ABSTRACT
The curious power of survival of the two-party, radical-conservative syndrome for the revolutionary decades owed little to the evidence, much to Carl L. Becker's acute analysis of New York politics before independence. He argued that the conflict between colony and empire concealed a significant cleavage among the Americans themselves, that an internal struggle for power coincided with that against England. Becker at first cautiously treated colonial politics as "factional contests", in which the personal element predominated until 1769. He then slipped into use of the terms "court party" and "popular party", although referring as late as April 1775 to the "conservative faction". The significant statesmen of the period did not fit into a consistent two-party system reaching back before 1774. By 1790 John Hancock and James Bowdoin had emerged as leaders of two opposing groups; by 1797 Elbridge Gerry and Samuel Adams had become Republicans of sorts, while John Adams was a Federalist of sorts.
