realized that they might prove only temporary, and provided for their amendment and revision. To the Legislatures was left the initiative. Pennsylvania and Vermont created a Council of Censors to guard the constitution and suggest changes.* To prevent hasty ones, some States made it possible to make periodical revision. The electors were not consulted in making many of these constitutions; but amendments and revisions were usually made with their consent. In some States changes were difficult to make, the elements necessary to effect them not being likely to work harmoniously at one time. Gradually the process of amendment became simpler, and to the electors the Legislature submitted changes and the question of calling a convention. Gradually, also, the practice prevailed of submitting the work of the convention to the electors that it might receive their ratification. This has become the

normal procedure.

What, then, were the distinguishing features of this body of eighteenth-century supreme law? Not least in importance was its civil character: it departed from feudal precedents and organized government on a peace footing. Unlike the early, and some later, constitutions of the South American republics, and the written constitutions of the continent, it contained no provisions that can be called military in character. Political and civil

* Report of Pennsylvania Censors in Proceedings of Conventions of 1776, 1789, Harrisburg, Part iii. The Reports of the Vermont Censors are in some twenty volumes, down to 1870.

Individualism Dominating Politics

rights were stated as their own best defence. American democracy thus made a unique contribution to the social evolution of the race. These constitutions, and the national - adopted amid and largely from the earlier of them-proclaimed that a new political opportunity had come. It was equality of the eighteenth-century kind, but purer and more accessible than before. In spite of the confusion of functions, the constitutions worked. Henceforth the people should rule by divine right. It is safe to smile at the idea now-as the heresy was promulgated long ago. But amid our smiles and disappointments we still cling hopefully to the heresy, believing that it is not too good to be true. Universal suffrage looks back, with some impatience and more pity, wondering that the fathers applied the theory of equal rights so badly. Theirs was the age of things-ours of persons. The basis of government has changed. The privileges of caste have been thrust back by the forces of universal suffrage.

Many seeds of rivalry were sown in these constitutions. England was the land of privileges of birth and property, and the Americans were Englishmen of yesterday. It was an age of theories in government; ours is one of theories in economy. Debating clubs discussed propositions then that we hold as political axioms now. Running

through the whole political estate was individualism, the dominating notion of the times. Reading between the lines-or, to speak more truly, reading later experience into them-we detect ideas

which were the political straws left on the field after the harvest of independence. Whatever we may think of the new governments, they fixed the ancient landmarks, which have never been removed.

CHAPTER IV

THE TRANSITION OF INDEPENDENT STATES

THE Colonization of America, as carried on by Englishmen, proceeded according to feudal notions. To individuals and companies the Crown granted charters as to feudal chiefs. Raleigh dreamed of a profitable tenantry and a long rent-roll in America. All the companies were close corporations, animated by much the same spirit as Raleigh. A continent in a state of nature produces democracy. The economic schemes of feudalism failed; but the system took political possession of the country, and held on until democracy dislodged it within the memory of the living. The tenacious grasp was clear in the first State constitutions, and is traceable in those of our own times.* All government emanated from the Crown. The idea is still good in politics, and was long paramount in law. Charter privileges, in the early days, were exclusively for the members of the corporation, but immigration speedily compelled a change. The corporation was enlarged. This was the first reform in representation, the first extension of the

* The principal authorities for this chapter are the proceedings of the Legislatures and conventions referred to. See note, p. 29.

suffrage. The record of it fills the early annals of Massachusetts. It was typical of that going on in one form or another in all the colonies, and continued long after they became States. It is a present issue.

The unit of political measure was the town in the North; in the South, the county. Some old towns claimed an equal right of representation with counties. For a time it was granted them.* Colonial isolation compelled representation in local government, and ultimately in federal. Much of the emphasis which has been put upon the right of representation is rather due to the economic character of the constituencies. Social efficiency was feeble. Self-protection compelled resort to some system of representation. The Virginia General Court of 1619, with which our Legislatures begin, exercised the functions of a judicial body and some functions of a legislative. It is not clear that James the First intended to establish an American Parliament. The House of Stuart was not in the habit of laying such democratic foundations. Nor is it probable that the King called the House of Burgesses into being merely to vex the posterity of his enemies. The Virginia Assembly was a necessity, and the charter was interpreted accordingly. It was an early instance of the administrative making the constitutional. The men who managed what were called

*As in Virginia. The towns or boroughs preponderated in 1619, whence their delegates gave the name House of Burgesses to the Assembly.-Stith's Virginia, p. 160.