A Privilege of the People

Despite the fact that the privilege has always been understood as a personal privilege,Footnote ¹⁸ there were several conceptions of it in the nineteenth century. The most common understanding was that it was a device to facilitate the business of governance, mostly covering communications between public officials. This seems to have been the understanding in early modern England, where literacy rates were low and letter writing limited to elites. A slightly different conception of the privilege was “to facilitate communication between [members of Congress] and their immediate constituents.”Footnote ¹⁹ This conception seemed to view the franking privilege as part of the scheme of political representation. This view of the privilege, though, was still legislator centered. The legislative history of the franking privilege reveals a conception emergent in the 1840s that de-centered the privilege, and recast it as a privilege of “the people” rather than of the legislator.

The history of the franking privilege in the United States begins, for our purposes, with the Post Office Act of 1792 when Congress conferred this privilege to members of both houses of Congress and certain executive officials.Footnote ²⁰ Congress gradually expanded the franking privilege between 1792 and 1825, dealing primarily with three aspects. The most basic issue was who could claim the privilege. Principally, it was a privilege for members of Congress, but it was occasionally extended to members of the executive branch and to select private individuals as well. A second area of expansion involved when the privilege could be used. While there was general agreement that members of Congress could use the privilege when Congress was in session, the main problem was how long after adjournment members could continue to use it. This was an issue that Parliament had faced too, where the concern was with cost. In England, the privilege was limited to 40 days before and after a session, and members of Parliament were also limited in the number of letters they could frank.Footnote ²¹ The 1792 Post Office Act allowed members of Congress to send and receive letters weighing no more than 2 ounces while they were attending a session of Congress, and up to 20 days after the end of the session. In 1816, Congress extended the time members of Congress could exercise the privilege to 30 days before and after a session. And in 1825, it was extended further to 60 days.

The extension of the temporal dimension of the privilege entailed a subtle shift in the ways in which members of Congress began to think of the privilege. For example, when one senator tried to reduce the 1816 allowance of 30 days to 20, others denied that the privilege was a personal one.Footnote ²² If it was a personal privilege, there might be good reason for limiting the privilege to when Congress was in session; as a privilege of office, it should only be allowed while in office. The expansion of the time period in which the privilege could be used is thus an indicator of the growing business of the new national state, and the increased need for information by federal representatives.Footnote ²³ As John Brewer has described the early modern English state, “To be more effective government required greater knowledge; skilled government needed more detailed and precise information,” to both implement policy and to determine its effectiveness.Footnote ²⁴ Expanding the time when members could make use of the franking privilege is evidence of the growing need for a lifeline to information that helped to make government more effective.

More significant, however, was the question of what could be franked. It was this question that would be the key to a more fundamental conceptual and practical transformation of the privilege. The diffusion of information had been an important part of postal policy since the 1792 Post Office Act. For the first few decades of the new republic this meant reduced postal rates for newspapers.Footnote ²⁵ But in 1825, Congress allowed members to send government documents “printed by the order of either House of Congress”Footnote ²⁶ under their franking privilege. Section 27 of the 1825 Post Office Act was one of the most important innovations in franking policy in the early republic. Initially, it appeared to be a part of the business-of-government idea of the franking privilege. Several members characterized the franking privilege generally as “enabl[ing] members to receive and transmit letters relating to public business, of their constituents, &c.”Footnote ²⁷ But two things happened in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that changed how members of Congress viewed the privilege. One was that letter writing began to spread down the social ladder.Footnote ²⁸ This meant that more people could take advantage of the franking privilege. Second, members of Congress, largely in response to this growing literacy, used section 27 of the 1825 Act—what I am calling the “government documents privilege”— to fill their districts with documents. As early as 1828, government documents accounted for over 30% of the weight of mail leaving Washington, D.C. By the 1850s, “laws, books, newspapers, periodicals, government documents, and the Congressional Globe poured through the mails in one mighty torrent, diffusing information certainly, if not knowledge or wisdom.”Footnote ²⁹ The impact of the government documents privilege had become quite clear by 1844, as United States Senator William Allen explained in a debate over a new post office bill. “Questions of fact,” he began,

For Allen, at least, the new privilege had fundamentally changed the character of the franking privilege from a personal privilege of the legislator to a right of the people to be informed about the “doings” of the federal government. The privilege also meant that Congress had taken on a new function, the distribution of information.

What was also becoming clear was that the expanded privilege was open to greater abuse. By the 1840s, the franking privilege was coming under serious attack. As Senator William King of Alabama explained in a debate over the 1845 Post Office Act, “It was a privilege which was more abused than any other sanctioned by the Government.”Footnote ³¹ The franking privilege had always been controversial, but by the 1840s, abuse seemed particularly rampant. And in 1844, just before the debate over a new post office bill began, several members of Congress began introducing petitions and memorials urging the abolition, restriction, or regulation of the privilege. Senator William Merrick of Maryland, chairman of the Senate Post Office Committee, estimated that he had received over 15,000 such petitions.Footnote ³² Although much of the criticism was aimed at abuse by deputy postmasters, members of Congress were not immune. And there were both charges and admissions of abuse. For example, Senator (later President) James Buchanan admitted that, “The franking privilege had been abused, and it was abused, even by the best in either body. They could not avoid doing it. Was there a senator present who did not receive letters under cover to himself, directed to some person in this city? It was the only abuse of the franking privilege he had ever himself committed.”Footnote ³³

Others remained dubious about the extent of abuse by members of Congress. According to Merrick, the real source of franking abuse lay with postmasters, not with members of Congress. “The loss of revenue by the abuse of the franking privilege on the part of 300 members of Congress,” he argued, “was a mere bagatelle compared with the abuse of the privilege on the part of postmasters.”Footnote ³⁴ Senator Samuel Phelps thought that the root of postal abuse was the use of mail contracts for patronage purposes, not the franking privilege.Footnote ³⁵ Ultimately, Congress limited its franking privilege in the 1845 Act. According to one senator, it was simply “impossible to stand still, [as] the public voice [was] calling unanimously for a revision of the whole subject, for a great reduction of postage, and for the abolition of the franking privilege….”Footnote ³⁶ However, Congress retained the government documents privilege, although not without a brief struggle.

Senator Silas Wright of New York was one of the more vocal opponents of the franking privilege, and wanted to repeal section 27 of the 1825 Post Office Act. He argued that the government documents privilege encouraged the publication of documents that were “of no general interest for circulation,” and that it was simply more efficient for the press to disseminate this information. “He had not the least apprehension that the public would not be as well informed by the public journals on all matters, as they are now by the dissemination of the printed documents through the mail.”Footnote ³⁷ Wright's attempt to repeal section 27 forced several senators to the floor to defend the privilege. Allen, for example, argued that there was “too little than too much of the documents printed for general dissemination among the people—of those important doings of Congress which most deeply and vitally affected the interests of the people.” More importantly, “These are doings which the people have a right to be informed of, in the most ample, authentic and satisfactory manner.”Footnote ³⁸ Allen had subtly begun to change the conception of the franking privilege, and its purpose. More than simply concerned with the business of government, the privilege was now rooted in the public's right to know and to be informed about the government. As Senator Samuel Phelps explained, “It is a privilege not for the benefit of the member of Congress, but for the information and satifaction [sic] of the people. They have a right to know what is doing in Congress, and by means of this privilege they are put in possession of that knowledge.”Footnote ³⁹ Therefore, “The franking privilege was of more consequence to the people than to members of Congress.”Footnote ⁴⁰ It was, in fact, “a matter of great convenience to the people. It was the great means of communication between them and their public servants.”Footnote ⁴¹

Wright conceded that all this might be true, but he could not forget the 15,000 plus petitions urging its abolition. Therefore, “he thought members of Congress should not force a privilege of this sort upon them against their will; and, so far as he knew, this action of Congress was supposed to be in obedience to the strong expression of public opinion against the existing Post Office regulations.”Footnote ⁴² Most members of Congress remained unconvinced by Wright's opposition. One senator noted “that a large majority of the Senate was opposed to the abolition of the franking privilege.”Footnote ⁴³ Senator Ephraim Foster, who favored reform of the privilege,Footnote ⁴⁴ disputed the idea that the people were against the privilege. Instead, he argued, the franking privilege “was indispensable for the perpetuity of our institutions, that the freest and fullest communication should exist between the people and the representatives; and that the doings of Congress should be scattered over every portion of the country.”Footnote ⁴⁵ The franking privilege, in other words, had now become an important element in political representation, a means of communication by which representative and represented kept one another informed.

As the debate wore on, the popular and representative dimensions of the franking privilege grew stronger. The crux of this new dimension was the availability of government documents. As Phelps pointed out, the privilege had created a set of expectations among the populace. “The people have been so long accustomed to receive congressional documents from their representatives free of postage,” he argued, “that the moment this privilege is suppressed there will be a universal clamor from one end of the country to the other.”Footnote ⁴⁶ As the people's privilege, the government document privilege had become an important element of a fully informed citizenry, and its retention meant that Congress would continue to play a role in the dissemination of information. Congress expanded the government documents privilege two years later in the 1847 Post Office Act, when it allowed members of Congress to “send and receive public documents free of postage” whether or not ordered printed by either house.Footnote ⁴⁷ By the time Stephen Douglas entered the Senate, then, the franking privilege in general, and the government documents privilege in particular, were well-established institutions, and increasingly understood as a right or privilege of the people.

There remains, however, the question of why members of Congress deployed this popular language. Cynically, we could say it was out of self-interest. The franking privilege was conceptualized in a way to maintain their power and office. This has been the principal critique of the franking privilege. This is a fair and probably even a justified interpretation. It is also a bit too easy. Just as Senator Wright could not forget the 15,000 plus letters he received, neither should we. However self-interested, the construction of the franking privilege as a privilege of the people still had to be plausible. And what made it plausible was the constituent correspondence that kept Stephen Douglas and other members of Congress so busy.

The growth of correspondence and its impact was the result of a number of factors. One was the creation of a postal system that penetrated beyond the seaports along the Atlantic coast into the farthest reaches of the federal government's jurisdiction. Richard John and others have demonstrated nicely how people in both the center and the periphery had easy access to the mail system. But this system required people both willing and able to take advantage of it. For much of the early republic, a “taxation on correspondence” and limited literacy rates largely limited letter writing to elites.Footnote ⁴⁸ But even before the postage on letters was reduced by the 1845 and 1851 Post Office Acts, correspondence had grown from 2,000,000 letters a year in 1800 to 40,000,000 in 1840.Footnote ⁴⁹ While much of this correspondence may have been the result of increasing population and business correspondence, in addition to the expansion of the postal system, it appears that more people were learning how to write as well. In the 1830s, popular instruction in letter writing began to emerge and letter writing habits began to spread down the social structure.Footnote ⁵⁰ By the 1850s, Americans in growing numbers had the literacy, instruction, and opportunity to write letters. That they took advantage of their newfound literacy and the franking privilege is evidenced by the congressional debates over the privilege, and the 15,000-plus letters written to Douglas. To understand the new meaning attributed to the franking privilege, we need to turn to the nexus of the new relationship, and to see how, in practice, the privilege operated. The new privilege had implications not only for political representation, but also for the state. We will see that as the state grew, so too did representation. Understanding the franking privilege as the people's privilege allows us to shift attention from the sender to the recipient, or at least the nexus between them. Government document requests were the most common requests made by Douglas' correspondents. It was these requests that lay behind the congressional construction of the franking privilege as a privilege of the people. And it forces us to ask a couple of questions: what were correspondents requesting, and what were the consequences of this interaction between letter-writer and reader?

The Government Document Nexus

Examining the franking privilege together with the correspondence it helped to generate exposes the dignified dimension of the privilege. When we look at the process of the franking privilege, and the content of the documents requested, we can see that document requests were not simply requests for information. They also strengthened the ties between federal representatives and constituents. As Richard McCormick has explained in a slightly different context, “distribution strengthened the parties and helped build bridges between voters, leaders, and representatives in office.”Footnote ⁵¹ This worked in a couple of different ways. Letter writers were drawn in and made dependent on the state, and they encouraged further efforts by the state. In this way, constituent correspondence served as both policy-making and state-building.

The policy-making and state-building functions of constituent correspondence was the result of its role in the diffusion of information. As Richard Brown has reminded us, “knowledge is power,” and the diffusion of information is a tool of empowerment. “Knowledge of crops and livestock empowered farmers to pursue their calling no less than knowledge of classical learning and cosmopolitan affairs enabled colonial American gentlemen to command high social rank and to wield political power.”Footnote ⁵² Through the franking privilege, especially the government documents privilege, members of Congress filled their districts and states with an array of information compiled by the federal government. As we have seen, document requests were made possible by the Post Office Acts of 1825, 1845, and 1847, which allowed members of Congress to send out government documents under their franking privilege. Nor were these requests trivial. Until the 1760s, Richard Brown has shown, public information was a scarce commodity for Americans. This changed with the first communications revolution that spanned the 1760s to the 1840s, so that by the mid-nineteenth century, information “was abundant and under no control other than the interests and appetites of a vast, popular public of consumers.”Footnote ⁵³ This information revolution was undergirded by a belief in the idea of an “informed citizenry” that committed Americans “to an ethos that prescribed the diffusion of knowledge as essential to the well-being of society.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Brown, however, downplays the significance of the federal government in the diffusion of this information. “Politicians repeatedly back their advocacy of an informed citizenry with money from the public treasury,” he argues, “but overall private expenditures on information diffusion dwarfed those in the public sector.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Although there may have been a difference in financial outlays for the distribution of information, Douglas' correspondence suggests that the federal government still played an important role in the compilation and distribution of information. The federal government was producing information not being produced by any other institution, through ventures such as the Pacific Railroad survey, as well as information compiled simply through the normal course of governing. And acquiring this information was an important aspect of early American citizenship; one, as we will see in the next section, that correspondents found indispensable to their personal and political lives.Footnote ⁵⁶ In this section, however, I begin to outline the role that the franking privilege played in the production and diffusion of information.

One of the most important things that the federal government did in the 1850s was compiling and distributing information. Constituents registered their approval of this work in their repeated requests for documents in which this information was compiled. They also implicitly approved of the Senate's role in the distribution of that information. In making requests for documents and other information, letter writers were implicitly offering their approval of the work of the federal government, and encouraging further efforts. In effect, this is the converse of Richard John's observation that these documents provided publicity for the federal government.Footnote ⁵⁷

The federal government produced a wide variety of information, information that only it was producing. This information was contained in the reports of various departments of the federal government which contained a wide range of information. The amount of information generated by the federal government was staggering. Many of the reports, such as the Treasury Department reports, were published annually, and simply contained lists of information. The Treasury Report was an itemized account of the receipts, appropriations, and expenditures of the federal government. This included such items as a $3.84 expenditure for “Repairing the bracings and repairing the injuries to the iron screwpile lighthouse on Brandywine shoal, Delaware,” and a $781,623.14 expense for steam mail service. But here was information about what the federal government was actually doing. This was the federal government in its most basic form: a 569-page list of how the federal government received and spent its money.Footnote ⁵⁸

The Patent Office Report was a multivolume annual report of the patents granted and expired in “agriculture” and “manufacturing,” important no doubt for inventors, farmers, industrialists, and entrepreneurs of all sorts. In issuing these reports, the Patent Office was furthering its “democratic” mission. As Zorina Khan has explained, patent policy was designed to attract “wider participation from relatively ordinary people,” and “the rise in patenting was associated with a democratic broadening of the ranges of patentees to include individuals, occupations, and geographic districts with little previous experience in invention.”Footnote ⁵⁹ The Patent Office reports, though, were also directed toward a popular audience beyond potential patenters.Footnote ⁶⁰ This was particularly true after the appointment of Charles Mason as Commissioner of Patents in 1853, as he expanded considerably the annual agricultural report.Footnote ⁶¹ This report contained information that could be used by beneficiaries of new technology and the information that went along with it. Therefore, the reports not only included lists of patents expired and granted in the preceding year, they also included short essays on various topics related to agriculture and manufacturing.

For example, the 1855 Patent Office Report included an essay on “Insects” by D. J. Brown, head of the agriculture division, which included sketches of insects. An explanation of one of the sketches gives an indication of the type of information included more generally in the report, as well as the purpose of such information. “In order to make a practical farmer acquainted with the structure and transformations of insects, as well as the names of some of their principal organs, it will be necessary to give a very short and consequently imperfect sketch of their anatomy and metamorphoses, which may perhaps aid him in his future investigations.”Footnote ⁶² The report then included a sketch of the “larva,” “pupa,” and “perfect insect” and their body parts. The report went on to give a brief description of the sketch. But Brown declined to get too specific, noting that the aim was more practical than theoretical. “It is unnecessary to enter into details or describe the several grand divisions into which insects are classed,” he concluded, “as it would only perplex and be of no practical utility to the agriculturist, unless he intends to enter more minutely into the study of entomology. The principal thing most desired is to be able to identify the species most injurious and beneficial to his crops, to know their habits, and repel or destroy those which are the most obnoxious, either in the larva, pupa or perfect state.”Footnote ⁶³ This essay appears to be introductory to a longer essay by Townend [sic] Glover on the threats and benefits of particular insects to specific crops.Footnote ⁶⁴

This was just the beginning. In the 1855 Report, there were several essays on domestic animals, insects, fertilizers, improvement of land, the cultivation of specific crops, and meteorology. Some of these appeared to have been prepared for the Report, while others were statements or reports to various societies around the country from the preceding year. The essays were often followed by “correspondence” from people from around the country discussing their experiences with the related topics in their areas. Some items discussed new crops, or crops that were growing in demand. There was an article from the Singapore Free Press on “Textile and Forage Crops,” noting that “As the fibres of Indian plants are now beginning to attract the attention of European manufacturers, it may be of some use to publish the results of experiments which have been tried to prepare them for the English market….” The article went on to discuss how the demand for flax, hemp, silk, cotton and hair was not being met and that India was being looked to as the source of meeting demand. Perhaps serving as both warning and opportunity, the article pointed out that “Flax, hemp, and cotton are the substances most urgently called for… .”Footnote ⁶⁵ The article then provided details on cleaning the fibers.

The Patent Office understood well that ordinary people were reading their reports, and relied upon them for information about agricultural practices. In a section on “Gardening” in its 1855 Report, the Office noted that, “As frequent applications have been made to the Patent Office for information relative to the cultivation of garden vegetables and flowers, it has been deemed advisable to insert in this Report some general directions on the subject, together with a few of the leading principles which govern this art. This may appear unnecessary to those who are familiar with the pages of the excellent treatises on gardening…; but when we take into account that there are thousands of people in retired or remote parts of the Union, who are not aware of the existence of any of the works named above, it will be obvious that these directions, when read in this volume, will be justly appreciated and thankfully received.”Footnote ⁶⁶ The Patent Office could only make this claim, however, because of the franking privilege and the extensiveness of the postal system that reached deep into the interior of the country.Footnote ⁶⁷

The Patent Office did not just distribute printed material, it also distributed genetic material: seed. There had long been a seed trade in North America, but until the nineteenth century it typically involved the export of American seed to Europe.Footnote ⁶⁸ The federal government began procuring and distributing seeds in the 1830s, when Patent Commissioner Henry Leavitt Ellsworth enlisted diplomats and naval officers to help collect foreign seed. Agricultural inventors also contributed seeds even though they could not patent them. This was part of Ellsworth's plant to make the Patent Office “the clearinghouse for a national friendly community of seed sharers.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Demand for seed began to take off in the early 1850s, on the heels of which Congress appropriated $50,000 for the purchase of foreign seed in 1855. The Patent Office then published notices in newspapers encouraging people to contact their senators and congressmen to get the seed for free under the franking privilege. In 1857, the Patent Office issued a report in response to this appropriation, which listed the Office's purchases of fruit, vegetable, grain, and herb seeds from Europe.Footnote ⁷⁰ Although the seed quality was often questionable, it was designed to foster experimentation by farmers, which they did.Footnote ⁷¹ These experiments were often reported back to the Patent Office, which then included them in its annual report. For example, John Danforth of New London, Connecticut reported in 1855 that, “Last May, I planted in my garden a small parcel of Oregon peas, which I obtained from the Patent Office. They fully matured, and stood our climate well. It is my belief that these peas will make excellent feed for cattle, sheep, and hogs. I have on hand from my little crop about a pint of peas, which I have saved for seed for another year.” A correspondent from Missouri not only reported his experience with planting Oregon peas, but also noted that he “carefully cultivated [them] according to the directions of given by R. A. Rozell, in the last Agricultural Report.”Footnote ⁷² Although this may have been an “unsystematic” introduction of seed,Footnote ⁷³ it nonetheless incorporated ordinary people into the circulation of knowledge. Many of them became active participants in the production of that knowledge as well.

Other types of reports involved specific projects in which the federal government was involved. One of the most important projects was the exploration and surveying of the continent. The federal government had sponsored such endeavors since at least 1803 with Lewis and Clark, but slowly there emerged an element within the U.S. Army devoted to exploration and survey: the topographical engineers. They became a stand-alone unit in 1813, and as their duties expanded over the 1820s and 1830s they became a corps in 1838. The engineers were formally trained in civil engineering at West Point, the first, and until 1829 the only, civil engineering school in the country. They also maintained contacts with American and European scientists, often in working relationships that furthered their training.Footnote ⁷⁴

In 1838, the newly-created Corps of Topographical Engineers began to undertake more systematic exploration. Its most important expeditions occurred in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Starting with the Mexican Boundary Survey, and later including the Pacific Railroad and Wagon Road Surveys, the 1850s witnessed a great collaboration of the Army and civilian scientists, who were sponsored by a number of learned societies as well as the newly formed Smithsonian Institution, to map the continent, an endeavor that has been described as “crucial to the nation's future.”Footnote ⁷⁵ Although these explorations were sometimes political failures and ultimately led to the demise of the Topographical Corps, the new scientific approach to exploration produced an enormous amount of information. Many of the reports that resulted from these expeditions were widely read, both popularly and professionally.Footnote ⁷⁶

The most important and ambitious of these expeditions was the Pacific Railroad Survey. The various expeditions were charged with compiling a range of information, from meteorological, magnetic, and geological observations to sketches of flora and fauna, and the gathering of natural history collections, in addition to surveying the land for railroad routes. The initial reports were mostly accounts of the various expeditions. They varied in detail, with some offering details of potential routes, passability, costs, distances, and elevations and grades, and others only journal-like accounts of what had been done. Considerably more significant was the multivolume Explorations and Surveys for Pacific Railroad, which was produced over a four-year period, and consisted of twelve volumes.Footnote ⁷⁷ These reports were among the most popular documents Douglas' correspondents requested, and were intended for popular consumption.Footnote ⁷⁸

One of the army's major partners in its exploration of the continent was the Smithsonian Institution (created in 1846), whose own report by the 1850s became another popular favorite. The Smithsonian Institution was not a department of the federal government, but the federal government was the trustee of a bequest by Englishman William Smithson, “to found at Washington, … an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”Footnote ⁷⁹ In the 1850s, Stephen Douglas, who took an interest in the diffusion of knowledge, served on the Board of Regents and became good friends with Secretary Joseph Henry.Footnote ⁸⁰ The Institution was (and still is) charged with the increase and diffusion of knowledge, as well as the practical application of that knowledge. In the 1850s, its Annual Report contained a journal of the proceedings, collections donated and what they contained, a list of meteorological stations and some basic observations, and a list of expenditures. In 1858, the Report began to include an Appendix, which included lectures, papers, and reports on various subjects, that met with success. According to Secretary Joseph Henry, the Institute's first and most important secretary, this material “proved highly acceptable to a large number of intelligent persons in every part of the country.” Henry also indicated how these reports were being used by people like Douglas' constituents, noting that “copies of [the Smithsonian Reports] were especially solicited by teachers,” because they contained information “not otherwise attainable.” These reports, he continued, also served as publicity for the Institute, “which tends to increase the number of its friends and co-operators,” which in turn tended “to elevate popular conceptions in reference to science, as well as to increase the number of its cultivators.”

By 1860, the secretary was able to report that “this Institution had done good service in placing prominently before the country the importance of original research, and that its directors are entitled to commendation for having so uniformly and persistently kept in view the fact that it was not only for educational or immediately practical purposes, but for the encouragement of the study of theoretical principles and the advancement of abstract knowledge.” And “gratifying evidence” of the Smithsonian's success in this regard was “that Congress has been so favorably disposed, even during the depressed condition of the treasury, towards the distribution of [the Reports].” These remarks were part of Henry's campaign to continue congressional funding of the reports, which was a constant battle in the 1850s,Footnote ⁸¹ but Congress likely continued to fund the distribution of these reports because they were so popular with their constituents.Footnote ⁸²

These reports were not a systematic introduction of knowledge,Footnote ⁸³ but neither did they need to be from the perspective of political representation. The continuing dialogue and interaction between state and citizen, or more precisely between representative and represented, was more important. As an active player in the diffusion of information, the federal government empowered citizens in their quest for knowledge, and consequently in their quest for liberty. As Richard Brown has explained, “The ‘power of utterance’ and literacy were not merely necessary technical skills, they were crucial to the identity of a free man. They revoked ‘the great law of subordination,’ and permitted the fulfillment of liberty.”Footnote ⁸⁴ If Brown is right, then, in distributing this information, and doing it for free, Congress' role as a clearinghouse of information was important for both state-building and citizenship-building. Although one among many players in the diffusion of information in the early republic, the federal government helped to constitute the citizen, empowering individuals to acquire information and accumulate the materials for self-improvement and greater control over their own lives. Through the production and distribution of information, the federal government subtly insinuated itself into the lives of ordinary people. In many respects, those people brought the federal government into their homes, planting the seeds of its growth in their own gardens. The opportunity to receive this information encouraged people to write to Douglas. Many wrote solely for the purpose of receiving information. Yet in writing to their United States senator they engaged Douglas in what was considered an important element in the duties of a senator: to distribute information.

The Epistolary Construction of Political Representation

Although the franking privilege drew represented and representative into a more direct relationship, it also enabled correspondents, through the epistolary form, to creatively imagine their relationship to their United States senator. This was particularly important for Douglas' correspondents, given that United States senators were elected by state legislatures rather than by direct popular vote, a method that would remain until the early twentieth century. The epistolary form enabled correspondents to bridge that divide quite easily. Writing a letter to a federal representative encouraged reflection on what it meant to be a citizen, and on the duties and responsibilities of both citizens and representatives. This reflection was the result, in part, of the circumstance of correspondence, which is rooted in the separation between writer and reader. As the epistolarity studies have demonstrated, this circumstance begs for explanations for writing.Footnote ⁸⁵ “Letter-writing, after all,” Nancy Hewitt has written, “is a technique of union: we write letters to make ourselves more present to another (or others). Were there no distance (physical, epistemological, psychological), there would likewise be no occasion for epistolarity.”Footnote ⁸⁶ This circumstance, this separation, is bridged by a process that Altman has termed “mapping.” According to Altman, “To write a letter is to map one's coordinates—temporal, spatial, emotional, intellectual—in order to tell someone else where one is located at a particular time… . Reference points on that map are particular to the shared world of writer and addressee: underlying the epistolary dialogue are common memories and often common experience that take place between the letters.”Footnote ⁸⁷ Altman, as a literary scholar, is speaking of the specific personal relationship between writer and reader, but “mapping” can be understood socially as well.Footnote ⁸⁸ As patterns emerge in correspondence, it can tell us about the relationships between types of writers and readers, not just the particular writer and reader in a specific correspondence. Constituent correspondence allows us to explore the relationship between representatives and represented, at least as understood by the represented.

Douglas' correspondents, in fact, spent a great deal of time explaining why they were writing to him. Some correspondents appeared to write simply as constituents. S.R. Moore for instance asked Douglas to “please consider the undersigned one of your constituents and occasionally favor him with Public documents, speeches, etc.”Footnote ⁸⁹ Most correspondents, however, feared “trespassing too much on your time,” and asked to be “pardoned” for doing so. As personal strangers to Douglas, correspondents often felt that they were imposing themselves on Douglas. Not only was his “time and goodness” limited, but they felt that it was appropriate to write to their senator only under certain circumstances, such as when they felt “constrained to offer you my hearty, genuine acknowledgments to your recent position in the U.S. Senate,” always hoping, of course, “it will not offend you,” and apologizing for “obtruding my private opinions upon you.” Despite their trepidations, these people wrote, “believing that every thing that pertains to your own beloved State, will be, and ever has been, a matter of interest to you.”Footnote ⁹⁰ But it was in these trespasses that correspondents thought most deeply about why they were writing and how they understood their relationship to Douglas. As their explanations of why they wrote and the connections they drew to Douglas developed into epistolary patterns and conventions, they revealed popular conceptions of about the rights and duties of representatives and represented.

Through the use of a set of epistolary ethics and discourses, correspondents constructed Senator Douglas not as their agent, to whom they made demands or gave directions, but as their patron, of whom they made requests or begged for favors. Douglas's correspondence was suffused with deferential postures. This was most evident in the deferential way in which correspondents addressed Douglas — with humility and politeness. This was the first step in the creation of the idea of the worthy constituent, a central component in constituents' conception of representation.

Humility was one of the most common forms of epistolary etiquette that constituents used when writing to Douglas. One constituent, for example, asked Douglas to “Excuse a humble, but devoted Democrat, for troubling” him. An “obscure individual” wrote to suggest a secession compromise, hoping that “it may not be objected to as a party measure, and therefore will meet more general favour.” John McBride of Red Bud tied this humility to status. “You no doubt will think it some what strange to receive a Note from one of my rank,” he wrote, “but when you think of the interest that is felt for your success And the party in these parts and the great effort that your opponents are making to cause your defeat I hope you will overlook my impudence.” Humble constituents asked for favors. As one explained, “I think you will find that any service you render me in this matter [securing a printing contract] will be reciprocated by your humble servant when opportunity offers.”Footnote ⁹¹ The represented was the “humble servant” not the representative.

Humility was closely related to the ethic of politeness. This was achieved largely through diligent attention to form; it was constantly emphasized in letter writing manuals and other prescriptive literature.Footnote ⁹² Indeed, mastering epistolary protocol provided “a way of staying-in-line and succeeding in polite society.”Footnote ⁹³ What was considered polite depended upon one's status. Therefore, a social superior could write “dear brother,” whereas “obedient servant” was a subscription addressed to a social superior.Footnote ⁹⁴ Correspondents' subscriptive use of “your obedient servant” when writing to Douglas was part of the mapping of their subordination. Yet the deferential discourse in the correspondence went beyond subscriptive practices and other formal practices. Politeness permeated constituent epistolary discourse.

Apology was an important characteristic of discursive politeness. As Andrew Harvie wrote, “Perhaps my relations with you will not, in your opinion, justify the liberty I am about to take; but I hope you will do me the justice to believe that I am actuated by no other [interest] than a warm regard for yourself personally, and a disinterested solicitude for the welfare of the Democratic party.” Another letter writer asked Douglas to “pardon me for approaching you as I am entire stranger to you,” before requesting “Patten office reports.” Magnus Miller meanwhile felt a “great reluctance” in writing to Douglas, “being a stranger to you.” These correspondents did not want to “be considered presumptions in asking a favor on so short an acquaintance.” They feared being seen as “imputenent,” “audacious,” or “troublesome.” They “begged” of Douglas to “forgive this intrusion upon you,” as it was only “with extreme reluctance that I obtrude myself upon your notice at this time.” Therefore, “If I appear too imputant I am sorry but there are times when one must speak strongly for themselves.” Some wrote to Douglas out of need, and asked his assistance because “I don't know of anyone but you to write to for a favor,” or because, “I know of no one who would be better able and more willing to help me than you.” Some simply wrote because they “could no longer forbear expressing my gratification in the bold and independent stand you have taken….” As a result, when asking for help, they were apt to “leave the matter entirely in your hands and … be fully satisfied with any action you may see fit to take,” since “you have more important duties to attend than to read what I write.”Footnote ⁹⁵ These apologies gave due deference to Douglas' position as both senator and party leader.

A correspondent's sense of obligation was yet another ethic. It furthered the bond between senator and constituent, and did so in paternalistic terms. W.J. Stephenson, for example, wrote to Douglas to inform him that the post office in Ashly had been “placed off into the hands of a Black Republican of the worst lot.” He assured Douglas that, “if you Releave us of this called for officer we will be under lasting obligation to you.” Obligations meant that requests were understood as favors. A writer from Pittsfield, for example, asked if Douglas would “do me the favour” of sending a speech. And if so, “perhaps the time may come when I can return the compliment.” A postmaster from Wilkesboro, meanwhile, told Douglas that he would “confer a lasting faviour on one of your old Friends who stood by you in the days of M.L. Covell when Democrats was scarce in Bloomington,” if Douglas would vote for the currency bill. And Isaac McCann “would esteem it a great favor if you would forward a copy of [the Smithsonian report] at your earliest convenience.” Some merely promised not to be so meddlesome in the future: “If you will grant this favor I will promise to ask no other, except the privilege of remaining as ever your devoted and uncompromised friend.”Footnote ⁹⁶ Requests portrayed as favors led to obligations, not entitlements. Favors were bestowed by superiors; they were gifts that generated obligations on the part of the recipient.

The paternalism that shaped the relationship between senator and constituent extended beyond these formal epistolary ethics. It can also be seen in correspondents' use of “political friendship.” In the mid-eighteenth century, the term “friendship” implied dependency. According to Gordon Wood, “every variety of personal attachment and connection, no matter how unequal, could be described as a friendship… . ‘Friendships’ were what a person's age and rank would lead him to form—they were euphemisms for all sorts of dependencies.”Footnote ⁹⁷ Although by the 1850s the term had acquired partisan connotations, it still retained the older paternalistic meaning. Political friendship was used by correspondents to form a more individualized bond with their senator, with political acquaintance, or partisanship, helping to bridge the personal distance separating the correspondent and Douglas. People who wrote as “polytical friends” were not writing to Douglas as equals or as “brothers,” but as partisans within a hierarchical party structure.

Through these discourses and ethics of deference, correspondents displayed proper manners that not only respected Douglas' position as a United States senator, but also demonstrated their understanding of their own sociopolitical status by inscribing it in their letters.Footnote ⁹⁸ This deference demonstrated that constituents knew their place as well as their senator's. By taking a deferential posture, correspondents largely performed their obligations as partisan constituents. These formalities should not be dismissed as mere formalities. For one thing, the examples of constituent letters in letter writing manuals offered more business-like forms.Footnote ⁹⁹ There was no hint of deference in them. Moreover, these formalities persisted well into the twentieth century when humility eventually came to be understood as “boot-licking” rather than deference.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

However, the deference contained in these letters was different; there was a hint of willfulness in it. Deference was not necessarily addressed to a social superior, but to a political one. The vast increase in political participation was giving deference a new tone. There was a suggestion in many of the letters, if only implicit, that they had helped Douglas attained his position of authority through their participation as partisans and voters. This imposed certain obligations on Douglas as a party leader by making his status dependent on maintaining the faithful partisan constituent. The dependence of the patron on the client is one of the ironies of paternalism,Footnote ¹⁰¹ but in Douglas' correspondence there are hints of a growing awareness of this dependence. Parties and elections thus formed an important aspect of the epistolary construction of representation.

Partisanship was the most important factor in constituting a representative relationship.Footnote ¹⁰² Cornelius Knapp, for example, felt “bold to intrude” upon Douglas' “senatorial duties.” His “only apology is that you will not refuse to listen to a Democrat who is now and always has been an ardent admirer and firm supporter of the principles of Democracy as proclaimed by yourself in the Halls of Congress and before the people.”Footnote ¹⁰³ H.G. Weston, meanwhile, wrote “as a life long democrat; as an Illinoisan, as one who has tried to [support?] you in whatever way was proper for me to do….” Charles Eggleston identified party affiliation more explicitly as the basis for representation when he claimed to “Belong[] to the old school Democratic Party without any alloy, and … one of your constituents.” Douglas' constituents were understood to be “very worthy,” “unbending,” “consistent” Democrats, as “the poorest democrat in our ranks is better than the best whig the country can produce.” Therefore, Douglas' representational obligations should be those “satisfactory to the Democratic Party,” and those “calculated to promote the Interests of the Democratic Party.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴

This partisan construction of representation was most evident in the patronage correspondence. Douglas occupied a strategic position with respect to patronage as chair of the Senate Committee on Territories. Not only did he control patronage within Illinois, but he also played an important role in territorial appointments. Douglas' patronage power was in flux after the 1856 election, as his attempt to extend his authority over the entire Midwest met with resistance, but his role in Illinois and territorial appointments remained influential. Throughout the 1850s constituents wrote to him about both appointments and removals, putting their partisanship front and center.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ It was here that the idea of the worthy constituent became most obvious. As one correspondent wrote to recommend a postmaster, “There lives not a better and truer Douglas Democrat than Mr. Crane.—Nor any one, regardless of politics whose appointment to that office would find more general and universal satisfaction to the people at large in the State of Illinois.” Similarly, John Dickson, recommending his brother for a postmastership, claimed that his brother “was born a Democrat, once never was anything else.” And Joshua Rucker recommended “a reliable Democrat and a sober trustworthy gentleman, [whose] appointment would be very acceptable to the Democracy of this district.” Another writer sought the appointment of a friend who was “a good working democrat and if you should aid in getting him the apointment as keeper of the light house I am sattisfied it would receive the approbation of a large majority of the democratic party.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶

James Vandevanter summed up the idea of the partisan constituent in a recommendation he wrote for a prospective postmaster. “He is,” he wrote, “a member of the Democratic Party[, who] uses his best Efforts to perpetuate its harmony. He is a strong supporter and Advocate of the principles of Squatter Sovereignty as recognized in the Organic Law of Kansas and Nebraska. He regards the Fusionist and Factionist movements of the present day as being diametrically opposed to the genius of our free institutions.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷

Vandevanter's construction shows how representation could be tied to the specific representative. Douglas' notion of popular sovereignty, what Vandevanter referred to as “squatter sovereignty,” was controversial even within the Democratic Party. So although being a member of the party was key, membership of a faction within a party could draw the relationship even more tightly. Partisanship may have been more important when dealing with patronage requests as opposed to, for example, requests for seeds. Yet Vandevanter's description nonetheless points to the centrality of partisanship to the worthy constituent. Some deemed partisanship so important that “recommending an abolition Black republican” could be construed as a “criminal act” that should not be committed “during [one's] natural life.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Partisanship was also a prominent theme in removal letters, especially when postmasters were involved. James McNulty, for example, recommended the removal of a Know-Nothing postmaster, simply because he was a Know-Nothing. A.W. Herrington wanted to get rid of his postmaster because he “is and always has been an abolitionist.” Isaac Dimmick, a former postmaster irate that he had been removed and replaced by a “Black Republican,” asked incredulously, “is this Democratic patronage?” These writers wanted to protect the integrity of their party, and control over the local post office meant control over the flow of information, which in turn meant an advantage in party-building. The postmaster thus held an important strategic position. As Richard John has pointed out, “Not only did postmasters have a built-in advantage when it came to securing up-to-date information on public affairs in transmitting their publications under cover of their official frank, but they also had a clear incentive to block the opposition from transmitting their newspapers in a timely way.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Douglas' constituents understood this power well. J.M. Anderson, for example, urged Douglas not to “send any thing to the Post Master here or it will go to the Black Republicans.” Allowing a member of another party to hold a postmastership amounted to putting “a Club in our Enemys hands to break our own heads with.” Therefore, at all times, “a responsible and reliable Democrat” must be kept in place over a member of any other party.Footnote ¹¹⁰

This idea of the partisan constituent was not limited to patronage correspondence, however. It was also evident in requests for documents and seeds. In some letters it appeared in the negative. For example, some writers noted that they had attempted to contact their non-Democratic elected representative to obtain government documents or seeds only to be rebuffed. H. Tobias explained that “last winter I asked a like favor of our Repv. But he was a Republican and knew me to be a Democrat.” Even seemingly innocuous requests required a worthy constituent. Another correspondent explained that his “Representative in Congress has turned Shanghai [and so] we have not been favored with anything in the shape of Books or seeds from the Patent Office and we think the farmer is as much entitled to them as any part of the community. we would feel highly favored if you would remember the Riley Boys in your distributions.” The norm appears to have stood against attempts to forge non- or cross-partisan representational links. As one writer explained, “Not choosing to correspond with our representative from this district I have taken the liberty to send the [illegible] petition for changes of mail routes to your address.” C. C. Alexander, meanwhile, admitted that “our Representatives all are abolitionist,” hence he would not even attempt to make requests of them. Therefore, where “democratic representatives in Congress from the North part of our State are very scarce [Democrats] should claim consideration and attention from our Senator.”Footnote ¹¹¹ These writers were not just making requests, they were constructing a representative relationship. Key to that relationship was partisanship, not elections.

That partisanship would form the basis of representation is not all that surprising, as it is “structured the receipt of government goods.” Party leaders often responded enthusiastically to requests for distributive policies, especially when it might affect their position in office.Footnote ¹¹² But how it affected ideas and practices of political representation, and in particular the understandings ordinary people held about their relationship to federal legislators, is not one that historians have explored in great detail. The rise of mass political parties and the spread of suffrage and elections are often associated with the decline of deference.Footnote ¹¹³ The right to vote gave the representation system its motive power in the United States, and the enormous of expansion of who could exercise that right over the nineteenth century made elected officials increasingly responsible to popular demands. Even judges, when they became elective, grew more responsive to external, popular pressures.Footnote ¹¹⁴ However, Douglas' correspondents were quite adept at blending these new participatory elements with deferential practices. A partisan constituent was still a worthy, deferential one. Nevertheless, Douglas' correspondents used the new party structure along with the franking privilege, postal system, rise of mass political parties, and an expanded franchise to forge new extraconstitutional links to their senator.

The main problem in the relationship between a United States senator and his correspondents was the mode of selection. Partisanship helped to cure this problem by equalizing the representational qualities of senators and popularly-elected officials. For example, if a constituent's territorial congressman was not responsive, party affiliation enabled the person to turn to another member of the party in Congress. John Philip of Arlington was one of many who turned to Douglas as a party representative rather than to his own territorial representative. Philip explained that he was “so unfortunate as to live in a district that is represented by the notorious Owen Lovejoy [a Republican congressman], I would write you as I had done during that last Congress, asking you to place my name on your list of correspondents.” Another correspondent wrote more despondently about his lack of representation. “I am Doomed to tarry in this place for another Season and Sorry I am to be Found to live in such a cursed abolition District.” A correspondent from Ottawa, Illinois made the point about representation explicit: “as we are not represented in the House we ask you as our Senator to look after our interests.”Footnote ¹¹⁵ Even those who lived outside of Illinois turned to Douglas as a representative. A New Yorker wrote that, “Our Congressional district (the Fifth) is at present Represented by a member of the K.N. order and we neither receive nor do we ask any political favors from him and are therefore under the necessity of calling upon Our Friends in Other sections of the country.” Similarly, a Wisconsinite asked Douglas “to put me on your list as we have no Democratic representation from this state.” He could make such a request because “I am a Democrat, and all Democrats throughout the nation are brothers, and all feel, or should feel, the same anxiety for the success of the great principles for the maintenance of which, they have united in their present national organization.”Footnote ¹¹⁶ As a “brotherhood” Democrats could represent Democrats from any part of the country, not just from their district or state. Partisanship could thus help to leap over the constitutional boundaries between senators and constituents.

However, a representational relationship could not be fully meaningful if the representative was merely an alternate representative. Through voting and elections, ways were found to construct a more positive relationship. This correspondence is where we can see a different form of deference emerging. One way in which did this was by something we might call “vote transference,” a process of using a vote in one context to establish a representational relationship in another. Vote transference worked in several different ways. Past votes for Democrats in general, for example, were often used to establish a representational relationship to Douglas. “[F]rom my youth I have acted with the National Democratic Party,” wrote a Chicago resident demonstrating his party bona fides. Another staked his claim to Douglas' time because he had “voted the Democratic ticket—without a single exception—for twenty years.” Henry Jones outlined his support of the Democratic Party “since Jackson's first election” in a long paragraph before requesting documents. L.M. Chapman wrote “to introduce Myself to you as one of the Old School Democrats having voted for all the Presidential Democratick Candidates . . . from Jackson to Bucanon with the exception of Genl Cass . . . .” “I am a democrat Never voted for any other party in my life I have Been in Illinois 21 years—voted for you every time you have been before the people during that time,” wrote another. This vote transference from a member of the party who ran for popular election to another who was appointed allowed correspondents to compensate for the lack of more direct electoral ties.Footnote ¹¹⁷

However, votes were not just transferred from one member of a party to another. Often men came to the Senate after serving in some other elective capacity. Douglas had served as a state legislator and United States congressman before becoming a United States senator. He had also run for elective office and lost. Correspondents could therefore utilize past votes for Douglas himself. R. Andrus, for example, wrote that “The first vote I ever gave was for you.” He added, that “if it be my last vote, my ballot shall have the same name inscribed upon it for President.” Meanwhile, “an old and well tried friend having supported you from the first time you offered for public office in Morgan Co.,” asked Douglas to send him documents. Joseph Thomas simply wrote, “I could and did vote for you at your last election.” Joseph Knox wrote that he and Douglas were in “almost perfect agreement in opinion and political opinions included up to a recent date.” However, he still felt the need to add “The fact that all my sons entitled to a vote (two) voted for you, at the last Presidential election.” Knox did not need to vote directly for Douglas as senator for purposes of representation. The connection was usually implicit, but a Blue Ridge resident made explicit the quid pro quo at the heart of this relationship: “we all voted for you for president,” he wrote. “Now I would like for you to do me a favor.” In other words, constituents were saying in effect that they had helped make Douglas a United States senator, and that he had an obligation to do favors, or to perform his representative duty.Footnote ¹¹⁸

Prospective votes for Douglas or for Democrats could also be invoked. Douglas was a candidate for president (or at least the Democratic nomination) throughout the 1850s, and writers used their prospective votes as they did past votes. “Hoping that Illinois wil furnish the next President” was a common sentiment. Others wished “to see you elevated to the highest honor in the gift of the People whose cause you advocate.” A teenage girl, who wanted seeds and who had neither past votes to lean on nor future elections to look forward to, used similar language. “I know if ladies of this vicinity had to decide the question they would be one but one response and that would be unanimous that Hon SAD is our choice for the White house[.]”Footnote ¹¹⁹ These sentiments may have been superfluous rather than a precursor to a particular request. But they were typically followed or preceded by requests, suggesting that partisan affiliation, a correspondent's voting behavior, and Douglas' political career and aspirations offered constituents various opportunities to subvert the formal constitutional separation of the United States Senate from “the people.”

The epistolary construction of political representation, then, was a great deal more complex than elections and the right to vote. According to Douglas' correspondents, the right to vote did not necessarily entitle the holder of the right to the attention of a representative much less a response. The constituent must be worthy of the representative's largesse. And worth was determined by proper deference and party membership. Responsibilities and obligations of representation were based in large part on roles as party leaders as party members. Non-party members were generally excluded, and understood that they were excluded, from the benefits of representation. This partisan representation helped to compensate for the Senate's increasingly anomalous electoral structure; it enabled correspondents to leap over the formal constitutional barriers separating the Senate from the people. Voting was still an important part of representation, but in less direct ways. Voting was (and remains) central to the idea of actual representation, which depends on the direct election of representatives by the represented. But we can see in Douglas' correspondence that voting did not mean that the representative voted for was necessarily considered the representative of the state or district from which he was elected. When combined with partisanship, the enormous spread of elections throughout the polity gave people opportunities to vote for members of the party, or even for a United States senator, albeit in an election for a different office. When political participation was exercised this way, voters created an official who was, paradoxically, virtually an actual representative. This form of virtual representation was not the eighteenth-century English version in which “election was incidental to the process of representation” because of the assumption that there was a singular homogeneous people with a singular common interest.Footnote ¹²⁰ Rather, the mid-nineteenth century American version of virtual representation rested on the confluence of parties and elections, making a United States senator virtually an elected official.