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248 8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS [C]onstitutions establish political goals or aspirations . . . creating general welfare, establishing justice , or protecting individual rights. Understanding a political community thus begins with understanding its constitution and how it has changed over time. —Cornell W. Clayton and Stephen Meyer, “Washington’s Constitution” That the heresies of nullification and secession, which brought the country to grief, may be eliminated from future political discussion; that public order may be restored, private property and human life protected, and the great principles of liberty and equality secured to us and our posterity , we declare that . . . [t]he Constitution of the United States . . . [is] acknowledged to be the supreme law. . . . —Preface to Article 1, Bill of Rights, Texas Constitution of 1869 the constitutions Don E. Fehrenbacher’s overview of constitutional development in the fifteen slaveholding states is especially valuable in placing the constitutions framed by the 1,018 Black and Tan delegates in historical context. In covering a time span from 1776 to 1861, Fehrenbacher first reminds us that it was at the state level, amid the revolutionary crisis of the late eighteenth century, that constitutional conventions were first conceived. It was in this revolutionary context and in the states that both bills of rights and separation of powers appeared. Recognition of these achievements was, however, almost completely overshadowed by the intense scholarly focus on the new federal Constitution. Subsequently, the field of state constitutional history has generally remained terra incognita for most Americans, even though “until well after the Civil War, state governments had considerably more influence than the Federal government on social institutions, economic enterprise, and the quality of American life.”1 Following the addition of the Bill of Rights to the new federal Constitution in midDecember of 1791, the Constitution was amended only twice again before the Civil War. Meanwhile, within the federal system, which most Americans came to accept, constitution making at the state level became increasingly part of the ordinary, even routine process of gov- 249 Summary and Conclusions ernance. From 1776 to 1861, the national commitment to inalienable rights and popular sovereignty expanded most dramatically in the states, in some instances through constitutions of those newly admitted to the Union and in others by those of the older commonwealths as they were revised or rewritten. As this process unfolded locally during the Revolution, the original thirteen colonies focused on defining and establishing legitimate governmental authority . From the mid-1780s through the Era of Good Feelings (1815–24), constitutions were adjusted, generally invigorating executive and judicial authority to better check and balance imperious and overbearing legislatures. Finally, from the ascension of the Jacksonians during the late 1820s until the Civil War—years witness to numerous reform movements, religious revivals, and state-supported internal improvement initiatives—state constitutions, whether new or revised, reflected an ever-increasing emphasis on popular governance, a defining characteristic of those years.2 In the South, Virginia’s constitution of 1776 and South Carolina’s constitutions of 1776 and 1778 had been framed and adopted by revolutionary legislatures. Starting with North Carolina , subsequent southern state constitutions were drafted by conventions whose delegates were elected exclusively for that purpose.3 Some southern constitutions also stipulated that legislatures submit any call for a convention to the electorate, and in 1830 Virginia became the first southern state to mandate voter approval of its newly convention-framed constitution. As this three-stage process evolved in the South—voters first authorizing the conventions, then selecting their delegates, and then approving the newly framed constitutions—the resulting charters became increasingly democratic. Legislative apportionment would remain a divisive issue in a number of southern states, but by the eve of the Civil War, with the notable exception of South Carolina, offices once filled by legislative selection had become elective, and property-holding, taxpaying, and religious qualifications for voting or holding office were also eliminated or reduced. By mid-century, only the Carolinas among the ten states of this study had mandated that certain officials be property owners, and only Arkansas, Mississippi, and North Carolina retained some form of religious qualification for public office. Finally, in 1856, North Carolina, by abolishing both its taxpaying requirement for the franchise and its stipulation that only property holders could vote for state senators, became the last southern state to adopt universal white male suffrage.4 Although endorsing the doctrine of separation of powers in principle, during the revolutionary era southern state constitutions...

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