DURING the last ten years the attention of the people of the United States has been powerfully drawn to the subject of their constitutions, and within the last five years eleven State Conventions have been held, for the formation of eleven constitutions, for eleven of the old independent states, while many other states are still agitating the question; and seven conventions in new states have provided as many new constitutions for an equal number of new independent sovereignties. In all these constitutions many improvements, suggested by the working of the old ones, have been made upon the instruments; and the constitutions of the new states, having the advantage of the experience of the old ones, contain all the latest improvements" adapted to the new state of things. The old constitutions which have been revised are as follows:

Some of these instruments were of venerable dates, and had not been influenced by the political experience accumulated in half a century of selfgovernment. In all that time the fierce strife of parties in town, county, state, and federal elections, have conspired to interest the great body of the people in questions of government, and to impress upon them in a greater or less degree the theory of government, continually illustrated in its practical administration. The power has thus settled, as it were, more firmly into the hands of the people, who are more fully recognized as the depository of the great residuum of power. The circumstances under which this country was settled by colonists, who were so widely separated by time and distance from the mother country, compelled them to depend upon themselves for local government. The habit being thus forced upon them, the principles of government were evolved from the daily experience of

those who were at the same time the governors and the governed. By the time that the increase of population compelled the meetings of delegates to supersede the town meetings of all the people, the electors of delegates were as well versed in the duties of legislatures as those whom they elected. But it became obvious, that as the people, in whom the whole power rested, and who exercised it in town meetings, now met only by delega tions, that a written organic law should exist for the guidance of those delegates, and Virginia has the honor of being the first nation of the earth which assembled a convention of its most sagacious citizens, to draw up an instrument which was to form a fundamental law for the guidance of legislation, and which should be deposited among the archives of the state, where every one should be free to appeal to its text. This example was followed by all the other states, and by them collectively certain powers were granted to form a central government; as far as those powers go, the great residue of the power remaining with the states. All these state constitutions, not having had the benefit of much experience, were necessarily imperfect. That of the federal government has proved the best of all the constitutions, and its excellence will be found, probably, upon strict analysis, to rest upon the limited number of powers granted in it, and the precision with which the remainder are reserved to the several states, each of which has a political interest in jealously guarding the line of its own rights. This interest was actively present at the formation of the instrument, and was the conservative principle which, by compelling precision in the specification of powers granted directly to the federal government, and those prohibited to the states by the federal Constitution, has been the main cause of its durability. The powers granted in it are important and well-defined. They are kept actively in operation, and are of a nature to undergo very little change in the lapse of time, either in themselves or in their relation to the circumstances in which they operate.

The state constitutions, on the other hand, had no such opposing outside interests, which sought actively to restrict the powers which the legislatures were to derive from them. On the other hand, the politicians who formed the conventions sought rather to aggregate to the legislature, of which they might be called upon to form a part, or from which, by peculiar combinations, they might desire honor or profit, or both, at the expense of the people, more power than was either safe or proper. In professing to divide the governments into the three leading branches of executive, legislative, and judiciary, they aggregated to the executive the appointing power, in such a degree as to destroy the fancied security which was to be derived from the supposed separation. When the constitutions of the states were formed, at the close of the revolutionary war, or what might, with greater propriety, be called the "war of resistance,' English ideas of government beset our statesmen, and the importance of separating the three powers of government was every where admitted. When, however, a constitution, which is an act of the people in their original character of sovereignty, was to be formed, the executive, or lawexecuting power was made a part of the legislative or law-making power, by making his assent necessary for a bill to become a law; and to him, also, was given the appointment of the judges who were to expound and execute the law, under his superintendence. Having thus not only the appointment of all the executive officers of the state, the number of which was increased at the expense of the reserved rights of the people, and also of the judiciary, who were to administer the laws, to the making

of which his own voice was necessary, he held a patronage, which violated the principles of self-government, and which tended directly to the consolidation of all the powers of government in the hands of one of its branches. Gradually the evils flowing from this mingling of powers, which never would have taken place even in an inexperienced age, had the people, to whom all the powers belonged, been actively protected when conventions met to confer powers upon their delegates, have become manifest, and nearly all the new constitutions have placed the judiciary upon its true ground of direct responsibility to the people by elec tion; and has also, in most cases, made all the executive officers, both local and general, elective. The executive head is thus severed from the judiciary, and his powers circumscribed to their more just proportions, as superintendent of the administration of the laws. In the following states, where the appointment of judge was, under the old constitution, in the hands of the governor, the elective principle has succeeded, viz., in NewYork, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New-Hampshire, Michigan. In the following the elections were by joint ballot of the two houses of law makers, and now by the people-New Jersey, Ohio and Illinois. In the new states the elective principle prevails, and, in nearly all the states where the judges are elective, the period of holding office is limited. To the same extent as the election of judges has been restored to the people, has the patronage of the executive been shorn of the appointment of local officers, which has been restored to the people, among whom and for whom their duties are exercised. By these means the three powers of government have become more effectually separated, and the political influence of the executive chief much diminished.

Reform has also extended to the law-making branch, and the powers and influence of those bodies restrained. For a long time the doctrine was sought to be inculcated, that as the immediate representatives of the people, the Legislature possessed the whole power of the state, including the granting of special privileges-the loaning of credits, and the unlimited power of borrowing money. Experience has brought with it the neces sity of very clearly and pointedly forbidding the Legislature to exercise such powers of circumscribing the power to grant charters, and depriving them altogether of the right of borrowing money on their own responsibility. The power of granting special privileges to corporate bodies— endowing them with larger credit and less liability for their engagements than is permitted to individual citizens, thereby building up a powerful influence adverse to impartial legislation, and also of becoming not only a monopoly builder of public works upon a grand scale, but the source of credit for corporate companies engaged in hazardous speculations, have been not only the means of serious pecuniary loss to the public at large, but the groundwork of political influence, on which has been reared the fortunes of parties and cliques, aided by a scaffolding of corruption.

To be convinced of this, one need but review the history of banking in this state for the last half century. The first applications for bank charters were made under the Constitution of 1777. Through the imperfections of that instrument--imperfections which sprang entirely from the inexperience of those who drew it, and of those by whom it was adopted--opportunities for such gross and flagrant corruption were afforded, that on three different occasions a majority in the Legislature was controlled by direct and unequivocal bribery. To propitiate the outraged feelings of the public, as well as to prevent the recurrence of such scandals in our legislation, the

Convention who revised the Constitution in 1821, gave the subject a careful examination. The result was, the introduction of a clause requiring the assent of two-thirds of both Houses to create a moneyed corporation. Though this provision may have prevented much impure legislation, yet the remedial principle had only been approached, not reached. The delegates to that Convention had not then the experience in the operation of special legislation which the last twenty years have furnished. They little dreamed that in less than three years from the time their deliberations terminated, fifty thousand dollars would be disbursed among the members of the New-York Legislature in purchasing a single banking privilege— that of the Commercial Bank of New-York city-which since failed, involving the public in great loss; and that it would become a notorious fact, that in nearly every banking institution to be established by that body for the next twenty years, a large number of its members would have a deep pecuniary interest-that they would be the first, in one way or another, to participate in the profits of those very institutions which they, by their own votes, were to aid in creating.

The granting of these charters, which were to exert direct influence in their several localities, was an effectual means of organizing political support to the granting power, coming in aid of the appointment of local officers and the vast army of contractors, brokers, jobbers, and dependants, which resulted from the power to borrow money and construct public works, formed altogether a means of controlling and consolidating power at the expense of towns and counties, which was accumulating strength daily, until it even set at defiance the provisions of the Constitution. Thus the Constitution of 1821 provided that the assent of two thirds of the members elected to each branch of the Legislature should be requisite to every bill granting public money to private purposes. Notwithstanding which, over $3,000,000 of state bonds were granted to the Erie Railroad by a simple majority, and those illegal bonds are now a part of the state debt. In order to legalize them, the opinion of William H. Seward was purchased by the company to the effect that the Erie RailRoad Company is not a private company, because the road is a "long one." The learned gentleman, with that flimsy sophistry for which he is remarkable, did not, however, define the length required to confer publicity upon a private road. The system of log-rolling for charters and loans necessarily reached a culminating point, and the revulsion of 1836-7 broke down, at a ruinous loss to the people of the state, many of the banks which had originated ten years previously in political corruption. Amid the universal panic and loss which these disasters occasioned, the general banking law was passed April, 1838. This provided that any number of persons might prosecute the banking business at any time, by complying with certain formalities, and depositing with the Comptroller of the state securities, which were gradually, under the spur of experience, restricted to bonds and mortgages, and New-York or United States 6 per ct. stocks, as a guarantee for the redemption of the circulating notes issued by them. The state debt had already reached a very high figure, $28,000,000, and works had been projected by speculators which, under the log-rolling system, were entitled to 75 millions of state credits to aid them. The means of paying the interest of the existing debt without borrowing, were already exhausted, and direct taxes, with a suspension of all state works, and loans of credits, had become inevitable. All these abuses made so vivid an impression upon the public mind, that they became a leading motive for

summoning the Convention which formed the Constitution of 1846which instrument restrains the Legislature from contracting debts or granting special charters to corporations, allowing it to enact only general laws for that object. In relation to debts, the provisions are as follows:

Section 9. The credit of the state shall not, in any manner, be given or loaned to, or in aid of any individual association or corporation.

Section 10. The state may, to meet casual deficits or failures in revenues, or for expenses not provided for, contract debts, but such debts, direct and contingent, singly or in the aggregate, shall not at any time exceed one million of dollars; and the moneys arising from the loans creating such debts, shall be applied to the purpose for which they were obtained, or to repay the debt so contracted, and to no other purpose whatever.

Section 11. In addition to the above limited power to contract debts, the state may contract debts to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or defend the state in war; but the money arising from the contracting of such debts shall be applied to the purpose for which it was raised, or to repay such debts, and to no other purpose whatever.

Section 12. Except the debts specified in the tenth and eleventh sections of this article, no debt shall be hereafter contracted by or on behalf of this state, unless such debt shall be authorized by a law, for some single work or object, to be distinctly specified therein; and such law shall impose and provide for the collection of a direct annual tax to pay, and sufficient to pay the interest on such debt as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal of such debt within eighteen years from the time of the contracting thereof.

In relation to corporations, the powers are thus defined:

Section 1. Corporations may be formed under general laws; but shall not be created by special act, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where, in the judgment of the legislature, the objects of the corporation cannot be attained under general laws. All general laws and special acts passed pursuant to this section, may be altered from time to time, or repealed.

Section 2. Dues from corporations shall be secured by such individual liability of the corporators and other means as may be prescribed by law.

Section 3. The term corporations, as used in this article, shall be construed to include all associations and joint-stock companies, having any of the powers or privileges of corporations not possessed by individuals or partnerships. And all corporations shall have the right to sue, and shall be subject to be sued, in all courts in like cases as natural persons.

Section 4. The legislature shall have no power to pass any act granting any special charter for banking purposes; but corporations or associations may be formed for such purposes under general laws.

Section 5. The legislature shall have no power to pass any law sanctioning in any manner, directly or indirectly, the suspension of specie payments, by any person, association, or corporation, issuing bank-notes of any description.

Section 6. The legislature shall provide by law for the registry of all bills or notes, issued or put in circulation as money, and shall require ample security for the redemption of the same in specie.

Section 7. The stock-holders, in every corporation and joint-stock association for banking purposes, issuing bank-notes or any kind of paper credits to circulate as money, after the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, shall be individually responsible, to the amount of their respective share or shares of stock in any such corporation or association, for all its debts and liabilities of every kind, contracted after the said first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty.

The "ample security" here required, is defined to be the bonds and