Although Chapter 4 treats Kentucky and Tennessee individually, the Chapter as a whole serves to compares Kentucky and Tennessee’s path to statehood and post-statehood policy systems. Just following it through will provide ample reasons why states differ, so answering that overarching question will largely be left to the reader. By the end of the Chapter Kentucky and Tennessee are already manifestly different, and there are plenty of hints they are already heading down their own distinctive path through our history. The real hoe and goal of the chapter is to open up to the reader the dynamics involved in “starting” a new state. We are witnessing the “birth” of states, and their very first formative years.  The stodgy fourteen states that established our Early Republic and its Constitution had roots that dug deep into the early 1600’s. Although varying greatly in their political development, economics, and the political cultures of their inhabitants, each had some past experience as a “state” , including a state thinking itself as an independent nation. Kentucky and Tennessee were the first trans-Appalachian states, the 14th and 15th to join the Union. The first fourteen formed the Union; they were the first to join it. What is really, really important is they were carving these states out of the wilderness, a hostile wilderness full of Indians, English and Spanish–and mosquitoes.

They were the first of what I label “the second generation of states”. Between 1792, and 1844 eleven states entered the Union (Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan (I left out Maine for reasons discussed elsewhere). This time frame overlapped the three federal policy systems of the early Early Republic (Federalist, Virginia Dynasty, and the Jacksonian Insurgency). In one way or other they survived the two Panics (1819 and 1837), and the second war of independence, the War of 1812. Immigration during these years was at its lowest ebb for the next two hundred years, and migration, chain migration to be sure, was from domestic sources largely, with exceptions of course. Two hugely impactful migrations, the Yankee Diaspora and the Deep South Rise of the Cotton Belt were fundamental to our history, but other migrations, the Tidewater which dominates this chapter, Pennsylvania Midlands, and the ever-wandering Scots-Irish are also on the move–the cultures are a’clashing. These migrations will leave in their wake a nation with two very different, often rival economic bases. It didn’t inevitably have to be, but of the eleven second generation states, five fought for the Confederacy, four for the Union, and two were war-torn border states. The presidents of both the Union and Confederacy were Kentucky-born, and Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee.

Also clashing in what had to have been the greatest cultural clash of all, was the resistance of Native American Tribes against this white (excepting Black slaves) migratory onslaught. Little known in a popular culture that thinks in terms of Plains Indians, Sitting Bull, General Custer, Geronimo and John Wayne and all those circle the wagons against Indian attack movies, the struggle/warfare between Native and European American cultures was way more intense east of the Mississippi than west. The reader is better served to watch John Wayne’s “the Fighting Kentuckian”, and to read about Daniel Boone. The wars against Native Americans profoundly impacted the time line and the character of post 1775 trans-Appalachian statehood and political/economic development. These wars were only one hurdle that these second generation states had to overcome and that too enters into the dynamics of second generation states.

So there is a larger picture here in Kentucky and Tennessee. They were the first of their generation, and being first gave them a head start. It is wise to understand the lessons learned from the experiences of these two states because from these two states would emerge many of the nation’s key political leaders of this period. People like Clay and Jackson (also Sam Houston) will arise from Kentucky and Tennessee policy systems–indeed Jackson is a player in this chapter–and dominate politics and exert a considerable impact on our ED history as well.

 Big Picture: Lessons Learned and What lies ahead

Kentucky and Tennessee, two neighboring states, were settled in different configurations by the same ethnic and cultural groups, virtually simultaneous in time.As such they are a rare example of a controlled historical analysis. They are the first of the trans-Appalachian states–the first “western” movement across the continent. That they were viewed so by the  participants in these modules only supports our research that the “historical players” understood they were writing an instruction manual of experience and relevant issues/dynamics that future states might consider. Forgotten today is an interesting background dynamic that trans-Appalachian settlement into the First Southwest was not universally popular with all elements in the original “fourteen” states.  We blithely assume that “Go West Young Man” reflected an American consensus.

The Settlement-Migration Nexus–We will learn that simple geography and topology, combined with transportation technology limitations permeated the settlement process in the post American Revolution period–and would last at least through the War of 1812 (1816). Trans-Appalachian settlement literally meant getting over and through the Appalachian mountains as best one could, and the travel options were few. Migrants followed paths, reconverted former Indian trails and natural passageways or gaps through the mountains. A few trails were blazed during and after the Revolution, but the more serious migration phase commenced in the 1790’s and shut down during the War of 1812.

Walled Settlements (called stations in our two states) sprang up along and at the end of these trails and rudimentary roads. Adjacent river ports sprang up near the trail stations. In other words, transportation-driven settlements developed unevenly in both states. Eastern Kentucky was bypassed entirely. On the other hand, eastern Tennessee became the home base, the motherland of the budding state. Ironically, migrants got to Middle Tennessee by first going toe central of Blue Grass Kentucky and then heading south through Indian territory. That wasn’t fun, or easy, and Kentucky initially surged, and Middle Tennessee, Nashville struggled. Louisville on the Mississippi River literally existed, but little more than that. Western Tennessee was deep in Indian territory.

So before each state became a state, certain areas of each state developed first, and other regions of the state developed later. Moreover, Eastern Tennessee attracted lots of Scots-Irish, Quakers from Pennsylvania, some Virginians, but lots of North Carolinians (it was North Carolina at the time). Virginians being Virginians came earlier and a distinct minority were disproportionately able to become leaders. Middle Kentucky attracted more Virginians, and easier to get to, it was suitable for plantation economics, while eastern Tennessee, for lots of reasons including soil, topography, and Indians was more conducive to yeoman and hardscrabble farming.

Early migrations were distinctly ethnic and religious-related, and inevitably a “Big Sort” dynamic meant that different groups went to eastern Tennessee and other groups (Scots-Irish and Carolinians) went to Middle Tennessee. Virginia (which “owned” Kentucky) established a distinctive Tidewater character to its settlements and economic base. These are the ingredients for sub-state regionalism. Since Kentucky only opened up the Bluegrass Region that became more homogeneous, and Frankfurt, a neighbor of Lexington became the state capital in the first year of statehood (1792). Tennessee, however, unevenly developed two regions, with different economic and population bases previous to statehood. The Tennessee state capital became a ping pong ball between the two regions with Nashville becoming the permanent capital only in 1826–thirty years after its statehood. Each state, one should assume, early on discovered that settlement-induced sub-state regions–or their lack–created different dynamics in their policy systems. From the beginning, each state headed down a different path.

Timelines are important. The settlement nexus clearly creates its own economic and political dynamics–particularly when linked to conflict with Native Americans as discussed below–and the overlap with statehood and the “initial policy systems” of Kentucky and Tennessee–and to our critical state-building and institutionalization as preconditions to economic development policy-making–firmly guide us to an important observation: the policy system, and state/city-building are too closely tied to the settlement nexus to be anything other than reflections of them. Moreover, this phase last for decades, well into the second decade of the nineteenth century. If one looks elsewhere, Georgia/Florida, for example it extends a generation more into the 1830’s.

The assumption that statehood led to a viable policy system and economic base is a poor guide to what went on in these states. One might assume more development is occurring than actually did, or could. This is what I call the “lag effect”–while new states are in their “infant” settlement phase, more established states are able to move more rapidly into state-building and institutionalization, and then onto building their economic base and moving into more recognizable economic development strategies. These established states have a potential head start that (1) made their policy systems and ED policy-making different than that of brand new states carved out of the wilderness.; and (2) the settlement nexus phase, which includes statehood and state/city-building institutionalization coexists and/or competes with economic development strategies that dominate the settlement nexus phase. What happened in Kentucky and Tennessee happened in all new states during these years–from Alabama to Illinois and Wisconsin. When it ended in 1837-44, the impact of dealing with the mess the settlement nexus has left behind “bent the economic development tree” so fundamentally, that things have never since been the same. We need therefore to better understand this 1790-1836 settlement nexus phase of economic development to understand what went wrong–and why.

“New” state economic development does not commence after successful state/city-building institutionalization, it almost certainly precedes statehood, and continues after statehood through the entire settlement nexus phase. Settlement nexus economic development centers, indeed depends on, land acquisition and development. Land and the sectors associated with real estate development are the first “gazelles”, the driving initial cluster in a new state undergoing settlement. Land development in a new state almost certainly precedes both statehood and state/city-building institutionalization. Almost by definition in Kentucky and Tennessee’s case, it is privately led and financed, with government playing a “gate-keeper” role in which private profit is balanced against the long-term costs/responsibilities incurred by expansion into new areas.

That proved way too much responsibility for these young, fragile and politically open Revolutionary War state government (North Carolina in particular), and given the intensity/autonomy of people migration when it “booms” people migration easily resembles a cattle stampede that usually ends only when it plays itself out. The settlement phase after 1790 is one chronic land rush as a constant river of new migrants seek to acquire land for homestead, plantation, or their business. If there is no preparatory work done in anticipation of migration, surveying and platting of land, availability of lending vehicles, and little to no criteria as to who can purchase land where, this becomes a free-for-all–and did.

Vast quantities of land were acquired even previous to statehood, and the sale and “subdivision” of these huge masses of cheap land potentially offered enormous opportunities for profit, wealth, speculation, and bankruptcy. It was the more successful of these fine folk that wound up writing the first state constitutions, and assumed the role of local and state political and economic elites. The people they sold land to became the masses. And since new migrants came in droves for decades, the speculative mania both made early winners even more wealthy, and could create new winners as well–with the less successful forced out to the perimeters of development, extending yet new land into the settlement nexus.

Conflict with Native Americans over the Land– The reality these lands in question were “owned”, certainly controlled, by Native Americans–who whatever else they were, were considered by the national government as a group equivalent to a foreign nation–proved to be as dominant and dynamic a force as anything land rush economics were. Settlers wanted federal military assistance from the national government, but the national government, lacking financial resources,  turned to negotiation and treaties which granted a great deal more to Native Americans than our in-state migrants wanted. Native Americans were seldom happy or comforted by any treaty made in the course of such a massive land rush that dissidents among elements of each tribe continued raiding even in “peace time”–and violence was a two-way street as settlers moved into treaty lands. The Washington administration Feds wanted what the Indians regarded was Indian land and when treaties broke down, federal and settler military invasion often followed.

So one must combine Indian warfare with settlement nexus land rushes. Add to that warring European powers entered the picture, and through the first two decades of this settlement phase, new states drifted more and more into a major war with Indians and foreign powers: the War of 1812. Suffice it to say, Lexington Kentucky and Nashville Tennessee did not see that war from the same perspective as Boston and New England. Apparently, regional differences existed in no uncertain terms during the Early Republic east of the Mississippi settlement period.

Treaties and the early Washington reservation/trading post system was not what the doctor ordered for settlers. Migratory settlers had other thoughts on the matter. The link between these issues and the future intensification of “states rights”in the these two states is not well-appreciated today–and grossly morally controversial and constantly on the wrong side of political correct.American Indian policy was a policy area that involved the Articles of Confederation and was a very early policy concern of the Washington Administration. Actual declared wars, the Cherokee-American War, in our module, while little known in today’s history exerted very serious effects on migration, and more critical white settlement in Kentucky and Tennessee.  Its impact on our ED history, however, in the first fifty years of the Early Republic is nothing short of massive, and cannot be ignored.

Chapter 4 will concentrate on two or three aspects of the settlement-migration nexus. We will outline but not overburden ourselves at this point with geographic/transportation dynamics, preferring to assess the impact of (1) who (ethnically.economic and social class and political culture) moved where, and when, and (2) the role played by Native Americans in affecting that settlement-migration nexus, and by implication their role in the policy-making associated with the statehood and initial policy systems.

Proxy for foreign interference, difficulty of whether one can own land, the intensity of warfare/raids and knowledge of the Cherokee-American War, site control as a barrier to ED and state-building, transportation DTIS, impact on the nature of K/T elites, ignorance of the First Southwest in which Native Americans played a major role in statehood and initial policy systems. havoc played for whites trying to establish a yeoman hinterland and plantation agricultural base in the isolated wilderness where numbers could be deceiving.

Partisanship and Statehood (Chapter 3 Carry Over)–We are blind to the ethnic tensions, never mind racial, that differentiated western migrants from eastern coastal cities. Both Jefferson and Madison publicly made comments that made it clear they were not about to move to either state. northern states segments of the policy-making “coastal states” (Alexander Hamilton was one), feared westernization was against their interests; it would hold back their manufacturing and urban growth by depriving it of its workforce, more importantly, diluting their ability to influence federal congressional policy-making, and result in presidents of a less “predictable” if not undesirable character–i.e. demagogues, or as we more kindly refer to them “populists”.

A Congress dominated by unsympathetic cadre of eastern Federalists would have to approve their constitutions and vote to admit them as a state. Oh, and did I mention, the western migrants and potential Kentucky/Tennessee citizens were entirely free of their stereotypes and fears. Need I remind the reader that in 1795, three years after Kentucky became a state, and one year before Tennessee, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton led a 12,000 man federal army into western Pennsylvania to suppress the so-called Whiskey Rebellion? Need I remind the reader these states are home to today’s Whiskey and Bourbon trails, a sector cluster that started in 1770’s in Kentucky and Tennessee?

The central threat implicit in Kentucky and Tennessee statehood was the Federalist, Founding Fathers, consensus risked internal fracture and that a rising Jefferson-led Democrat-Republican (D-R) Tribe would sweep to victory in national elections. The Federalists were right to be worried–that is exactly what happened in 1800. That future D-R victory translated into a huge realignment of the federal role in state & local ED, opened a wedge in the Federalist consensus that infused on several levels the rise of an alternative ED path, community development,  and create in Washington D.C.  what a later chapter will call “the Virginia Dynasty”–three back-to-back Presidents from Virginia, who controlled both houses of Congress. They would then be followed by the gentleman from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson–who BTW is among Tennessee’s first U.S. Senators in 1797.

Carry over on State Constitutions–In Chapter 1 we opened up the notion that states can form a state policy system, and in Pennsylvania’s case in 1775-6 did so on the second floor of the Pennsylvania State House while the Second Constitutional Convention was in progressing on its first floor. The Pennsylvania Constitution that was designed and then approved as a result of that process in the literal midst of the opening days of the Revolutionary War–and started within weeks of the Declaration of Independence. At the same time Thomas Jefferson wrote Virginia’s Revolutionary War state constitution, than served as Virginia’s second governor. In both these efforts we see (1) fueled by Revolutionary War passions and logic (2) the first state (they were now attempting to be sovereign nations, the reader should remember) constitutions and policy systems be created that picked up and continued in their own ways the tensions and debates that had come to a head in colonial America and its mother country, England. On top of that, they added in system-change, by substituting a democratic republic for a monarchy. Few care about these things today, but they were major efforts to create a brave new world, and their legacy was worked into our current contemporary policy systems.

We then wandered off and described how the Pennsylvania state policy system after commencing its operations began a virtual war with the Articles of Confederation, and its CEO Robert Morris. The principal issue was the contrasting financial/banking systems that each level of government, the feds and the state, wanted to set up and use. The battle lasted for more than a decade, and was a precursor for Chapter 3’s  Washington/Hamilton public credit and National Bank institutionalization that followed in 1790.  In between that Chapter 2 and much of Chapter 3 told the sad tale of the populist and partisan reaction to our infamous Federalist Tribe consensus and its vision of nation/state-building institutionalization.

Well you won’t see that in this chapter per se, but you will see us pick up on Virginia/Pennsylvania state constitutions, add to the mix North Carolina (heavily influenced by Virginia’s), with the national U.S. Constitution the 800 lb. behemoth in the background–the last because its basic three branch structure and republican democracy franchise had to be incorporated or federal approval was not likely. Kentucky and Tennessee, both slavery states, write their own using all of the above as ingredients. Sounds boring; It is, in fact, but important to our history.

the Tale of a Tidewater Policy System–What we are describing through this chapter is how, and why, a distinctive “style” of policy system will jell in Kentucky, and then to a lesser extent in Tennessee. That Tidewater style policy system exhibited its own politics, combinations of actors (“players”), elite leadership,  policy processes, interaction of its institutions and levels of government and will wind up in later chapters as producing a distinctive way of defining and implementing its economic development initiatives. The Tidewater Policy System is the first of several distinctive policy system styles that will be described in this history.

Policy system styles, as we go forward into the nineteen through twenty-first centuries, can change, and often over time are replaced with another or a modified policy system as they evolve. A serious break with a past policy system, the reader will later discover, is the functional equivalent of a electoral party realignment; it is how both political culture and policy systems adapt to competitive hierarchical, economic base, and population migration transformations. The Policy System, Policy System Styles, and Policy System Realignment are important Chapter One concepts that inescapably enter into our historical narrative.

The spread of the Tidewater policy system into other states, and its effect on other states happens in future chapters and is not essential to our purposes in this chapter. This chapter outlines the specific features which made the Tidewater policy system distinctive and how they were incorporated into Kentucky’s/Tennessee’s state constitutions which the guided/governed the establishment of the state’s initial policy system when statehood was achieved. Aside from providing obvious clues as to why states differ, we will see, hopefully, how political cultures, and the clash of these cultures embedded themselves into the political structures created, and the relationships between levels of government and economic and political forces that served as the foundations and internal drivers of policy in the initial policy system.

Political structures, institutions, processes and interrelationships are never really value neutral, and by writing the initial state constitution as they did, the writers hoped they could produce the types of policy-making they preferred. Hopes spring eternal, and reality always does its thing, so good luck with those good intentions. Nevertheless both Kentucky and Tennessee created its version of a Tidewater policy system, and then each state headed on down what would be its own path through history.

Characteristics of a Tidewater Policy System–There were four critical features that distinguished the Tidewater policy system from others that would be created, at this time, and after.  The first three, discussed in this topic, are derivatives of each state’s initial state constitution. The last will be discussed in our treatment of Initial Policy Systems immediately below.

First, following both Virginia’s /Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary War constitutions, a super strong state legislature (eventually in Kentucky’s case) was created. The federal constitution’s checks and balances nexus were weakened substantially. The state legislature dominated the state’s policy-making processes and was the focal point of the overall system. The governor’s actual role, as compared to his constitutional powers, was usually, but not always, secondary. Having created a legislature almost as powerful as Parliament, however,  was hugely tempered by the state’s key political cultures which demanded not only a limited government which stress freedoms (a Bill of Rights) intended to make the individual as autonomous and independent of government as possible. In 1775 this meant of low taxes, which in itself was viewed as a mechanism to restrain aggressive governmental agendas.

By default, private sector (which in a hinterland agricultural economic base included yeoman homesteads as well as plantations) were regarded by these cultures as primary both to human freedom and to economic development.  Considerable discretion was granted to private actors in their pursuit of liberty and prosperity. In economic development, government was the “only if necessary” player in a policy area whose leadership and initiative mostly lay with private actors. To complete and sustain this private sector thrust, the state constitutions assumed the best way to ensure tje legislature’s limited use of these powers was to make it a genuine reflection of the voting public and to empower in important ways sub-state government.

So the second feature is an electoral franchise that was open to all “free” males over 21 who met the residency requirement. There were no polls taxes, land ownership minimums, even Freed, former slave, blacks could vote. Voting was no longer by voice but secret ballot. This open and for its day radically democratic electoral franchise is considered as a hallmark of “western democracy”, and it captures the populist enthusiasm that accompanied the War of Independence. It was well understood by the constitution’s writers popular will in a populist democracy included a impactful elite-mass distinction, as well as an yeoman hardscrabble bias. The tension underlying a strong legislature, an radical democratic western populist franchise, the constitutional checks and balance nexus, a tension made necessary by elites prerequisite that slavery be preserved and the different demographic settlement patterns, carried overtones into empowerment of sub-state government, and permeated policy-making processes. That tension proved over the next fifty years  to be the most critical factors most responsible for Tennessee’s and Kentucky’s long-term historical political evolution.

It was also anticipated that this would likely by viewed as a serious and negative matter by Federalists whose approval was necessary for 1792 statehood. The initial, but not the second, Kentucky state constitution (which quickly followed in 1797), created a strong governor, independent Senate and a meaningful checks and balances nexus. The second state constitution, created in a different political atmosphere greatly weakened the checks and balances, and preferenced the state legislature.By 1795-6, with Jeffersonian D-R’s in control of the House, and viably contesting in a presidential election, this fear was more complex, and was successfully navigated by the Southwest District’s CEO, William Blount.

That inclinations of a populist franchise, however, frightened those whose wealth, status and power were based on property, and whose property rights were secured by the rule of law and administration of the system’s financial matters. In the Tidewater policy system the most sensitive and active element that resisted the populist franchise was slave-owning plantation owners. In a policy system where Virginia socialized plantation owners were dominant (Kentucky as opposed to Tennessee) the ambivalent attitude of Virginia-socialized elites toward slavery and republican government (they preferred meaningful checks and balances between branches–see the discussion of Tidewater elites and slavery in Chapter 3) created both inconsistencies in their willingness to opposed a radical  electoral franchise–but  a critical mass of support for the continued practice of slavery ensured that whatever the radical democratic electorate may have wanted, slavery was not to be tampered with. Slavery was from the start a fatal third rail of Tidewater politics.

Thirdly, without conscious thought, both states simply incorporated Virginia’s colonial and post-colonial system of sub-state governance, the reliance on counties and the bias against municipal incorporations. In the Tidewater policy system counties were the dominant sub-state actor, and remarkably were intended to be the day-to-day work horses of the overall policy system. Kentucky’s constitution limited in important ways the autonomy of local governments, but the absence of an aggressive state legislature, and the little mentioned incorporation of the Virginia county in the initial policy system local systems  were more impactful than its constitutional powers would lead one to think. The local agendas served as the core for most state legislative representatives, and also the governor. The local judicial system was also a hybrid judiciary and administrative structure. County “courts” were local legislatures, and specific courts were set up to deal with the most pressing issues–land for one. Land was core to 1790 Tidewater economic development. Land was primarily locally administered, and professional elites (surveyors, lawyers and judges–and speculators who financed land purchase). The state legislatures preferenced these local actors, empowered them, deferred to them, and provided as few resources as were deemed necessary,. Low service, low tax, the absence of legislative agendas reflective of the overall state perspective but where possible ED flowed in this system mostly downward to counties.

Initial Policy System–The constitution created the initial state policy system, but the story that unfolds through the first decades of the initial policy system of both states is that whatever the intentions of the writers of the constitution, the realities of frontier democracy, the inherent power of its established elites, the need to act to respond to critical not theoretical problems and events dominated the policy-making processes, electoral majorities, and motivated its key players. The inconsistencies inherent in a populist democracy, with a distinctive elite-mass bias, became discernible and impactful in a very short order of time. Events and charismatic personalities/leaders played a larger than life role in what was a very unstable and fragile economic, political and population base which remained under pressure from constant change. Constitutions, one senses, include a hopeful aggregation of values and expectations held by the elites who wrote them, but their long term performance in satisfying those values and expectations should not be assumed to be inevitable.

A good part of the politics and motivation of the initial system’s policy-making reflected this change in population, economy, and pressures from the competitive hierarchy, in Kentucky and Tennessee’s geographical location meant global or foreign pressures.  That the First Southwest would be caught up meaningfully with the European Napoleonic wars–and the corresponding threat of a renewed war with Native Americans–proved disruptive to the development of a more purely domestic policy agenda, and weakened the already weakened drive to conduct state-building so necessary to future political and economic development. The politics associated with the Mississippi River (access to it) proved overwhelming and dominated much of each state’s state-level policy agenda and the activities of its core leadership.

Domestically, both states made policy in the midst of a land rush and huge population growth, while its economy had to react to an enlarged presence and opportunistic potential for finance and manufacturing capitalism created pressures for action and policy at the state level, but also reinforced management and policy implementation role of sub-state entities. One might wonder if the powerful state legislature had bitten off more than it could chew. This is going to be a typical situation for new state governments that were created after 1800 as well. So much so one wonders if a land rush, a real estate-driven cultural economic and political agenda, is a characteristic of the drive to statehood and its initial policy system.

This is our first experience with that phenomenon and so we defer judgement on that issue. Economic development-related state-building and policy-making is profoundly affected by this explosive growth in population, urban centers, and the “politics of land rush”. Seemingly, not a central issue one might think, but knowledge of how this factor played out in future Panics (Recessions/Depressions), and the reaction to economic distress compels me to elevate this dynamic early on. The net lesson is that whatever the writers of the state constitution intended, statehood is going to be a long-drawn out process, and state-building institutionalization even longer. That is probably why these early years of statehood are not well-known today–that and inevitable historical fog. The initial policy systems were turbulent, volatile transition policy-making systems that left behind a complex heritage, and lessons that if understood would help us better understand developing and emerging third and fourth world nations. It also would help us better understand how our economy, politics, and culture evolved–rather than assuming as most of us do today that we were born full-blown mature urban industrial capitalist democracies. American economic development developed out of, and in response, to this primeval ooze that we call American history.

Behavior of the Initial Policy System–This considerable flux, probably inevitably also generated fluid, even contradictory, legislative majorities,that made consistency in state-level decision-making difficult to impossible. In amazingly short order, personalistic ambitions, local agendas, and “opportunities” for individual benefit allowed a powerful state legislative to develop a log-rolling decision process that not only blurred public and private interests–but preferenced the latter over the former. A powerful legislature and a supreme but decentralized, low turnout unmobilized voter created the exact opposite of what was intended. Instead of the closest thing to pure democracy in a representative form of government, it got cabals of legislators jockeying for personal, parochial, and group benefit. In this the governor joined in–and the power of local elites/cabals reached into state legislative committees.

This was “frontier democracy” in which most voters were–and wanted to be–outside the policy world and its processes. That hardscrabble yeoman often more than one day’s journey from a polling booth found ample opportunity to not participate, while developing rather strong stereotypes and policy positions. Since there were no formal political parties in Kentucky/Tennessee’s first years, the cattle stampede of independent and autonomous state representatives that rushed into the halls of the state legislature were largely free to form factions or just vote as they thought best. Common man populists Daniel Boone, the Donelson family, Knoxville James White, John Sevier, Issac Shelby and and James Robertson–along with a horde of Virginia-born Kentucky, plantation owners and aspiring plantation owners  all were elected in large numbers to the state legislature–and wasted no time in acquiring primacy in local government. Most sought to carry forward the demands of their local district as core to their personal agendas. But lost in all that was the hinterland agricultural electorate which was supposed to lead this policy system. Reality read differently than the constitution. In the Tidewater policy system, power gravitated to local elites (cabals), whoever wandered into–or were convinced to–vote in the polling booth, charismatic leaders, often Indian-fighting military types, and a behind-the-scenes elite composed political machine.

But it is the fourth feature that proved most impactful–and insightful. The hallmark characteristic of this policy system, distorted as it was by slavery, was that its policy-making polarized and reflected a fragmented elite- populist mass culture/policy struggle for supremacy, or at least preservation of its core values and institutions. Plantation owners and professional elites (the deep swamp  of local politics) clashed with a restive, often hostile mass of electorally-empowered hardscrabble hinterland farmers resistant to government authority, distrustful of local wealth and its new-fangled capitalism thing–and most of the time simply wanting, not more services, but simply to be left alone to do their “thing”. Western populism as we saw with Shays and Whiskey Rebellions was only a tax away from happening. Here we see local majorities of hard-core Scots-Irish, with more and more arriving each week. As time went on, there were more new voters voting than who were around in the very first days of statehood. The balance and compromise between elites and masses that existed when constitutions were written were too soon overturned. The impact of a sustain land rush, turbulent in-migration and population growth became the most pressing dynamic of early Tidewater policy systems.

Highly-charged ideological agendas meant there were many “third rails”, such as slavery itself, and the electoral franchise. Economic development was central in the agenda of each opposing group; economic development evolved its own third rails, banks, for example, state-chartered corporations, public credit, taxes, and land claims–and amazingly the Mississippi River and national defense became players in ED policy-making.

To make matters more interesting, western states that followed Kentucky and Tennessee often attempted to incorporate what they could in their new state constitutions. The notable aspect of the Tidewater policy system, however, which will be unveiled in the remainder of our Early Republic history, is not that it was so successful–to the contrary it was largely, almost inherently unstable, and its effect on each state’s economic development approach and implementation of its strategies was pretty much a failure. Ironically, a noted Kentucky political leader will try to bypass that destabilized Tidewater policy system, by bringing in the national federal government to provide leadership and some resources. Henry Clay called it his “American System”, and it proved the most effective counter to Jefferson, and later Jackson’s Democratic Party vision that a new political party, the Whigs (later to be Lincoln’s Republicans) duked it out into the 1850’s. The effect of all this on our ED history, as one might suspect, was substantial.

Wrap Up and Segue Way–The reader might anticipate that the messages of this chapter will greatly “infect” the remainder of this book. That is yet another important reason why Chapter 4 is more critical than it seems.

Much of Part 1 thus far pours the foundation for our historical evolution. But Chapter 4 itself is a story that will continue into other Eras, and not just shape, but define, the evolution of American ED during the entire Early Republic until the 1870’s.

Just so we know what lies ahead in Part II. That in the Early Republic period economic development would be front and center, on the top or near top of America’s policy agendas. Parts II and III will tell that story. In the period from 1801 to 1828, and then 1837-1845 economic development, as we known it today, took shape, rose to the top of federal, state, and, yes, local policy system agendas.