Constitutional History, 1829–1848
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution › CL-EY (2000)
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Constitutional History, 1829–1848
Constitutional change in the Jacksonian era began with the Virginia CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION of 1829?1830, and climaxed in the election controversies of 1848. Between these dates, the American people tried to renovate their constitutional order, especially with respect to the great issues of FEDERALISM, democratization, and slavery.Virginia's venerable Constitution of 1776, like other early constitutions, had come to enshrine the related evils of malapportionment and disfranchisement. THOMAS JEFFERSON denounced these and other defects in the document from the founding of the commonwealth to his death. His criticism produced the convention of 1829, where the badly underrepresented Western delegates demanded reform, including white manhood suffrage and a REAPPORTIONMENT that would fairly represent the growing population of their region. The convention was a showcase of Virginia's political leadership, including as delegates JAMES MADISON (who had also been a delegate at the 1776 convention), JOHN MARSHALL, JAMES MONROE, JOHN RANDOLPH, as well as emergent conservative leaders like JOHN TYLER, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, and Abel Parker Upshur. The conservatives from the tidewater region, representing the interests of slaveholders, held the reformers at bay, conceding only a limited modification of the old freehold suffrage to include householders and leaseholders, far less than the taxpayer-militia qualification representing a compromise conceded by the western delegates. Reapportionment similarly fell short of western demands, as the convention adopted a complex system of regional representation. The conservative triumph on these two issues was assure...See the full content of this document
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