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9 1 The Kentucky Constitution Robert M. Ireland The Kentucky Constitution, drafted in 1890–1891 and ratified in 1891, is the last of four constitutions of the state. The first was adopted in 1792 as part of the Commonwealth’s admission to the Union. George Nicholas, a transplanted Virginia lawyer and a delegate to the 1792 convention, wrote most of the document. He took 75 of the 107 sections, verbatim or substantially, from the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790, including 27 of 28 sections of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights included many of the same freedoms recently appended to the U.S. Constitution, such as freedom of and from religion, right to jury trial, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and prohibition of double jeopardy, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts. All these rights are found in Kentucky’s subsequent constitutions, including the current one.1 The First Constitution The first constitution established a popularly elected lower house of the legislature and specified that the representatives would serve one-year terms. Electors chosen by the voters would elect the state senate and the governor, both for four-year terms. Because the governor could succeed himself and appoint most state and local officials, he would be one of the most powerful state chief executives in the nation. Overriding the governor’s vetoes required a two-thirds majority in each legislative house. The constitution created only one court, a supreme court known as the Court of Appeals, and left it to the legislature to establish such inferior courts as it deemed necessary. Although the Court of Appeals was primarily an appellate court, it was given original jurisdiction over land cases in the hope that it could equitably settle the many competing claims to the Commonwealth’s real estate. Judges would be appointed by the governor (with the consent of the Senate) for life on condition of good behavior. In each county, voters would elect sheriffs and coroners for three-year terms, and the former were prohibited from succeeding themselves. Despite the efforts of a determined minority , a solid majority of proslavery delegates powerfully endorsed the institution of 10 State and Local Institutions slavery. Article IX prohibited the legislature from emancipating slaves without the consent of, and full compensation to, the slave owner. The delegates to the 1792 convention did not submit their new constitution to the voters for ratification and did not regard their document as anything more than an experiment that would soon have to be revised. To that end they provided that if a majority of those voting for representatives in 1797 and 1798 favored calling a constitutional convention, one would be called by the legislature at its next session. Only a convention could revise or replace the first constitution, which did not provide for adding individual amendments. Controversies involving each branch of government ensured that such a call would be made in 1798. A public outcry greeted a two-to-one decision of the Court of Appeals in 1794 that the Virginia Land Commission had exceeded its authority when it determined the rights to numerous land disputes in Kentucky in 1779–1780. Because this decision undermined the land titles of thousands of Kentuckians, the legislature attempted to remove the two majority justices of the Court of Appeals by joint address to the governor . The removal resolution failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority in the Senate, and the House contented itself with a resolution of censure that branded the judges unfit for office. In 1795 the legislature took more decisive action when it removed the original jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals over land cases and transferred it to six newly created district courts. In the same year one of the two majority judges of the Court of Appeals reversed his opinion in the controversial land case and thereby quieted much of the public outrage. A disputed gubernatorial election in 1796 embroiled the executive branch in controversy . In that year the electoral college failed to give any of the four candidates for governor a majority vote and, instead of declaring the recipient of the plurality of votes the winner, conducted a second ballot between the two highest vote getters. The second-place choice on the first ballot emerged victorious on the second ballot and was declared by the college to be the next governor. Benjamin Logan, the first choice on the first ballot, protested, and his protest was endorsed by the...

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