1776. ELECTORS AND OFFICE-HOLDERS. 377 governed. Yet under most of these early constitutions none but property-owning, tax-paying men could give that consent from which government derives its just powers. The government set up by many a constitution, despite the principle announced in its preamble, was that of a class. Nowhere, save in Vermont, did manhood suffrage exist. Elsewhere no man voted who did not pay a property tax, or rent a house, or own a specified number of acres of land, or have a specified yearly income.* Each one of the State constitutions guaranteed liberty of conscience; but the man who did not exercise that liberty of conscience in such wise as to become a Protestant or a Catholic, a trinitarian or a believer in the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testament, must give up all hope of political preferment.† Even to such as could subscribe to creeds and doctrines the way to public office was barred by property qualifications, which increased with the dignity of the office till it became absolutely impossible for a poor man to become a candidate for the State Senate or the governorship.+ When election day had passed, when the taxable poll, the house-renter, the man with fifty pounds' worth of real estate, the owner of fifty acres freehold had cast his ballot or given his viva-voce vote, his part in the government of his State was played. The Legislature, the General Court, did the rest, elected the Governor in most cases, chose his council, appointed and removed the judges of the courts, the justices of the peace, the sheriffs of the counties, the civil officers, and all militia officers down to the grade of captain. Nor was the Governor when elected invested with a tithe of the power now exercised by his successor. The early State constitutions were made at a time when the people were still smarting under the effect of the vetoes, the prorogations, the tyranny of the royal governors, and were still under the influence of the principles and teachings set forth by the revolutionary leaders. They were of no mind to repeat a bitter experience, and from preamble to schedule their constitutions are marked all through History of the People of the United States, vol. iii, pp. 146, 147. + Ibid., p. 148. + Ibid., p. 148. with unmistakable signs of distrust of the one-man power and a perfect trust of the popular Legislature. The executive of revolutionary days had no extensive patronage, no well-paid offices at his disposal. In eleven States he had no veto; in one he was given a qualified veto, and in another this power was vested in a Council of Revision, of which he was a member. Everywhere he was checked by an executive council. Everywhere, save in New Jersey and Maryland, he could be impeached, tried, and, if found guilty, removed from office, and nowhere did he exercise an unrestricted power to pardon. So great was the power of the Legislatures that the constitutions of nine States could be amended without in any way consulting the people. Yet our forefathers must not be accused of inconsistency, however much their practice departed from their theory. Their faces were set in the right direction. They were determining on just what principles governments should be founded, and, having announced and defined these principles, they went on to put them in practice as quickly as they could. But they had not gone very far when it became evident that by a timid adherence to custom and to precedent many things had found a place in the constitutions which had no place there, and these, the moment an opportunity offered, were removed. How greatly the experience of a few years of self-government affected the political ideas of the time was shown when New York abolished the entailment of estates, when Virginia provided for religious liberty, and in 1787, when two instruments of vast importance the Ordinance of Government for the Territory northwest of the river Ohio, and the Constitution of the United States-were framed at New York and Philadelphia. By the first three great principles were firmly established in the new West, and by each one of them the rights of man were much extended. Estates both of resident and non-resident proprietors dying intestate were to be divided equally among the heirs; the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between them, were to be common highways, and forever free not only to the inhabitants of the territory and of the States then existing, but to 1790-1800. OLD RESTRICTIONS REMOVED. 379 those of States yet to be admitted into the Union; and, finally, slavery and involuntary servitude, save as a punishment for crime, was forbidden. By the Federal Constitution representation in the House is apportioned according to population. Reform was the order of the day, and in the general revision of the old State constitutions, between 1790 and 1800, and in the eight newly made or amended the rights of man were greatly extended. Pennsylvania cast away her religious test, and put the ballot in the hands of every tax-paying male. In Kentucky and Vermont manhood suffrage for the first time was made a part of the political system of the United States. New Hampshire followed and abolished the religious qualification once exacted of her Governor and her Legislature, took off poll taxes, and gave the suffrage to every male inhabitant twenty-one years old. Delaware enfranchised every free white male of age who had lived two years on her soil, and ceased to ask if he believed in the Trinity and the divine inspiration of the Testaments. South Carolina opened the polls to Catholics. Georgia did away with her religious test for civil office and the property qualification once required of all voters. During the last decade of the eighteenth century, therefore, a great stride forward was made. Church and state began to be separated. Religious qualifications almost ceased to be a condition for the exercise of civil rights. Property qualifications were much reduced, and the democratic doctrine of universal suffrage was spreading fast. Everywhere the plain people were calling for a larger share in the management of political affairs, for speedier justice, for more elective offices, for the abolition of life-tenure, for manhood suffrage, and before 1810 serious attempts were made in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to secure new constitutions or amend the old in such wise as to obtain these things. They failed; the men who agitated for reform and the rights of man were denounced as disorganizers, levellers, Jacobins, malcontents of the worst sort, and in all that decade but one new constitution-that of Ohio-was produced; and but one old constitution-that of Maryland-was amended. There, in 1810, the property qualification for voters was abolished, the suffrage was given to every free white male of full age and a resident of the State, and the Legislature forbidden to ever again lay a tax for the support of any form of religion. New Jersey, in 1807, took off her property qualification, and established manhood suffrage by the simple process of an act explanatory of the constitution. The second decade of the century opened with the admission of one new State* into the Union, and closed with the admission of five † others and the framing of a constitution in Connecticut. These years were pre-eminently a period of constitution making, and the instruments then put forth give visible evidence of a great change in political ideas. All of them provide for the election of the Governor by the people, all of them give him a veto,t make him removable by impeachment, permit him to remit fines and forfeitures, pardon all offences save treason, and greatly extend his appointing power. The people were drifting away from the old idea that the Legislature is the bulwark of popular rights. Twenty years of government by rival and hostile political parties had shaken the old faith in the representatives of the people. The gerrymandering, the wild-cat banking, the neglect of popular interests, the failure to respond to popular demands for reform in the old States, were full of instruction for the constitution makers in the new. Vague and general grants of power, resting on the supposition that the Legislature will be sure to do what is for the welfare of the people, are replaced by strict prohibitions not to do this, by positive injunctions not to do that, and by provi * Louisiana. + Indiana, 1816; Mississippi, 1817; Illinois, 1818; Alabama, 1819; Maine, 1820. In 1820 the Governor had no veto in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Ohio. In Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi the veto could be overridden by a two-thirds vote of each branch of the Legislature. In Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, and, later, in Missouri, a bill could be passed over the veto by a majority of all members elected to each branch. In Vermont the bill objected to must lie over to the next session. New York gave her veto to the Council of Revision, and required a two-third vote in both houses to pass a bill over the veto, 1810-20. NEW CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS. # 381 A sions which might much better have been placed on the statute-book. Some forbid imprisonment for debt after the debtor has surrendered all his estate; others declare that estates of suicides shall be divided among the heirs just as in cases of natural death; * and still others that in suits for libel truth shall be a good defence.† Five have long provisions touching banks; one prohibits the establishment of a lottery; others enjoin it on the Legislature to establish free schools and colleges, and take proper care of the school lands. Four give the ballot to white males. Two restrict the franchise to free white males who pay a State or county tax. The rights of man are fast being extended. Even the old idea that taxation and representation should go together is fast being abandoned. Two States now base representation in the lower branch of the Legislature on white population. Three others give representation to white males; two restrict it to the voting population. The conviction that the life tenure of office, or tenure during good behavior, is undemocratic is now firmly rooted in the popular mind, and in three of the new Western States judges must be removed by the Governor on address by the Legislature. But the greatest forward movement in all this period was the framing of a constitution for Connecticut. Fourteen years before, during the outburst of democracy which ushered in the century, her form of government had been denounced, and a vigorous effort made to change it. We still live, it was said by one of the agitators for reform, under the old jumble of legislative, executive, and judicial powers called a charter. We still suffer from the old restrictions on the right to vote; we are still ruled by the whims of seven lawyers. Twelve men form the council; seven make a majority, and in the hands of these seven are all powers-legislative, executive, ju * Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi. Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi. # New York. | Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri. A Louisiana, Mississippi. ◊ History of the People of the United States, vol. iii, pp. 190–193. |