State Constitution-Making

Abstract

This chapter describes the constitution-making by the thirteen independent republics. Most of them created bicameral legislatures, single executives, and independent judiciaries. They set forth the idea of separation of powers, which forbade members of the legislature or judiciary from simultaneously holding office in the executive, thus setting American constitutional development off in a very direction from that of the former mother country. At the same time, the Americans established written constitutions that were different from and superior to the institutions of government and they worked out devices (constitutional conventions) for creating these constitutions. Several of the constitutions had bills of rights.