ment of the unicameral system in Georgia in 1789 and in Pennsylvania in 1790. That action was understood to have settled the matter in favor of the division of the legislatures into two houses.

The early nineteenth-century democracy attempted to preserve the special character of the upper house of the state legislatures by the use of devices less repugnant to the spirit of the people than that of special and exclusive electorates. The senate was generally distinguished from the more popular house by a higher age qualification, a longer term of office, a system of partial renewals, after the fashion of the federal senate, and a less numerous membership. Thus senators were expected to be older and more experienced men when first elected, and the senates themselves were expected to contain at any given time a smaller proportion of new members than the more popular houses. The less numerous membership usually meant the election of senators in larger districts than members of the lower branch, a circumstance which was expected to attract abler or wealthier candidates. Since the newer states adopted the practice of biennial elections instead of the annual elections which universally prevailed in the beginning, the result was generally to establish quadrennial terms for senators as against biennial terms for members of the lower branch. In New York and New Jersey, however, the practice of annual elections was retained for members of the popular house, and in Massachusetts it was retained for the members of both houses.

DIRECT POPULAR ELECTION OF EXECUTIVES AND JUDGES

Another consequence of the progress of democracy was the strengthening of popular control over executive and judicial officers. In the beginning the only state officers, exclusive of officers of local government, to be elected directly by the people in all the states were their representatives in the lower branch of the state legislatures. The general acceptance of the policy of direct election of the state governor began, however, immediately after the close of the Revolutionary period. Pennsylvania in 1790 and Delaware in 1792 provided for the direct election of the chief executive by the people of the whole state.

Kentucky1 and Tennessee, entering the Union before the end of the century, did likewise, and since then no new state has been admitted to the Union in which provision has not been made for the direct election of the chief executive by the same electorate which is authorized to choose representatives in the legislature. Some of the older states, however, were slow in adopting the direct election of governor by the people.2 Virginia did not make the change until 1850, and South Carolina, the last to abandon the old system of legislative election, did not yield until 1866. The change from legislative to popular election of the governor in the original states was generally accompanied by the abolition of the executive council and the transfer of the powers of the council, at least in relation to appointments, to the senate.3 Except in the original states, separate executive councils had not been created. Doubtless the example of the federal government was decisive in this respect.

The same arguments that produced the general acceptance of direct election of governors tended also to produce the acceptance of the principle that all executive officers should be elected directly by the people. This principle was applied not only to local officers exercising a portion of the state administrative authority, such as sheriffs, justices of the peace, and the various county officers, but also to all officers serving the state at large, such as, in the beginning, state secretaries, treasurers, and attorneysgeneral. The application of the principle to judicial officers met with more opposition. There were those who felt that the independence of the judiciary, concerning the importance of maintaining which there was no disagreement, would be jeopardized by their subjection to the authority of the electorate. To this the reply was made that republican government could not be maintained unless the judiciary were to be held accountable to some authority, and that under the original system they were in

1 Kentucky in its first constitution of 1792 provided for the election of governor by the electoral colleges created after the Maryland model for the election of senators. In 1799, however, the state went over to the direct election of the governor by the people.

2 Georgia (1824), North Carolina (1835), Maryland (1837), New Jersey (1844). 3 For history of Council of Appointment in New York, see C. Z. Lincoln, Constitutional History of New York, i, pp. 596-607. See also Gitterman, "The Council of Appointment in New York," in the Pol. Sci. Q., vii, pp. 80 ff.

fact dependent in most states upon the legislature. This was indeed clearly the case in those states in which the judiciary were elected by the legislature for short terms, or subject to impeachment and removal by a majority vote in each house of the legislature. It was less clearly so in such states as Massachusetts, where they were appointed during good behavior, subject to impeachment and removal by a two-thirds vote in the upper house, or to removal by the executive upon address of both branches of the legislature. In the beginning, however, the Massachusetts practice was the exception rather than the rule, and in the majority of the states, therefore, it was a fair argument that the election of judges by the people would increase rather than diminish their independence, especially if they were chosen for comparatively long terms and assured a fixed and liberal compensation.1

The general adoption of the direct election of governors was therefore eventually followed by the general acceptance of the principle that all state officers, executive and judicial alike, should be elected directly by the people. Beginning in Mississippi in 1832, the extension of the system of popular election to all executive and judicial offices was rapid throughout the West, and by the middle of the century had become the universal practice outside of the original states. The popular election of minor executive officers was also generally introduced in the original states, and even the popular election of judges was introduced in the most inportant of the latter, notably in New York in 1846 and in Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1850. In New England these democratic tendencies encountered more stubborn opposition, and in 1853 the refusal of Massachusetts to adopt the popular election of judges, though the state later accepted the popular election of minor executive officers, checked the democratic tide in that part of the Union. New Jersey, which adopted the popular election of governor in 1844, declined to introduce the direct election of other state executive or judicial officers; but South Carolina was the only state to retain intact its original system of legislative election of the executive and judiciary until after the Civil War.

1 See T. M. Cooley, Michigan, in the American Commonwealth series, pp. 303, 304.

The adoption of the direct popular election of executive and judicial officers was generally accompanied by changes in the terms and tenure of executive and judicial office. The terms of executive officers were lengthened, and their tenure was made more secure by requiring more than bare majorities in each branch of the legislature for removal by process of impeachment. Restrictions originally imposed in many of the states upon eligibility for reëlection to executive office were removed or diminished, and in general, when the people took the business of electing the chief executive directly into their own hands, his position was strengthened. The direct election of other executive officers, however, had the effect of relieving them from responsibility to the governor. Thus at the same time that the political authority of the governor was increased, his administrative authority was diminished. State politics tended to become more responsive to executive leadership; for the governor came to be regarded as peculiarly the representative of the whole people of the state. State administration tended to become less amenable to control by the governor; for actual administrative power was distributed among a group of officers, each of whom was constitutionally as much the representative of the people as the governor himself. The terms of the judicial offices were usually, though not always, lengthened when they were made elective by the people, and the tenure of judicial office was greatly strengthened by the increase of the legislative majorities required for removal by impeachment. Moreover the popular prestige of the judges was greatly enhanced when they became the creatures of popular rather than of legislative favor. The result of the change from legislative to popular election of executive and judicial officers was to deprive the legislatures not only of much political and administrative power, but also of some of the popular prestige which they had originally enjoyed as the special bulwarks of the liberties of the people.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

A further consequence of the progress of democracy was the strengthening of popular control over the process of constitutional amendment and revision. In the beginning the standard practice with respect to the framing of state constitutions was not

inaugurated by Massachusetts until after the other states had mostly succeeded in transforming their provisional Revolutionary governments into permanent constitutional governments. The first states, however, to revise their original governments, — New Hampshire in 1783, Georgia in 1789, and Pennsylvania in 1790,- adhered more or less closely to the precedent established by Massachusetts. Georgia and Pennsylvania, indeed, in order to do so, were compelled to violate their existing constitutions, which had made other provision for constitutional revision. Since then it has been generally accepted that the only proper mode of making any extensive revision of a state constitution is by a constitutional convention especially elected for that purpose. It was not at once generally accepted, however, that the electorate should be consulted before such a convention should be convoked, and that it should be consulted again before the revised constitution should be put into operation. New Hampshire followed the Massachusetts practice exactly. In Pennsylvania a popular vote was taken before the convention was called, but afterwards the people were consulted only indirectly, and the revised constitution was put into effect without any direct expression of popular approval. In Georgia, the people were not expressly consulted in advance, but the revised constitution was considered by two other special conventions in succession before being declared the supreme law of the state.

At the present time, the constitutions of thirty-six states make express provision for their revision by constitutional conventions. In the other twelve states the constitutions now in force contain no provisions for the calling of conventions. The question therefore arises, what is the status of the constitutional convention in those states where its existence is not expressly recognized in the written constitution?

Such states might logically be divided into two classes, those in which no express provision for amendment is contained in the written constitution, and those in which some provision is made for amendment through the agency of the ordinary legislature. In the beginning there were half a dozen states in the former class. To deny the right of the legislature of such a state to take the necessary steps for the calling of a convention, would have the effect either of denying the existence of any distinction