XV. 1779. the people had authorized framed a constitution. CHAP. It was in a good measure the compilation of John Adams, who was guided by the English constitution, by the bill of rights of Virginia, and by the experience of Massachusetts herself; and this con- 1780. stitution, having been approved by the people, went into effect in 1780. On the fifth of January, 1776, New Hampshire 1776. formed a government with the fewest possible changes from its colonial forms, like Massachusetts merging the executive power in the council. Not till June, 1783, did its convention form a more 1783. perfect instrument, which was approved by the people, and established on the thirty-first of the following October. The provisional constitution of South Carolina 1776. dates from the twenty-sixth of March, 1776. In March, 1778, a permanent constitution was estab- 1778. lished by a simple act of the legislature, without any consultation of the people. Rhode Island enjoyed under its charter a form 1776. of government so thoroughly republican, that independence of monarchy in May, 1776, required no change beyond a renunciation of the king's name in the style of its public acts. A disfranchisement of Catholics had stolen into its book of laws; but so soon as it was noticed, the clause was expunged. In like manner, Connecticut had only to substitute the people of the colony for the name of the king; this was done provisionally on the fourteenth of June, 1776, and made perpetual on the tenth of the following October. Before the end of June of the same year we saw XV. 1776. CHAP. Virginia, sixth in the series, first in the completeness of her work, come forth with her bill of rights, her declaration of independence, and her constitution, adopted at once by her legislative convention without any further consultation of the people. 1777. On the second of July, 1776, New Jersey perfected its new, self-created charter. Delaware next proclaimed its bill of rights, and on the twentieth of September, 1776, finished its constitution, the representatives in convention having been chosen by the freemen of the state for that very purpose. The Pennsylvania convention adopted its constitution on the twenty-eighth of September, 1776; but the opposition which it received alike from the Quakers, whom it indirectly disfranchised, and from a large body of patriots, delayed its thorough organization for more than five months. The delegates of Maryland, meeting on the fourteenth of August, 1776, framed its constitution with great deliberation, and it was established on the ninth of the following November. On the eighteenth of December, 1776, the constitution of North Carolina was openly ratified in the congress by which it had been framed. On the fifth of February, 1777, Georgia, the twelfth state, perfected its organic law by the unanimous agreement of its convention. Last of the thirteen came New York, whose empowered convention, on the twentieth of April, 1777, established a constitution, that, in the largeness of its humane liberality, excelled them all. In elective governments which sprung from the recognition of the freedom of the individual, every man might consistently claim the right of contributing by his own reason his proportionate share of influence in forming the collective reason which was to rule the state. Such was the theory; in practice, no jealous inquiry was raised respecting those who should actually participate in this sovereignty. The privilege of the suffrage had been far more widely extended in the colonies than in England; in most of the thirteen states, no discontent broke out at existing restrictions, and no disposition was manifested to depart from them abruptly by an immediate equalization of the primary political functions. The principle of the revolution involved an indefinite enlargement of the number of the electors, which could have no other term than universal suffrage; but, by general consent, the consideration of the subject was postponed. The age of twenty-one was universally required as a qualification. So, too, was residence, except that in Virginia and South Carolina it was enough to own in the district or town a certain freehold or "lot." South Carolina required of the electors to "acknowledge the being of a God, and to believe in a future state of rewards and punishments." White men alone could claim the franchise in Virginia, in South Carolina, and in Georgia; but in South Carolina a benign interpretation of the law classed the free octaroon as a white, even though descended through an unbroken line of mothers from an imported African slave; the other ten states raised no question of color. In Pennsylvania, in New Hampshire, and partially in North CHAP. XV. 1776 1783. XV. 1783. CHAP. Carolina, the right to vote belonged to every resi dent tax-payer; in Georgia, to any white inhab1776- itant "being of any mechanic trade;" with this exception, Georgia and all the other colonies required the possession of a freehold, or of property variously valued, in Massachusetts at about two hundred dollars, in Georgia at ten pounds. But similar conditions had always existed, with the concurrence or by the act of the colonists themselves; so that the people felt no sense of a wrongful innovation, and the harmony of the state was not troubled. Maryland prescribed as its rule, that votes should be given by word of mouth; Virginia and New Jersey made no change in their former usage; Rhode Island had a way of its own, analogous to its charter each freeman was in theory expected to be present in the general court; he therefore gave his proxy to the representative, which was done by writing his name on the back of his vote; all others adopted the ballot, New York at the end of the war, the other eight without delay. The first great want common to all was a house of representatives, so near the people as to be the image of their thoughts and wishes, so numerous as to appear to every individual voter as his direct counterpart, so frequently renewed as to insure swift responsibility. Such a body every one of the British colonies had enjoyed. They now gained an absolute certainty as to the times of meeting of the assemblies, an unalterable precision in the periods of election, and in some states a juster distribution of representation. In theory, the houses of legis XV. 1776 lation should everywhere have been in propor- CHAP. tion to numbers; and for this end a census was to be taken at fixed times in Pennsylvania and New 1783. York; but in most of the states old inequalities were continued, and even new ones introduced. In New England, the several towns had from the first enjoyed the privilege of representation, and from a love of equality this custom was retained; in Virginia, the counties and boroughs in the low country, where the aristocracy founded in land and slaves had its seat, secured an undue share of the members of the assembly; the planters of Maryland, jealous of the growing weight of Baltimore, set an arbitrary and most unequal limit to the representation of that city; in South Carolina, for seven years Charleston was allowed to send thirty members, and the parishes near the sea took almost a monopoly of political power; after that period, representatives were to be proportioned according to the number of white inhabitants and to the taxable property in the several districts. In South Caroolina the assembly was chosen for two years; everywhere else for but one. To the assembly was reserved the power of originating taxes. In Georgia, the delegates to the continental congress had a right to sit, debate, and vote in its house of assembly, of which they were deemed to be a part. Franklin would have one legislative body, and no more; he approved the decision of the framers of the constitution of Pennsylvania to repose all legislative power in an uncontrolled assembly. This precedent was followed in Georgia. From all the experience of former republics, John Adams argued for a legisla |