20 In the new nation, “eastern” usually meant New England. Not affiliated with any of these blocs were a few independent Congressmen mostly from Rhode Island, Maryland and the Carolina low country—the boundary cultures of British America. See H. James Henderson, “The Structure of Politics in the Continental Congress,” in Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1973), 157-196; and idem, Party Politics in the Continental Congress (New York, 1974); cf. Joseph L. Davis, Sectionalism in American Politics, 1774-1787 (Madison, 1977).

21 Paul Wentworth, “Minutes Respecting Political Parties in America and Sketches of the Leading Persons in Each Province,” in Benjamin F. Stevens, ed., Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773-1783 (25 vols., 1889-95), XVII, 487.