The Trials of Allegiance: Treason, Juries, and the American Revolution

by Carlton F.W. Larson

Overview

The Trials of Allegiance examines the law of treason during the American Revolution: a convulsive, violent civil war in which nearly everyone could be considered a traitor, either to Great Britain or to America.

Drawing from extensive archival research in Pennsylvania, one of the main centers of the revolution, Carlton Larson provides the most comprehensive analysis yet of the treason prosecutions brought by Americans against British adherents: through committees of safety, military tribunals, and ordinary criminal trials. Although popular rhetoric against traitors was pervasive in Pennsylvania, jurors consistently viewed treason defendants not as incorrigibly evil, but as fellow Americans who had made a political mistake. This book explains the repeated and violently controversial pattern of acquittals. Juries were carefully selected in ways that benefited the defendants, and jurors refused to accept the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for treason. The American Revolution, unlike many others, would not be enforced with the gallows.

More broadly, Larson explores how the Revolution's treason trials shaped American national identity and perceptions of national allegiance. He concludes with the adoption of the Treason Clause of the United States Constitution, which was immediately put to use in the early 1790s in response to the Whiskey Rebellion and Fries's Rebellion.

In taking a fresh look at these formative events, The Trials of Allegiance reframes how we think about treason in American history, up to and including the present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190932749
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/27/2019
Pages:	424
Sales rank:	697,729
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Carlton F.W. Larson is Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis School of Law.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 Treason in Colonial Pennsylvania 11

The Adoption of English Treason Law 13

Pennsylvania's Earliest Treason Cases 18

The Outbreak of War 19

The Disputes with Virginia and Connecticut 23

2 Resistance and Treason, 1765-1775 30

Justifying Resistance 31

A Jury of One's Peers 34

Identifying the Real Traitors 37

3 Treason against America, 1775-1776 42

The War's First Treason Charges 45

The Second Round of Treason Charges 49

County Committees of Safety 51

Denunciation of Enemies 55

The British Legal Response to the Rebels 57

Independence 58

4 From Independence to Invasion, 1776-1778 61

The Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention and the Treason Ordinance 62

The Council of Safety and the County Committees 65

Enactment of a Treason Statute 69

The Case of James Molesworth and the Scope of Military Jurisdiction 73

The Test Act 75

Reopening the Courts 76

The Exiles to Virginia 78

The Fall of Philadelphia and Military Trials 85

5 The Winding Path to the Courthouse, 1778 91

Prosecutions in the County Courts 92

The Attainder Statute and Property Forfeitures 96

Chief Justice Thomas McKean and the Reopening of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court 100

The Special Commission for Bedford County 107

The Return to Philadelphia 108

Hiring Prosecutors and Court Employees 113

Trial by Jury in Chester County 117

6 The Philadelphia Treason Trials, 1778-1779: Forming the jury 122

The Grand Jurors 124

Trial-Juror Selection: The Panel and Challenges 130

Trial-Juror Demographics 135

Trial-Juror Political Activity 146

7 The Philadelphia Treason Trials, 1778-1779: Trial and Deliberation 150

Defendant Demographics and Political Activity 152

Defense Counsel 156

Charges and Defenses 157

Trial Witnesses 160

Evidentiary Objections 162

Jury Deliberations 163

The Death Penalty 165

8 Resentment and Betrayal, 1779-1781 177

The Newspaper Debates over the Franks Trial 177

The Trial of Samuel Rowland Fisher 181

Fort Wilson 185

Modifications to Pennsylvania's Treason Law 189

The Battle over Detentions 192

Misprision of Treason Cases before the Justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court 194

Benedict Arnold 197

The Aftermath: The Executions of David Dawson and Ralph Morden 201

The Berks County Tax Revolt 206

The Trials of Justin McCarty and Samuel Chapman 208

9 Peace, the Constitution, and Rebellion, 1781-1800 214

Treason Prosecutions after Yorktown 215

Treason Cases: Summary Data 217

The Escaping-Prisoners Cases 220

The Returning Loyalists 223

The Continuing Threat of Internal Dismemberment 226

Treason and the United States Constitution 229

The Status of State Treason Law 233

The Whiskey Rebellion 235

Fries's Rebellion 243

Conclusion 250

Appendices

Appendix 1 Juror Assignments: Philadelphia Treason Trials, 1778-1779 255

Appendix 2 Jury Trials for High Treason in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution 259

Appendix 3 Jury Trials for High Treason, United States Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania, 1795-1800, Held at City Hall in Philadelphia 263

List of Abbreviations 265

Notes 267

Index 367

Editorial Reviews

"It is hard to imagine a scholar of the Revolution offering something new and original, and even harder to imagine a legal scholar deploying non-printed legal and non-legal materials of such breadth. But Larson has done just that! In this fascinating and researched study, he explores how Pennsylvanians transformed the law of treason and helped create the republic. He surveys English legal inheritance, debates over the nature of treason, the predicaments of loyalism, and the role of juries, which exhibited leniency in a time of civil war. His masterful dissection of nearly two dozen jury trials prosecuted in Philadelphia in 1778 and 1779 - events almost completely ignored by prior historians—lays bare the promises and the perils of Americans' newfound liberty." — David Hancock, Professor of History, University of Michigan

"Larson's account of how the law of treason functioned during the Founding period will be an indispensable guide for anyone studying treason, allegiance, the jury, and the larger political context of this critical period in history. As Larson details in a series of fascinating stories, the complex struggles that informed how the Founding generation thought about such things before and after the American Revolution have important lessons for ongoing debates over these same matters." — Amanda L. Tyler, Professor of Law, University of California at the Berkeley School of Law

"The American Revolution and the formation of the early republic are well-studied, but Larson reveals something new: the central importance of treason law and prosecutions. In the Revolution, nearly every American-whether revolutionary, loyalist, or neutral - could be considered a traitor. Ideas about treason and treason prosecutions were and are fundamental to questions of sovereignty, allegiance, and national identity; Larson observes that the Declaration of Independence itself could be viewed as a clarification of what treason was and was not. Besides this new way of viewing the break with Britain, Larson's research gives us an unprecedented account of a crucial American institution in the eighteenth century: the jury." — Renée Lettow Lerner, Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor, George Washington University Law School

"In this marvelous study, Carlton Larson shows how traitors reflected on the meaning of treason and, in the process, forged a new national identity." — Gerard Magliocca, Samuel R. Rosen Professor, the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

"His book is much like a legal brief, with extensive footnotes (just under one hundred pages) and some charts focused on various cases in the colony of Pennsylvania before, during and just after the war. That it is well researched is obvious, and considering its content the book is quite well written and easy to read." — Ken Daigler, Journal of the American Revolution

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