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be based upon population and not upon property. The men who framed these
new constitutions believed that they were establishing the rule of the
people. It was, indeed, unthinkable that, believing themselves equal in
all other respects, they should not accept the principle of political
equality and popular sovereignty.

There is evidence in these new constitutions, however, that the people
placed less reliance in their legislative bodies than did the people of
the Revolutionary era. Instead of general grants of legislative power,
there are specific prohibitions and positive injunctions. Important
limitations are imposed upon the form and mode of legislation. It is
clear, too, that fear of an over-strong executive had given way to a
belief in the necessity of having a stronger countervailing influence,
capable of checking the legislative. Everywhere the governor was made
elective directly by the people and given the veto power. The conviction
was often expressed in constitutional conventions that the governor was
peculiarly the representative of the people, a popular tribune who would
protect them against the indiscretions of their legislative
representatives. The extension of the elective principle to all
important offices was accompanied also by a general conviction that life
tenure of office is undemocratic. "Rotation in office," said Andrew
Jackson, voicing a popular feeling, "is a cardinal principle of
democracy."

The spirit of Western democracy leavened also the older States. The
people of Maine, breaking away from Massachusetts and her ancient
ideals, boldly declared for manhood suffrage in their new constitution.
Connecticut adopted a constitution in 1818 to replace the old charter,
and dissolved the old union of Church and State by declaring that no
preference should be given by law to any Christian sect or mode of
worship. At the same time Connecticut extended the suffrage to all who
served in the militia or paid a state tax. New York in the constitution
of 1821 and Massachusetts by a constitutional amendment in the same
year abandoned the old property qualifications for voting.

In both Massachusetts and New York, conservative men like Chancellor
Kent and Daniel Webster frankly avowed their apprehensions of universal
suffrage. "The tendency of universal suffrage," said Kent in the New
York convention, "is to jeopardize the rights of property, and the
principles of liberty." He held society to be an assoc