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The Crisis of Authority in the Antebellum States: New York, 1820–1860
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
The American states experienced an extraordinary political transformation in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. For more than a generation state governments had stimulated economic development by subsidizing agriculture and industry, investing in private enterprise, constructing internal improvements at public expense or lending the public credit for such purposes, and granting special privileges to private companies. By the mid-1840's, however, the states had begun to assume a more passive role. Accompanying this withdrawal from economic activity and associated with it was a general restructuring of state political systems. New state constitutions, the most visible evidence of such change, lowered suffrage requirements, stripped legislatures of the appointing power, and extended the elective process to more state offices. They also curtailed legislative authority in economic policy areas by prohibiting certain types of activity; requiring general incorporation laws in place of special charters; establishing detailed procedures for managing state debts and public works; and, in some instances, mandating specific policy actions.
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References
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