Southern aristocratic attachment to royal rule delayed their independence support

Evidence

These responses led a growing number of southerners to support independence, but some held back because of concerns over what sort of governments might replace the aristocratic order of British rule. “My Countrymen,” Washington wrote of his fellow southerners in early 1776, “from their form of Government, & steady Attachment here heretofore to Royalty, will come reluctantly to the Idea of Independency; but time, & persecution, brings many wonderful things to pass.” Facts on the ground changed as well. The royal governor of Georgia fled in January, and North Carolina patriots put down an ill-planned rising of backcountry loyalists in February. Commenting on that clash, Washington wrote, “The old proverb, of the first blow being half the Battle cannot better apply than in these Instances the Spirits of the vanquish’d being depress’d in proportion as the Victors get eleated.” — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 122

Categorization

• QUESTION: Reader’s course examines competing values of freedom and equality in legal doctrine — what ‘aristocratic order’ the southerners feared replacing is worth investigating given how southern constitutions later shaped federalism debates.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s founding-values course theme: Washington’s wording shows how attachment to existing order and fear of the unknown shaped the founders’ own reasoning about self-government. — connects to: South Carolina’s republican constitution shifted Adams’s view of southern willingness to abandon royal rule — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 163; Fear of loyalist-slavery-invasion convergence pushed southern delegates toward independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 133; British attacks on the South converted moderates to independence by June 1776 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Fear of loyalist-slavery-invasion convergence pushed southern delegates toward independence #complicates (0.85) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 133
• British attacks on the South converted moderates to independence by June 1776 #complicates (0.80)
• Independence in 1776 meant popular representative government replacing royal rule #expands (0.75) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 5