Law and Voluntary Association in the Early United States

Abstract

This chapter explores the cultural meanings and legal consequences ascribed to the concept of individual, voluntary membership by the first generations of American citizens, between 1783 and 17840. Within their own groups, joiners and organizers of American associations emphasized law and procedural fairness as the best way to cohere. And their legalistic framing of their own efforts to act collectively meant that people came to conceive of their participation as one of well-defined rights and obligations. Thus, legal institutions (chiefly, courts of law) occupied an important position in the monitoring of those internal relationships. Together, the everyday practices of association and the judicial protections of the personal rights of members reveal a belief that effective collaboration came from law-minded and law-bound ways of joining together.