Evolving State Legislative and Executive Power in the Founding Decade

Abstract

The crucial questions surrounding the first state constitutions concerned suffrage, officeholding requirements, legislative structure, and the relationship of legislative to executive power. These questions were debated vigorously, and a vision of the proper structure of government based on unicameralism, a weak executive, and no checks and balances was advocated in nearly all the states by radical democrats. Their most conspicuous victory was in Pennsylvania in 1776, where a unicameral legislature was established and powers were separated but no checks were provided for legislative encroachments upon the other branches' responsibilities. Constitutional framers in other states rejected Pennsylvania's example, delayed their constitutional drafting processes, and succeeded in adopting a more balanced government with checks, such as upper houses and gubernatorial vetoes. Still, legislative supremacy prevailed under all the new state constitutions, making possible the legislative policies of the founding decade on debtor-creditor relations, paper money, and taxation that were of such great concern to the framers of the United States Constitution.