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