The state
constitutions adopted during the period of Jacksonian supremacy seem
designed to make local government costly in time and energy 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.
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