The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

560 THE FREEMAN Septemberthe governor, most state constitutionslimited the number ofterms he could serve in a givenperiod. 18Courts and LegislaturesThe courts generally were mademore dependent on legislaturesthan they had been formerly. ThePennsylvania constitution describedthe relationship this way:"The judges of the supreme courtof judicature shall have fixed salaries,be commissioned for sevenyears only, though capable of reappointmentat the end of thatterm, but removable for misbehaviorat any time by the generalassembly...."19 Even so, the principleof separation of powers generallyprevailed as between thecourts and the legislature morefully than between governors andlegislatures.The legislatures were subject tofrequent elections, a device formaking them closely dependentupon the electorate. In ten of thestates the lower house was subjectto annual elections; in two statestheir terms were only for sixmonths. The members of the upperhouse usually had somewhatlonger terms, but one state didnot even have an upper house. 2oEven so, the powers of the legislatureswere quite extensive. ThomasJefferson complained that inVirginia:All the powers of government, legislative,executive, and judiciary, resultto the legislative body. . . . Anelective despotism was not the governmentwe fought for, but one whichshould not only be founded on freeprinciples, but in which the powers ofgovernment should be so divided andbalanced among several bodies ofmagistracy, as that no one couldtranscend their legal limits, withoutbeing effectually checked and restrainedby the others. 21What had been generally done wasthis: Americans in establishingtheir state governments hadsought to check them by the electoraterather more than by an internalbalance of powers. The peoplecould, however, use their influenceto abet arbitrary governmentas well as to check it.There w,as also some extensionof the franchise during this period.In addition, several legislatureswere reapportioned to giveinhabitants in the backcountry amore nearly proportionate voicein government. One of the trends,in this connection, was the movementof state capitals inland fromthe coast to make them more accessibleto the back country.Most of these were changes ofdegree r,ather than of kind. Tocall them revolutionary, as sometwentieth century historians have,is a distortion of what happenedand a stretching of the me,aning