. In doing so, they developed a sense of the structures and actors active in the community. Town Meetings performed a fundamental epistemic, practical, and socialising function.

At the same time, the use of an assemblary form of political participation was instrumental to pursuing some of the values of settlers. In particular, in the context of Town Meetings, settlers affirmed unanimity and consensus, much more so than what would have been the case with voting only. Indeed, having voting procedures where everyone counted as one might have promoted egalitarian principles much more firmly than they in fact were. In these assemblies, conservative cultural norms tended to be systematically reaffirmed: the rule of ‘one man, one vote’ was applied, but the discussions preceding the vote tended to build a consensus around shared values. While scholarship is divided on the extent of the rule of local oligarchies, it appears that if Town Meetings did not reinforce these oligarchies, they certainly did not threaten them in a substantial or radical way. Although Town Meetings allowed for the participation of large components of the population they did not represent a serious threat to social hierarchies. Nor did they appear to call into question the exclusionary nature of the settlements’ political system. In this sense, the politics of Town Meetings did not run against the boundaries established by the settlers’ religious and political views. This seems to be the case with regard to both the unquestionability of exclusionary norms and hierarchies and the effort to make decisions that took into account the interests of whole communities. Finally, Town Meetings provided a unique means to establish continuity between the domain of religion and that of politics, with the latter being generally in a subordinate position.

Our study finds that the concept of group style provides a powerful resource for understanding Town Meetings’ qualities and functions from a deliberative-democratic standpoint. Group boundaries and bonds as well as speech norms affected the development of what appear to be their most desirable qualities from a deliberative perspective – their ability to offer a somewhat inclusive space for discursive engagement as an effective means to steer the political life of the community. At the same time, the settlers’ group style hindered the democratic potential of Town Meetings. In that context, the formal and informal exclusion of entire sectors of New England communities was affirmed by the settlers. Furthermore, in these assemblies norms and imbalances of power favouring the better-off were affirmed, rather than challenged.

This study has offered a critical understanding of the deliberative-democratic qualities of Town Meetings. By employing the idea of ‘group style’, it has also provided a first step towards an understanding of how the settlers’ political culture shaped the development of New England Town Meetings. Further research is needed not only to better grasp the role played by culture in the establishment and development of these meetings but also to shed light on how culture affects the prospect of democratic deliberation in general, as the recent research agenda on deliberative cultures sets out to do. As we have shown, historical analysis can offer an important source of reflection that democratic scholars should strive to address more systematically than has been done thus far.

We would like to express our gratitude to Jane Mansbridge for her very encouraging and extremely helpful comments on an early draft of this paper. We also would like to thank all those who participated in the ‘Beyond the mandate’ section of the 2015 French Political Science Association Meeting, for their very useful feed-back on our research.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.