I was discussing this point with a friend and realised my understanding of the history here was just plain bad. Suffrage wasn't extended to the general US white male population until considerably after the revolution.
How was it that the argument of "no taxation without representation" could be convincingly made to revolutionaries when most of them would still not be able to vote or determine leadership?
The first elections in the US had only a tiny fraction of the wealthy elite vote in them. Was the understanding of "representation" different then? It seems hypocritical to me.
The UK government offered the idea of "virtual representation" which displeased colonists - is this not the same principle that US elections then proceeded to operate on, with the gentry "virtually representing" the commoners?
Thanks.
Found a valuable response here (credit to /u/mormengil):
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/34gi72/before_the_american_revolution_did_the/
A surprisingly high percentage of American families were able to vote and had representation and sufferage in the 1790s (when the US constitution was ratified). Sufferage was determined by States (not by the Federal Government), but 50-75% of white men had the vote in the 1790s, plus some other categories.
http://millercenter.org/president/washington/essays/biography/8
Generally all states gave suffrage to free white property owning men. A very high percentage of Americans owned property in the 1790s (mostly their farm).'.
America at this time was a nation largely composed of (near subsistence) farmers. They generally owned their own farms. Most of the white men who could not vote were working on their father's farm and their father had the vote, so the family was 'represented'. (Generally the eldest son, who stood to inherit the farm. The younger sons would mostly have struck out for the frontier to stake out their own farm, or taken up a trade and expect to acquire property in the form of a workshop or store and a house in a village. town or city, or have become laborers or seamen, in which case they would usually not get the vote until they had saved up enough to buy property.)
Only 6% of Americans lived in cities with a population greater than 2,500 in the 1790s, and cities were where there was the highest concentration of non-property owning laborers, workers, and renters. (With the exception of slaves)
Besides the general suffrage for all free white property owning men, Vermont had granted suffrage to all free men by 1790, Kentucky did the same in 1792 (when it entered the Union as a State), Tennessee followed in 1796. Women who owned property could vote in New Jersey. Black men who owned property could vote in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, North Carolina, Tennessee and Maryland. All in all, a pretty high percent of households had the vote and representation. There really was not a very large "proletariat" in 1790s America (other than slaves).
Perhaps then, in response to my question about the changing meaning of "representation", it would be fair to say people cared more that they had a family representative. In that sense the meaning has changed from being more familial and tied to ownership of land/property to be more individualist and how we see voting as an individual's right today, leading up to Jacksonian Democracy.
Sadly the source originally linked is now dead. It would be good to find a replacement.
As a follow up: was the aspiration of actually voting even that important?
Reading something like "Common Sense" political strife only seems to be considered as a technicality and the main benefit would be related to the nature of government, makng sure it works for the people and not itself.