Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [228]
What was more, following Hamilton’s lead, conservative Whigs and former Tories had begun to acknowledge that the route to public office now ran through a mobilized, demanding electorate. Gone forever were the days when men of wealth and social position could presume the deference or indifference of voters: political power henceforth required organization, a readiness to curry support among ordinary people, and a willingness to abide by what happened at the polls. That Hamilton and company had virtually driven the Clintonians out of town by 1787 or 1788 only clinched the point. Public life in New York would never be the same.
Some things, on the other hand, did not change, and the outer limits of the Revolution Settlement were defined by its failure to address issues of gender and race.
DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY
For New York women, as women, the Revolution was an ambiguous experience. On the one hand, they had helped mobilize resistance to Britain and made often crucial contributions to the war effort—spying on the enemy, collecting money and clothing and provisions for the army, making bandages and ammunition, tending the wounded, carrying water and powder during battle, on occasion fighting alongside regular troops (women were active on the Tory side too, but much less so). The state legislature acknowledged the extent of their involvement when it allowed that women could be convicted of treason—an unprecedented admission that they had the capacity to choose their own political allegiances, independently of their husbands and fathers. None of this, on the other hand, led to fundamental changes in the gender system itself—the different roles and rights assigned to men and women—which survived the conflict with Britain unchanged, even strengthened.
Most important, republicanism put new emphasis on defining the right to participate in politics and government as an attribute of property. It was axiomatic among male revolutionaries that republics were vulnerable to persons with the wealth, power, and influence to make others do their bidding. This meant, among other things, that voters as well as officeholders must possess sufficient property to be politically independent—free, that is, to discern and serve the public good without fear for their livelihoods.
By the same token, people having little or no property should be disqualified from taking part in public affairs because they were too easily led, swayed, and dominated. Inasmuch as New York law continued to follow the doctrine of “coverture,” which didn’t allow women to hold property in their own names, it seemed more obvious than ever (to men) that women, like children and slaves, had no right to vote, much less hold office. Thus, while colonial authorities sometimes permitted well-to-do widows to cast ballots in municipal and provincial elections, that practice would not survive the Revolution. In fact, New York became the first state to officially disfranchise women when the constitution of 1777 specifically defined the electorate as male. No matter the extent of their contributions to the struggle against Britain: republican women were destined by republican men to be passive, second-class citizens.
Then, too, what conventional male wisdom considered to be the inherent foibles of women—their impulsiveness, their love of luxury and self-indulgence, their limited powers of reason—only made it more apparent that they deserved no role in republican politics and government. Not surprisingly, the new republic’s ideal citizen was unfailingly identified by male attributes and duties: his preparedness to take up arms in defense of the state, his authority as the head of a household of dependents, his pride as an autonomous producer of wealth, his responsibility to sit on juries and pay taxes. If anything, “woman” and “citizen” were considered irreconcilable opposites, states of being forever at war with one another.
Among the propertied classes, this resurgent patriarchalism gave rise