Читать книгу The Jacksonian Conservatism of Rufus P. Ranney - David M. Gold - Страница 12

THREE

The Constitutional Convention

Government

THE FIGHT at the constitutional convention by Democrats such as Ranney and Reemelin to end legislative grants of “special and exclusive privileges” revealed the Radicals’ fundamental distrust of government. Anxious to secure equal rights and equal liberty for all—or at least all white males—they loathed to give to a legislature that was susceptible to corruption by the rich and powerful the authority to do much of anything. Early in the convention proceedings Reemelin predicted that the convention would produce “a General Assembly reduced materially in power and the scope of duties, in all its arrangements; and we shall thus take away from them as much as possible all temptation to the abuse of their powers” (1:174).

Ranney insisted on severe limits to legislative discretion. “I am practically in favor of the doctrine of democracy—using the word in no party sense,” he declared. While the people had to delegate some power, political wisdom dictated that they delegate as little power as possible, because all delegated power was liable to abuse. The adoption of a constitution was “the act of the great democracy—the people themselves prescribing their own rule of civil action.” But leaving fundamental laws to the legislature meant “placing the exercise of power one step further from the source; and the people possess no direct power to correct the decision” (2:49).

For all his reliance on the “people,” though, Ranney was no more willing to trust them with power than he was to trust the legislators. Editor John O’Sullivan raised this basic question of Jacksonian majoritarianism in the first issue of the Democratic Review in 1837. O’Sullivan conceded the plausibility of the antidemocratic argument that “[m]ajorities are often as liable to error of opinion, and not always free from a similar proneness to selfish abuse of power, as minorities.” “A strong and active democratic government,” he averred, “is an evil, differing only in degree and mode of operation, and not in nature, from a strong despotism.” Because majorities could no more be trusted with power than minorities, the “best government is that which governs least.”¹

At the Ohio constitutional convention the committee on public debt and public works incorporated this principle into its report by prohibiting the General Assembly from authorizing the state or any local government, “by vote of its citizens of otherwise,” to be a stockholder in a private corporation or to aid private enterprise in other ways. Some Democrats objected to the ban as undemocratic. One, proclaiming “vox populi, vox Dei,” demanded that the voters be allowed to decide whether the state should incur debt to finance internal improvements. Another contended that the prosperous portion of the state, having “waxed fat at the public crib,” had no right to deny “their poorer, because less favored, fellow citizens, the humble privilege of helping themselves with their own money.” But Ranney regarded the government’s power of taxation as a “dangerous power” by which the “proceeds of the industry of the citizens” are put “at the mercy of the State.” He denied the right of the majority to tax the minority for any purpose “beyond the support of government” and the execution of the laws. When a delegate moved to amend the committee’s report to allow local governments to vote funds for the completion of works already begun, Ranney claimed that the amendment “amounted to about this: that where the minority has been robbed once, it shall be proper to do it again” (1:292, 2:123, 2:308, 1:530, 2:215–16, 2:310–11).

From the widespread distrust of the General Assembly arose many issues related to the legislature: annual versus biennial sessions, the manner of apportionment, the executive veto, legislative power over corporate charters, and so on. Ranney’s positions marked him as a consistent and outspoken Radical Democrat, wary of government and very aware that the people were the fount of political authority. As one of his adversaries observed, “it is pretty difficult to get ahead of him in democracy” (2:430).

Ranney opposed annual legislative sessions because the greatest legislative evil was “too much legislation and the instability of the law”; or, as Ranney also said, echoing a popular phrase of the day, “the world was governed too much” (1:174–79; 2:145). He resisted proposals to extend state senate terms from two to four years because over such a long period of time, especially in a rapidly growing and changing state, the views of the people and their delegates might diverge (1:175, 179; 2:145). He wanted to fix the method of legislative apportionment in the constitution, leaving no discretion to flawed legislators who, as experience had shown, were too much tempted to gerrymander (1:144–45, 460; 2:708).

The widely held opinion at the convention that the General Assembly’s authority needed to be curtailed did not lead to a significant transfer of power to the executive branch of government. Most notably, the delegates refused to confer the veto power upon the governor. Ranney could not deny that the General Assembly passed too many laws and often acted with undue haste. But the remedy, he thought, lay in reducing the legislature’s power, not in giving more power to the governor (1:112).

Ranney also opposed what he considered an undue expansion of the governor’s patronage power. The selection of public officers by the General Assembly had been fraught with unpalatable wheeling and dealing. Ranney believed that the legislature’s “power to confer office” had done much “to discredit legislative bodies” and was a major source of “hasty and inconsiderate legislation” (1:112). Many delegates shared Ranney’s view. As a result the convention took from the General Assembly and gave to the electorate the power to elect judges, the secretary of state, and the state auditor and treasurer. Ranney successfully fought an attempt to increase the terms of state executive officers, other than the auditor, beyond two years (1:325, 330–31; 2:290).

Notwithstanding the trend toward popular election of public officials, the delegates disagreed over the method of selecting lesser officials, such as the directors of the state penitentiary and trustees of the deaf and dumb asylum and other state benevolent institutions. Some thought that the election of lower-level administrative officers was too burdensome a responsibility for the voters (1:365, 540). Ranney believed otherwise, at least regarding the penitentiary. The management of the state prison, he asserted, was no mere ministerial function but one of the most important jobs in the state. The directors had in their hands the lives of hundreds of individuals, the safety of the public, and great patronage and pecuniary interests (by which Ranney probably meant the hiring of employees and awarding of contracts). Rather than subject such vital offices to party influences, Ranney wanted to have the directors of the penitentiary, and of any future state prisons, elected directly by the people (2:342, 1:541). The convention yielded to the extent of giving the legislature the authority to determine the method of selecting the directors of the penitentiary; the trustees of all other state institutions would be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate (2:340–43).²

Ranney’s most notable, although largely unsuccessful, work at the convention involved the reformation of Ohio’s third branch of government, the judiciary. A bipartisan consensus on the need to revise the constitutional article on the judiciary overshadowed all other reasons for holding a convention. The constitution of 1802 provided for a supreme court, courts of common pleas, and justices of the peace, but for the most part it left the jurisdiction of the courts, judicial salaries, the establishment of common pleas circuits, and other court-related matters to the General Assembly. At its first session in 1803 the General Assembly gave the supreme court exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving divorce, alimony, and capital offenses, concurrent jurisdiction with the courts of common pleas over other major offenses, original jurisdiction in important civil cases, and the power to hear appeals from the courts of common pleas where the title to land was in question or where the amount in controversy exceeded one hundred dollars. The legislature soon expanded the supreme court’s appellate jurisdiction to cover all cases that originated in the courts of common pleas, possibly because the panel of common pleas judges that heard a case did not necessarily include a lawyer. This expansion of appellate jurisdiction imposed a heavy burden because in those days an appeal often meant a new jury trial in the supreme court. The common pleas courts had jurisdiction over all civil and noncapital criminal cases that were not relegated to justices of the peace, including probate and guardianship matters. Justices of the peace heard small civil and criminal cases.³

Constitutional limitations on the legislature’s power to regulate the structure of the court system posed serious problems for the lawmakers. The constitution specified an initial supreme court of three judges—a fourth could be added after five years—and required it to hold a session in every county every year. The court simply could not keep up with the demands of a rapidly growing state and a legislative propensity to create counties willy-nilly. In 1808 the General Assembly added a fourth judge and, as permitted by the constitution, divided the state into two districts. In each district two judges would hold sessions at the county seats. If the judges in a district disagreed on a question of law, or if they wanted the full court to consider a novel or particularly difficult legal issue, they could postpone the case. To hear postponed cases, at least three judges had to hold an extraordinary session in each district annually.⁴

The innovations did not relieve the weary judges. Moreover, the split court presented other problems. A disagreement between the two judges in a district led to a postponement and a new hearing at which one or both of the same judges would sit. Furthermore, there were in effect two supreme courts which could produce different bodies of law for the two districts. In 1810 the General Assembly restored the supreme court to its original form. In the ensuing years the lawmakers again added a fourth judge, allowing the judges effectively to reinstate the two-district solution (because two judges made up a constitutional quorum), and required annual sessions of the court in bank (as a whole) to resolve conflicts and difficult questions of law. Nothing seemed to help. According to Judge John C. Wright, in 1834 the supreme court had 1,459 cases on its trial docket. To hear these cases the judges had to travel 2,250 miles through seventy-two counties. After deducting travel time, Sundays, and the month required for the court’s meeting in bank, Wright calculated that the judges had to decide seven cases per day, every day, for the rest of the year to keep up with the caseload.⁵

The common pleas courts also came in for criticism. As required by the constitution, the General Assembly initially divided the state into three common pleas circuits, each headed by a president judge. A court of common pleas, with two or three associate judges, sat in every county. The lawmakers added common pleas circuits until by 1851 there were twenty, but the courts still wallowed in a mass of business. The associate judges, often laymen with little legal experience, did not much ease the burden of the president, even though they could form a quorum without him. The presence of lay judges poorly versed in the law brought numerous complaints.⁶

Legislative “fixes”—the creation of several trial courts known as superior courts, abolition of the supreme court’s original jurisdiction in civil actions at law and in the trial of capital crimes, and elimination of the right of appeal to the supreme court—failed to satisfy anyone.⁷ When the constitutional convention opened, the courts remained mired in a bottomless bog of cases.

The president of the convention appointed Ranney to the committee on the judicial department, a thirteen-member body that included some of Ohio’s most prominent lawyers and politicians (1:64). Records of the work of the convention’s committees have not been preserved, but the published report of the convention debates suggest that the work of the judiciary committee did not always proceed harmoniously. On the question of whether district courts should meet in every county or only at two or three locations within a district, for example, the committee split 7–6, so that members had to “yield their own extreme views” to reach a compromise. However, Ranney never gave in on this point. Indeed, he refused to go along with the majority report as a whole. Henry Stanbery defended the majority report as “the result of long and arduous labor—of much discussion—of examination and comparison of a multitude of plans” that had “united the opinions of more than three-fourths of all the members of the committee, composed of gentlemen who have been for a long time in the practice of the law.” But Ranney submitted a minority report on behalf of himself and perhaps Samuel J. Kirkwood and Samuel Humphreville, two other Democrats who refused to sign the majority report (1:430–31, 592–93, 551).

Ranney ruffled his fellows’ feathers when he moved to amend the majority report to require each district court to meet in every county in the district. Joseph Swan argued that the majority plan would produce a more respectable bar. “[I]nstead of being insulated, as now, to each county,” he maintained, lawyers would get together in large numbers at the sessions of the district court. The bumpkins would be exposed to more learned and intelligent lawyers, and the court, which “seldom rises above the bar in learning and legal attainment,” would benefit in turn (1:591). Ranney took personal offense at Swan’s remarks. Swan, he said, expected “extreme temerity” from those with positions contrary to his own and described the men who practiced in the county courts “in no very flattering terms.” When Swan denied that he had directed his remarks at Ranney or any other member of the convention, Ranney retorted, “what difference does it make, when their marks will apply to any one who insists upon the establishment, of such a county court.” The tenor of the debate suggests that personal friction between Ranney on the one side and Swan and Stanbery on the other characterized discussions in committee as well (1:605).

Politics also intruded into the committee’s deliberations. Chairman William Kennon, a Democrat, complained that “it seems from the statement of the gentleman from Trumbull, [Mr. RANNEY] the whigs have over-reached us—the democrats of the committee have been over-reached by their whig associates. We—that is—a part of us have had our sagacity discredited.” While Ranney argued for his minority report in Jacksonian terms, he did not, at least in the reported debates, accuse the committee’s Democrats of knuckling under to the Whigs. Perhaps he leveled such charges during committee meetings or out of session; he insinuated as much in the convention’s second session. Or Kennon may have attributed to Ranney the comments of Democrat Daniel A. Robertson, a vociferous opponent of the majority plan. Robertson in essence accused the committee majority of gerrymandering in its proposal for judicial districts. “The gentlemen of the whig party in the Convention,” avowed Robertson, “could not have devised a better plan than this, to control the judicial system of Ohio” (1:631, 627).

The majority report proposed a judicial system that Ranney portrayed as too complex, too expensive, and too distant from the people. On one key point, though, everyone agreed: the judges would all be chosen by popular vote instead of by the legislature. The committee took this for granted from the start.⁸ On the lowest rung of the judicial ladder, as recommended in the majority report, stood the township justices of the peace, whose powers and duties would be established by the General Assembly. Then came a county court in each county, with jurisdiction over probate matters and with jurisdiction over such civil appeals and such original and appellate criminal matters as the legislature might provide. Above the county courts were the courts of common pleas. The committee left their jurisdiction entirely up to the legislature, although it apparently contemplated that these would continue to be the trial courts of general jurisdiction. The report called for the state to be divided into nine common pleas districts, in each of which the voters would elect three judges, one or more of whom would hold court in every county in the district as often as the legislature might require (1:586, 51, 431).

The majority report created a new intermediate appellate court called the district court. Each of the nine common pleas districts would have a district court consisting of the three common pleas judges and one justice of the supreme court, with any three of the judges making up a quorum. The district courts would have the same limited original jurisdiction as the supreme court, but their chief purpose would be to hear appeals. In a sentence that would provoke Ranney’s criticism and intense debate in the committee of the whole, the report required that district courts “shall be held in and for each district . . . as often in each year, and at such places in said district as may be prescribed by law” (1:431).

At the apex of the judicial hierarchy envisioned by the majority report stood the supreme court, with a chief justice and three associates. Any three of the justices would constitute a quorum. The report limited the court’s original jurisdiction to special writs and left its appellate jurisdiction up to the General Assembly. The court would hold at least one term annually in the capital and other terms whenever and wherever the legislature might require by law. The electors of the whole state would choose the chief justice. For the election of the associates the nine common pleas districts would be combined into three districts “of compact territory,” each of which would elect one justice. Every additional justice that the legislature might create in the future would be elected by the voters of the entire state (1:430–31).

Ranney’s plan differed radically from the majority proposal. His judicial system consisted of township justices of the peace; a county court in each county having jurisdiction over probate matters and both original and appellate jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases in which the amount in controversy did not exceed three hundred dollars; and a twenty-member supreme court whose original and appellate jurisdiction would be established by law. The General Assembly would be able to create a separate probate judgeship in any county having forty thousand or more people as well as other courts inferior to the supreme court (1:551).

Ranney recommended that the state be divided into ten judicial districts bounded by county lines. Each district would elect two supreme court judges, at least one of whom would hold court in each county in the district two or more times each year. The state would also be divided into a minimum of three “convenient districts” in each of which the supreme court in bank would hold session at least once annually for the sole purpose of hearing appeals. Under Ranney’s scheme, five judges would make up the court in bank. The judge in each of five alternating judicial districts with the shortest time to serve would sit in bank one year, and a judge from each of the other districts would serve the next. The chief judge would be chosen from among the members serving as provided by law (1:551).

On June 26, 1850, the committee of the whole took up the majority report. After the committee agreed to have all supreme court judges elected on a statewide basis, Ranney moved to require every district court to meet annually in each county in the district. The motion touched off a strenuous, ill-tempered debate. In an extended defense of the majority’s position, which did not have the district court meeting in each county, Swan observed that the district court, as an appellate body, would be a “mere paper court,” a “lawyer’s court,” at which there would be no need for parties, witnesses, or jurors. It would be a waste of time and money to have this court traipse around from county to county. Swan then made it clear that the biggest problem with the existing judicial system was the workload of the supreme court. That tribunal, he said, was “emphatically a stirrup court, chasing from county to county,” and forced “to decide promptly and without careful deliberation” in order to avoid “deny[ing] justice by delay.” Under the majority proposal, the district courts would be a “breakwater to prevent the flow of business into the supreme court.” Indeed, the only reason for the supreme court to meet in bank would be to settle differences among the circuits (1:586, 590–92).

Stanbery and fellow Whig Simeon Nash also assailed Ranney’s proposed amendment. It would, they said, leave no discretion to the legislature to make adjustments to suit the needs of different districts. It would encumber the supreme and common pleas judges who made up the district court with impossible schedules. The amendment would in effect restore the old system that had caused all the problems in the first place and led to the calling of the constitutional convention. Even Peter Hitchcock, who sympathized with Ranney’s insistence that the court remain close to the people, opposed the amendment. Noting that the district and supreme courts were chiefly courts of appeal, Hitchcock denied that the judges would be too pressed for time to travel to every county in the district. However, he objected to fixing the meeting times and places in the constitution. He preferred to leave those matters to legislative discretion (1:595–97).

The debate ranged well beyond Ranney’s proposed amendment to embrace the cost of the majority plan, the need to attract competent lawyers to the bench, and other issues. With the discussion covering so much ground, Ranney reentered the fray, insisting that his constituents had sent him to the convention to represent their opinions and that he would do so “without fear, favor or affection,” notwithstanding the eminence of his opponents on the judiciary committee. The people demanded reform of the judiciary. Before defending the specific proposals of his report, Ranney laid out its animating principles. “[T]he practical operation of the law through the Judiciary,” he declaimed, “is the most important of all the operations of our government.” Without it, the other branches of government “can do nothing towards carrying justice home to the people.” Justice delayed was justice denied and fostered disrespect for the law. “Delay in the administration of justice to those who are seeking to recover their rights,” he said, “is calculated to destroy their peace of mind, diminish their regard for, and confidence in, the judicial tribunals, and to keep convulsed whole neighborhoods, embittering the fountains of social life” (1:604–5).

Ranney saw the majority report’s appellate process as a big obstacle to speedy justice. There ought to be as few appeals as possible. Yet the majority report proposed that an unnecessary supreme court sit atop the judicial hierarchy. The court would have little to do and would have no jurisdiction that could not be better exercised at the district level. It would have a chief justice elected by the voters of the whole state and associates conscious of having “com[e] up from the districts”—a sort of grand pooh-bah presiding over a bunch of provincials. It would have an even number of justices who, if evenly divided, would in essence be confessing to the parties “that the court is powerless to decide between them—that the law is struck with a paralysis.” It would be a purely “paper court,” excluded from “participation in the every day business of judicial duty” and separated from daily familiarity and practical application of legal rules. The majority report, Ranney declared, envisioned an “august” court surrounded by a “luminous” bar sitting in the capital, “[i]ts dazzling appearance . . . such, that no county court lawyer could ever look upon it and live.” But the greatest judges, from Lord Mansfield to Chief Justice Taney, had been “stirrup judges,” riding the circuit and catching the spirit as well as the letter of the law (1:605–7).

Ranney had little use for the district appellate courts proposed by the majority. Outside of Hamilton County they would sit in only two places in each of eight large, multicounty districts, forcing attorneys and parties to travel great distances and making even the filing and copying of papers a burden. Moreover, appeals would be “as liberal as before,” and every equity case would be the subject of an appeal, which Ranney regarded as a major flaw in the majority’s system. “Who does not see,” asked Ranney, “that in all this you will experience great delay, to say nothing of the increased expense in bringing the cause to hearing.” Under the proposed system the appellate court would meet twice a year, “but to get the benefits of it without waiting a whole year, you may have to go to a remote part of the district, and you will of course have a greater delay, than if the cause was settled in the county in which it originated.” Under his own scheme, Ranney continued, appeals would be decided “on the spot, in the same county where the suit first commenced, by the two judges of the supreme court—the same number that now decide finally; all the difference is, they now decide on appeal, they will then decide in the first instance” (1:608–9).

Ranney also attacked the county courts proposed by the majority. They had insufficient jurisdiction to gain the respect of the community. Their judges’ compensation was fee-based, which could only induce them to corruption and an encouragement of litigation (1:609–10).

In defense of his proposed substitute plan Ranney declared it to be “simple and plain, and easily understood.” It provided for good courts in the first instance, rather than relying on good appellate courts to correct errors. It provided for no “unnecessary judges” and brought the courts to the bar, the parties, and the people. And, he contended, it was cheaper than the majority’s system, an assertion that Kennon rejected (1:610–11).

In response to Ranney’s attack members of the judiciary committee noted that nothing in the majority report prevented the legislature from requiring the district courts to meet in every county. They pointed out that the matter of whether a district court should be required to meet in every county in the district had been the most contentious issue in committee and claimed that Ranney was the only member who had refused to go along with the compromise embodied in the majority report (1:612–14, 617).

After further sharp debate the committee of the whole rejected Ranney’s amendment by a vote of 42–35 (1:621–22, 626). That was on June 28, 1850. On July 9 the convention, fearful of the cholera epidemic then sweeping the state, adjourned until December, when it reconvened in Cincinnati. Not until January 21, 1851, did the convention again take up in earnest the judiciary committee’s report.

Once again Ranney offered an amendment that provoked heated argument. This time Ranney sought to compel the supreme court to meet at least once annually in each of nine districts. His aims, as before, were to expedite justice, reduce costs, and bring the courts closer to the people. No one else from the judiciary committee spoke in favor of the amendment, and only Humphreville voted for it. The amendment went down to defeat 50–45. But Ranney vowed to keep offering amendments to have the supreme court sit in different places throughout the state—five, and if that failed, four, and if that failed, three. And he promised to demand the yeas and nays each time so that the voters could see who supported “centralization” and who favored “the equalization of the benefits of the judicial system.” Ranney kept his promise, at least to the extent of demanding that the supreme court sit in four different places, but the convention soundly defeated his proposal (2:368, 365, 376, 685–86).⁹

After Ranney lost his first bid to create a traveling supreme court, another delegate offered an amendment to require the district courts to meet every year in every county. In the course of another bitter debate, Ranney accused the Whigs of concocting a judicial system so objectionable that even the Whig papers opposed it. The Whigs knew that the constitution produced by the convention would be “likely to cut up monopoly and exclusive privilege.” If they could get the Whig papers to stir up popular animosity toward the proposed judicial system, they could send the whole constitution down to defeat. When the time came to vote, Ranney finally triumphed (2:368, 376, 383–86). The victory, however, was short-lived; the convention adopted a Whig modification allowing the General Assembly to authorize at least three annual sessions in at least three places in any district where annual sessions in each county would be “inexpedient.” Ranney of course voted against the amendment, but it passed by two votes and ultimately found its way into the constitution (2:388).

Despite his objections to the judicial article of the new constitution, Ranney announced during the convention’s second session that he would vote for the constitution because he expected it would allow for easy amendment. Ranney chaired the committee on future amendments, was “the father of the [committee’s] report,” and was the only member of the committee to take part in the debate over the amending process (2:432, 427–36, 446).

The committee report retained, with slight modification, the provision of the 1802 constitution that authorized the electors to call a constitutional convention upon the recommendation of two-thirds of the members of each legislative chamber. Moreover, it required that the question of calling a convention be placed on the ballot every twenty years. The report’s great innovation, though, was to allow either house of the General Assembly to initiate constitutional amendments. Under Section 1 of the report a proposed amendment would have to receive a three-fifths majority in each house and be published in a newspaper of every county having a paper once a week for six months before the next general election. The amendment would then appear on the ballot and become law if a majority of electors voting at the election approved it (2:339).

The report proved contentious. One delegate thought that Section 1 would turn the General Assembly into a “perpetual constitutional convention.” The possibility of a convention being called every twenty years agitated conservatives even more than the prospect of legislative meddling with the constitution. Ranney, however, pointed out that the provision had “its origin in the theory that there should be some power in the people themselves, to originate amendments to the Constitution.” Future generations would inherit the constitution then being drawn up. “Is it not justice then to declare that when we deliver it into their hands, they shall have the privilege to say, whether or not, they will be bound by it?” (2:428–30).

As usual when Ranney took part in debate, the discussion turned sharp and personal. Ranney accused Simeon Nash of being congenitally opposed to every form of progress. Nash, he declared, “would have made a first rate member of Parliament for the times of James the First. For, being admonished that he should not meddle with matters of State, he would be a very obedient man.” As it happened Ranney could have curbed his acerbic inclinations without harm to his cause; the committee of the whole made only one small change to Ranney’s report, and the convention adopted all three sections with little opposition (2:430–31, 446).

After approving the report the convention referred it to the committee on revision, enrollment, and arrangement. That committee, also chaired by Ranney, was responsible for cleaning up the language of the reports of standing committees as adopted by the convention and locating the provisions logically within the final document. Although the committee’s work was largely housekeeping in nature, its proposals could have serious consequences, and disputes over its reports occasionally broke out. A short but acrimonious argument erupted on the convention’s last day when committee member Samson Mason moved to strike a section from the report on nonbanking corporations. For once, the bitterest exchange involved other delegates, but Ranney managed to irritate Henry Stanbery, a distinguished Whig attorney, by characterizing Stanbery’s contentions as “all a fudge” (2:435, 314, 748, 849).

The convention concluded its business on March 10, 1851, with a resolution adopting the proposed constitution by a vote of 79–14. A fellow Radical delegate later recalled that Ranney, more than anyone else, had “distinguished himself in debate” and brought “the majority of the convention to form the present admirable constitution of Ohio.”¹⁰ Ranney had the last word in the last argument, precipitated by the gloating tone of his response to Whig delegate John L. Green’s concern that the constitution might be defeated at the polls. Noting that Ranney had spoken “with an air of triumph that must have excited the attention of all,” Green explained that his main reason for opposing the constitution was the section prohibiting counties from lending their credit to private enterprise for the construction of internal improvements. Characteristically, Ranney took Green’s explanation as an “attack” and insisted on responding. But he assumed a conciliatory tone toward Green and concluded with praise for the convention’s handiwork. He regretted some omissions and would have modified some provisions, but on the whole he believed “before God and man that it is one of the best, if not the best of the Constitutions of American States,” and he vowed to work earnestly for its ratification by the voters (2:870, 815, 869).

Ranney’s biggest disappointment with the constitution was the article on the judiciary (2:815). He had labored long and hard to keep the courts close to the people, but lawyer-delegates of both parties successfully resisted his plan. Ranney also failed on other fronts. For example, he could not persuade the convention that the people ought to have a direct say—that is, the right of referendum—on all legislation (2:215–16, 227–28). But he had his successes, too. It was on Ranney’s motion that the convention added to the eminent domain clause the requirement that compensation for private property taken by the government be assessed by a jury and that it not be reduced by the value of any benefits of the taking to the owner (1:290), and Ranney succeeded in eliminating restrictive qualifications for the office of governor (1:299, 302, 306; 2:290–91). More generally, the popular election of judges and the major executive branch officials, restrictions on public debt and governmental assistance to private enterprise, and prohibition of special acts of incorporation satisfied Ranney’s Radical Democratic principles. The constitution represented a triumph of mid-nineteenth-century popular, small-government, laissez-faire constitutionalism.