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y and irresponsible in action; and they provided the legal scenery in the midst of which the professional politician became the only effective hero. The state constitutions were all very much influenced by the Federal instrument, but in the copies many attempts were made to improve upon the model. The Democracy had come to believe that the Federal Constitution tended to encourage independence and even special efficiency on the part of Federal officials; and it proposed to correct such an erroneous tendency in the more thoroughly democratic state governments. No attempt was, indeed, made to deprive the executive and the judicial officials of independence by making them the creatures of the legislative branch; for such a change, although conforming to earlier democratic ideas, would have looked in the direction of a concentration of responsibility. The far more insidious course was adopted of keeping the executive, the judicial, and the legislative branches of the government technically separate, while at the same time depriving all three of any genuine independence and efficiency. The term of the executive, for instance, was not allowed to exceed one or two years. The importance of his functions was diminished. His power of appointment was curtailed. Many of his most important executive assistants were elected by popular vote and made independent of him. In some few instances he was even deprived of a qualified veto upon legislation. But the legislature itself was not treated much better. Instead of deriving its power from a short constitution which conferred upon it full legislative responsibilities and powers, the tendency has been to incorporate an enormous mass of special and detailed legislation in the fundamental law, and so to diminish indefinitely the power of the legislative branch either to be useful or dangerous. Finally state judges instead of being appointed for life were usually elected for limited terms, so that they could scarcely avoid being more "amenable to public opinion." The tendency in every respect was to multiply elections and elective officials, divide responsibility and power, and destroy independence. The more "democratic" these constitutions became, the more clearly the Democracy showed its disposition to distrust its own representatives, and to deprive them of any chance of being genuinely representative. The object of the Jacksonion Democrat in framing constitutions of this kind was to
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