Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: State Constitutions

  • The Delegation of Sovereignty

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    Noah Webster. By: James Herring.

    Prior to the creation and ratification of the Constitution, Americans struggled with legislatures who had run rampant. This, however, was the doing of the people themselves.

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  • A Radical Political Experiment

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    Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By: Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives.

    Pennsylvania was the home of the “most radical ideas about politics and constitutional authority voiced in the Revolution.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 226. This resulted in a “comprehensive examination of assumptions about government that elsewhere were generally taken for granted” and it resulted in one of the greatest experiments in politics up to that time. Id.

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  • Unalterable Constitutions

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    Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By: Ferdinand Richardt.

    As the constitutions of the states were implemented and executed during the Revolutionary years, the population began holding conventions for amendment of those constitutions, believing that “Legislatures were incompetent” to do so. Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 306 quoting Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention, II, 91-93. In fact, James Madison believed that “it would be a novel and dangerous doctrine that a Legislature could change the constitution under which it held its existence.” Id.

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  • The Constitution’s Superiority

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    Page 1 of the Constitution of the United States.

    By the time of the Revolution, the states had begun to take steps toward sustaining themselves after independence from Britain was effectuated. One of those steps was the drafting of constitutions. Constitutions, while understood generally in Britain and elsewhere, had a unique meaning for Americans.

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  • Controlling the Governor

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    William Hooper.

    By 1776, the states were debating their respective constitutions and the Declaration of Independence was becoming a reality, all of which was fostering an environment of great debate. One part of that debate was what the role of governor should be for each state, and many of the conclusions and decisions made during that debate carry forth to modern America.

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  • The Birth of the Senate

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    City Hall of New York City in 1789, where Congress convened during the 1790s.

    In the earliest years of the American Republic, theories were abound about the proper structure of government to best balance equality and wise decision-making. John Adams stated, in his Thoughts on Government, that “a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy, whose government is in one assembly.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 208-09 quoting John Adams, Thoughts on Government, Adams, ed., Works of John Adams, IV, 194, 196. These theories became tested throughout the young country, in each of the state’s constitutions.

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