The Macocracy: Caesarism In Appalachia
“This system of order gave rise to a special style of backcountry politics which was far removed from the classical ideas of democracy and aristocracy. It was a highly distinctive type of polity which Charles Lee called ‘macocracy’—that is, ‘rule by the race of Macs.’ This system of macocracy was a structure of highly personal politics without deference to social rank. In that respect, it was very different from Virginia. In the early eighteenth century, William Byrd observed of the back-country settlements, ‘They are rarely guilty of flattery or making any court to their governors, but treat them with all the excesses of freedom and familiarity.’ It was also a polity without strong political institutions, and in that regard very far removed from New England. There was comparatively little formal structure to local government—no town meetings, no vestries, no commissions, and courts of uncertain authority. But within the same broad tradition of self-government common to all English-speaking people, the borderers of North Britain easily impoverished their own politics.
Another feature of this backcountry ‘macocracy’ was strong personal leadership. The politics of the back-country settlements were dominated by leaders who possessed a quality called ‘influence’ or ‘interest.’ David Caldwell, one of the leaders of Lunenberg County in back country Virginia, was described as a ‘man of great influence in the county.’ Colonel Thomas Fletchall pf Fair Forest Creek in Carolina was described as having ‘great influence in that part of the country.’ Another wrote ‘Col. Fletchall has all those people at his beck, and reigns among them as a little king.’ Another example was Colonel Richard Richardson, of St. Mark Parish, South Carolina. He had moved south from Virginia, married into the backcountry ascendency, acquired a large property called Big Home, commanded a regiment of militia in the Cherokee War of 1760, and became the leading man in his part of the country…
Men who rose to positions of leadership in this culture commonly did so by bold and decisive acts…The politics of the backcountry consisted of mainly charismatic leaders and personal followings, cemented by strong and forceful acts such as Jackson’s behavior at Jonesboro. The rhetoric that these leaders used sometimes sounded democratic, but it was easily misunderstood by those who were not part of this folk culture. The Jacksonian movement was case in point. To easterners, Andrew Jackson looked and sounded like a Democrat. But in his own culture, his rhetoric had a very different function. Historian Thomas Abernathy observes that Andrew Jackson never championed the cause of the people; he merely invited the people to champion him. This was a style of politics that placed a heavy premium on personal loyalty. In the American backcountry, as on the British boarders, loyalty was the most powerful cement of political relationships. Disloyalty was the primary political sin.”
–Excerpt from “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America” by David Hackett Fischer