Lawyers, Public Office, and Communication Patterns in Provincial Massachusetts: The Early Careers of Robert Treat Paine and John Adams, 1749-1774

Abstract When the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia in 1774, nearly half its members were lawyers. Thirteen years later, the majority of delegates to the Constitutional Convention were lawyers. Thereafter, as the new government took shape, lawyers figured prominently in all its branches. Massachusetts, which had sent the lawyers Robert Treat Paine and John Adams to the first Continental Congress, increasingly turned to the law profession for representatives, so much so that during the first fifty years of the new government (1789-1839) nearly two thirds of Massachusetts’ congressional delegates were lawyers.1 In the early republic men trained in law were evidently highly regarded as public officials, not only as judges but especially as representatives. From a 20th-century perspective it may seem obvious that this should have been so. Nothing could be more rational than to put experts in charge of creating legislation, and no policy could be more prudent than to place specialists trained to understand those statutes in charge of their administration and enforcement. Yet such judgments presume a great deal, not only about lawyers but about their reputation for probity and faithfulness in pursuing the public interest. From the perspective of provincial Massachusetts the idea that lawyers should be entrusted with a preeminent role in public affairs was doubtful. This outcome resulted from the parts certain lawyers played within Massachusetts’ particular configuration of information networks-local and provincial, and networks within and between social ranks.