Class and Politics:
In Pennsylvania (as in other colonies), the struggles with Great Britain triggered a fierce debate over politics and the tradition of election men of wealth and standing into office. Below are parts of several editorials that appeared in Philadelphia newspapers during the 1770s.

Pennsylvania Chronicle, Sept. 27, 1770:
    On "the people" and politics: it was the “greatest imprudence to elect Men of Enormous Estates” who would only add to their “Power” and “Wealth, which gives them such a superiority over us as to render them our Lords and Masters and us as their most abject Slaves.”

Pennsylvania Packet, Sept. 25, 1775:
    "The freemen of this Country would have those gentlemen who value themselves so highly on their wealth & possessions, to know that they do not esteem it the sole end of Government to protect the rich & powerful, however obnoxious they be; but that, on the success of the present controversy depends the right of the industrious to the bread he earns by his labour.  And they think it of infinitely more consequence to mankind that they should enjoy it undisturbed, than that the rich should riot in luxury; and that therefore no title nor dignity shall hereafter save offenders."

Pennsylvania Evening Post, April 27, 1776:
    On elections for sheriff: “A poor man has rarely the honor of speaking to a gentleman on any terms….How kind and clever is the man who proposes to be Sheriff for two months before the election; he knows everybody, smiles upon and salutes everybody, until the election is over; but then to the end of the year, he has no time to speak to you, he is so engaged in seizing your property [for unpaid debts and taxes] and selling your goods at [auction]…..Thus the right of annual elections will ever oblige gentlemen to speak to you once a year, who would despise you forever were it not that you can bestow something upon them…if we would have gentlemen ever come down to our level, we must guard out right of election effectually and not let the Assembly take it out of our hands.

“To the Several Battalions of Military Associators in the Province of Pennsylvania,” June 22, 1776:
    On elections: spoke of how the  “great and over-grown rich Men will be improper to be trusted, [for] they will be too apt to be framing Distinctions in Society because they will reap the Benefits of all such Distinctions.”…. “Let no man represent you, therefore, who would be dispose to form any rank above that of Freeman.”