In New England, as has already been pointed out, [Footnote: See
chap. ii. above.] the toleration movement was completing its work of
transferring power to democracy.
More important than local issues or the death throes of federalism,
was the democratic tendency revealed in the constitutional
conventions of this period. Between 1816 and 1830, ten states either
established new constitutions or revised their old ones. In this the
influence of the new west was peculiarly important. All of the new
states which were formed in that region, after the War of 1812, gave
evidence in their constitutions of the democratic spirit of the
frontier. With the exception of Mississippi, where the voter was
obliged either to be a tax-payer or a member of the militia, all the
western states entered the Union with manhood suffrage, and all of
them, in contrast with the south, from which their settlers had
chiefly been drawn, provided that apportionment of the legislature
should be based upon the white population, thus accepting the
doctrine of the rule of the majority rather than that of property.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262