Student Question
How did the American view of representation differ from England's, including voting rights?
Quick answer:
The American view of representation emphasized "direct" representation, asserting that only legislatures with elected representatives could tax the colonies. In contrast, England favored "virtual" representation, claiming that Parliament members represented all English people, not just their constituencies. This difference was highlighted by the fact that less than 10% of English men could vote due to property requirements, whereas a majority of free white men in the American colonies could vote, reflecting broader property ownership.
To answer this question, we have to look at the imperial crisis that developed after the French and Indian War in the American colonies. When Parliament tried to tax the colonies, they protested that because they were not represented in that body, it had no authority to tax them. This is what might be called a theory of "direct" representation. As colonial representatives said in the "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" issued by the Stamp Act Congress:
...the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament...
Only a legislative body (colonial legislatures) to which the colonists had sent representatives, in other words, were entitled to tax them. In Britain, many politicians and political theorists...
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were developing a different concept of representation that has become known as "virtual" representation. They argued that members of the House of Commons in Parliament, though elected from individual boroughs, were not only representatives of the people of that borough, but of all the people of England. This theory would continue to be cited as many new cities emerged along with the Industrial Revolution. Small rural communities had representatives in Parliament while large cities like Manchester did not. The British applied this theory to the relationship with the colonies as well. Even though the colonists were not "directly" represented, they were "virtually" represented.Â
These differing views of representation to some extent reflected realities in the colonies and in England. Probably less than 10% of English men could actually vote due to stringent property requirements. This would remain true until well into the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, in almost all of the North American colonies, well over a majority of free white men could vote. Property requirements for voting existed, but property ownership was far more widespread in the colonies than in England. So only propertied males could vote, but this phrase applied far more to American colonists than people who lived in England.
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