The Spirit of American Government Author:James Allen Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: have something considerable to lose, of all measures for pushing the dispute to the point of disorder, riot and civil war. "Still another class of Loyal... more »ists was made up of people of professional training and occupation — clergymen, physicians, lawyers, teachers — a clear majority of whom seem to have been set against the ultimate measures of the Revolution. "Finally, and in general, it may be said that a majority of those who, of whatever occupation, of whatever grade of culture or of wealth, would now be described as conservative people, were Loyalists during, the American Revolution."1 These classes prior to the Revolution had largely shaped and molded public opinion; but their opposition to the movement which they were powerless to prevent, destroyed their influence, for the time being, in American politics. The place which they had hitherto held in public esteem was filled by a new class of leaders more in sympathy with the newly born spirit of liberalism. This gave to the revolutionary movement a distinctly democratic character. This drift toward democracy is seen in the changes made in the state constitutions after the outbreak of the Revolution. At the close of the colonial period, nearly all the state governments were modeled after the government of Great 1 Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution, Vol. I, p. 301. Each colony had its legislative body elected by the qualified voters and corresponding in a general way to the House of Commons. In all the colonies except Pennsylvania and Georgia there was also an upper legislative house or council whose consent was necessary before laws could be enacted. The members composing this branch of the legislature were appointed by the governor except in Massachusetts where they were elected by th...« less