Note 46 — CHAPTER FIVE

Ibid., p. 137. It must first be recognized that American Presbyterianism differed from that of Scotland particularly with regard to local autonomy. The Presbyterian Church, like the United States under the Constitution of 1787, was federal in its governmental structure, and the autonomy of the local religious institutions was later carried into politics. Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish, p. 313, emphasizes the fact that the Scotch-Irishman's church had accustomed him to belief in government by the consent of the governed, in representative and republican institutions. The relationship between the church covenant and the social compact is quite direct. If men can bind themselves together to form a church, then it seems quite logical that they can bind themselves together to form a government. Fair Play democracy was simply political Presbyterianism. Its impact has been noted by a number of historians. Dunaway, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, p. 135, claims that "The actual means by which Pennsylvania was transformed from a proprietary province into an American commonwealth was the new political organization developed by the Scotch-Irish in alliance with the eastern radical leaders of the continental Revolutionary movement. This extra-legal organization, consisting of the committee of safety, the provincial and county committees of correspondence, and the provincial conventions, supplanted the regular provincial government by absorbing its functions." Becker, Beginning of the American People, p. 180, calls the Scotch-Irish a people "whose religion confirmed them in a democratic habit of mind."