Country men believed the Court Party was corrupting Britain by using patronage to buy support and was threatening English and Scottish liberties and the proper balance of authority by shifting power from Parliament to the prime minister.
It sought to constrain the court by opposing standing armies, calling for annual elections to Parliament (instead of the seven-year term in effect), and wanted to fix power in the hands of the landed gentry rather than the royal officials, urban merchants or bankers.
The Country Party attracted a number of influential writers (such as Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun) and political theorists.
[10] The historian Julian Hoppit has interpreted that around 1700 instead of a country "party", the English electorate, its Lords and its elected representatives had a country persuasion with key consensus demands that the government should be frugal and efficient, opposition to high taxes, a concern for personal liberty, a quest for more frequent elections, a faith that the local militia would substitute for a dangerous standing army, a desire for such moral reforms as temperance in an age of drunkenness, and less Sabbath breaking.
The writings of the country party were eagerly devoured by some American colonists who came to fear the corruption of the English court as the greatest threat to the colonies’ desired liberties.
[12] Similarly, Jeffersonianism inherited the country party attack on elitism, centralization, and distant government during the ascent of Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists.