Democracy, Liberty, and Property: The State Constitutional Conventions of the 1820s

Foreword to the liberty fund edition

fo r ewor d to t he liber t y fu nd ed it ion This volume reproduces key debates from the important constitutional conventions held in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia during the 1820s. The New York and Virginia conventions drafted constitutions to r eplace the original constitutions in those states, and voters by sizable majorities approved the new charters.The Massachusetts convention proposed a series of amendments to the state’s first (and only) constitution, several of which were approved by voters. The constitutional changes that the conv entions introduced not only affected political development in the three states but also, given the states’ preeminence within their regions, influenced constitutional change in neighboring states. In embarking on constitutional r eform during this period, Massachusetts , New York, and Virginia were hardly unique. During the first half of the nineteenth centur y, Americans enthusiastically embraced the vie w, asserted in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, that “no free government, nor the blessings of liber ty, can be preserved in any people , but by . . . a f requent recurrence to f undamental pr inciples.”1 Altogether thir ty-eight new state constitutions were ratified from 1800 to the outbreak of the Civil War. Eighteen of these new constitutions were drafted by territories seeking statehood, but the expansion of the Union alone c annot explain the extraordinary burst of constitutional cr eativity. Eighteen of the ne w constitutions replaced existing state constitutions, and two replaced the colonial charters under which Connecticut and Rhode Island had continued 1.Virginia Declaration of Rights, Section 15(1776). x Foreword to govern following independence. Indeed, of the twenty-four states in the Union by 1830,fifteen had revised their constitutions by 1860,two of them twice; and during a single decade (1844–1853)more than half the American states held constitutional conventions. New York and Virginia were among those states that rewrote their basic charters during that decade, adopting new constitutions in 1846 and 1851respectively. What prompted Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia (among others ) to reassess their constitutional foundations during the early nineteenth century? The experience of government under the states’ existing constitutions played a vital r ole. By the 1820s the constitutions of all thr ee states had been in operation for mor e than forty years, and time had r evealed defects that demanded corr ection.2 This was hardly surprising: the initial charters in those states had been drafted in the midst of a war for independence by people who lacked experience in constitutional design and selfgovernment . With the passage of time , later generations felt themsel ves positioned to improve on the work of their predecessors. After all, as a New York delegate put it, “we find constitutions of the states mor e perfect, the later the period in which they have been made” (p. 142). As this suggests, the example of other states was like wise important. State constitutional reformers drew both inspiration and guidance f rom the innovations pioneered in states that had r ecently written or revised their constitutions. In f act, the models that states em ulated were f ound more f requently in the constitutions of other states than in the F ederal Constitution. Delegates regularly referred to the experience of other states in the convention debates. For instance, in proposing a system of gubernatorial appointment with senator ial confirmation, the system found in the Federal Constitution, New York delegate Martin Van Buren noted that the state “constitutions which had been r ecently formed, and might therefore be in some degree regarded as the most recent expression of the sense of a portion of the American people, were in unison with the plan” (p. 161). Population shif ts within the states also f ueled c alls f or constitutional ref orm. Many states made use of existing units of gov ernment, such as 2.New York did hold a constitutional convention in 1801,but this meeting focused exclusively on the size of the legislature and the operation of the Council of Appointment. Foreword xi counties or towns, in apportioning representation in one or both houses of the state legislature. For example, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 guaranteed representation for each town, and the Virginia Constitution of 1776 provided for the election of two members of the House of Delegates from each county. The problem in Virginia, as in several other states, was that...