Frontier Democracy: Constitutional Conventions in the Old Northwest

Abstract

James Bryce observed that state constitutions in the United States were a “mine of instruction for the natural history of democratic communities” (The American Commonwealth, vol. 1, 1888, p. 434). With Frontier Democracy Silvana R. Siddali joins G. Alan Tarr (Understanding State Constitutions, 1998) and Laura J. Scalia (America's Jeffersonian Experiment, 1999) in the project of deciphering this natural history. Her goal is to provide a master survey of midwestern state conventions from 1835 to 1857, and in this she largely succeeds. Siddali synthesizes the political history of eleven constitutional conventions: three in Iowa (1844, 1846, and 1857) and eight in the Old Northwest—one each from Ohio (1851), Illinois (1847), Indiana (1851), and Minnesota (1857); and two each from Wisconsin (1846 and 1848) and Michigan (1835 and 1850). She tallies statistics on delegate age, occupation (26 percent were lawyers), political experience, and place of birth. Convention trends on codification of the common law, popular election of judges, the incorporation of banks, and “superlegislation” (constitutional limits on legislation) are all detailed. She devotes the “Citizens” and “Wives” chapters to the rights of free blacks and the property rights of married women.