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 keep political power in the hands of the “plain people,” and to forestall the domination of administrative and legislative specialists.  The effect was precisely the opposite.  They afforded the political specialist a wonderful opportunity.  The ordinary American could not pretend to give as much time to politics as the smooth operation of this complicated machine demanded; and little by little there emerged in different parts of the country a class of politicians who spent all their time in nominating and electing candidates to these numerous offices.  The officials so elected, instead of being responsible to the people, were responsible to the men to whom they owed their offices; and their own individual official power was usually so small that they could not put what little independence they possessed to any good use.  As a matter of fact, they used their official powers chiefly for the benefit of their creators.  They appointed to office the men whom the “Bosses” selected.  They passed the measures which the machine demanded.  In this way the professional politician gradually obtained a stock of political goods wherewith to maintain and increase his power.  Reenforced by the introduction of the spoils system first into the state and then into the Federal civil services, a process of local political organization began after 1830 to make rapid headway.  Local leaders appeared in different parts of the country who little by little relieved the farmer and the business man of the cares and preoccupations