At the end of that same article (“Rights of Ruling Elders, Princeton Review, 1843), Charles Hodge notes an interesting facet of American Presbyterian history:

At the time of the formation of our present constitution, there were one or two prominent men in our Church who held the same doctrine, but they were opposed to our whole system, and complained bitterly that the Synod insisted on “cramming Scotland down their throats.” The late Dr. James P. Wilson was another advocate of this theory; but he was the most zealous opposer of ruling elders our Church ever produced. In his work on the “Primitive Government of Christian Churches,” he says one of his principal objects was to show “the illiteracy of making mute elders a characteristic of the primitive Church.” “Had,” he says, “there existed mute elders in the apostolic churches, deacons would have been unnecessary. Elders must ‘feed the Church,’ and be ‘apt to teach.'” He everywhere maintains that presbyters had the same office, though they differed in their gifts, graces, and talents; some being best qualified for governing, others for exhorting and comforting, and others for teaching. he therefore says that First Timothy 5.17, “expresses a diversity in the exercise of the presbyterial office, but not in the office itself.”

Hodge then attaches a footnote saying,

Dr. Wilson carried his theory through, so far that he never had any elders in his church. He says, “We ordained deacons and called them elders, for that was the custom.” He considered the constitution, ch. 13, § 2, as giving him this liberty. It is there said, “Every congregation shall elect persons to the office of ruling elder, and to that of deacon, or to either of them.” We do not vouch for the fact,but we have often heard it asserted that he never associated his nominal elders with himself in the government of the church, kept no sessional records, or at least never produced them before presbytery.