utional convention. Washington County was
suggested, then Delaware, and later Albany; but, the nominees having
been selected, the project was abandoned, and Horace Greeley waited
until the convention of 1867. Weed expressed the belief that if
Greeley's wishes had been known two weeks earlier, his ambition might
have been gratified, although on only two occasions had non-resident
delegates ever been selected.

Popular sovereignty attained its highest phase under the Constitution
of 1846; and the convention must always be notable as the great
dividing line between a government by the people, and a government
delegated by the people to certain officials--executive, legislative,
and judicial--who were invested with general and more or less
permanent powers. Under the Constitution of 1821, the power of
appointment was placed in the governor, the Senate, and the Assembly.
State officers were elected by the Legislature, judges nominated by
the governor and confirmed by the Senate, district attorneys appointed
by county courts, justices of the peace chosen by boards of
supervisors, and mayors of cities selected by the common council.
Later amendments made justices of the peace and mayors of cities
elective; but, with these exceptions, from 1821 to 1846 the
Constitution underwent no organic changes. Under the Constitution of
1846, however, all officers became elective; and, to bring them still
nearer the people, an elective judiciary was decentralised, terms of
senators were reduced from four to two years, and the selection of
legislators was confined to single districts. It was also provided
that amendments to the Constitution might be submitted to the people
at any time upon the approval of a bare legislative majority. Even the
office of governor, which had been jealously reserved to native
citizens, was thrown open to all comers, whether born in the United
States or elsewhere.

As if to accentuate the great change which public sentiment had
undergone in the preceding twenty years these provisions were
generally concurred in by large majorities and without political bias.
The proposition that a governor need not be either a freeholder or a
native citizen was sustained by a vote of sixty-one to forty-nine; the
proposal to overcome the governor's veto by a majority instead of a
two-thirds vote was carried by sixty-one to thirty-six; the term of
senators was reduced from four to two years by a vote of eighty to
twenty-three; a